Tertullian, Against Marcion 2.4

Once God's goodness looked out for humanity by knowing it, the goodness added a further claim to its own proclamation: it had first prepared a dwelling for human beings, then a very great one, and finally an even greater one. The purpose was that a person might first exercise and grow in a great dwelling as if it were a smaller one, and so advance from God's goodness — that is, the great — to the highest expression of that goodness — that is, the greater dwelling. The goodness also appointed the best possible minister for its good work: its own Word. 'My heart has uttered the best word,' it says. Let Marcion recognize from this the first, best fruit — certainly of the best tree. The most ignorant peasant grafts a bad shoot onto a good one, but the shoot of blasphemy will not prevail; it will wither along with its craftsman, and in that way the nature of the good tree will prove itself. Look at the sum of things and see what kind of fruit the Word has produced: God said, 'Let it be,' and it came to be, and God saw that it was good — not as though he did not know it was good unless he saw it, but because it was good he saw it, honoring and sealing and bestowing the goodness of the works with the dignity of his gaze (Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:31). Thus he also blessed what he had benefited, so that all of God might be commended to you as good in both speaking and doing. The Word did not yet know how to speak evil, because it did not know how to do evil. We will see the causes that demanded this from God as well. Meanwhile the world consists entirely of good things, sufficiently demonstrating how much good was being prepared for the one for whom all this was being prepared. Who, finally, is worthy to inhabit God's works except God's own image and likeness? That image, too, goodness — and indeed the more operative goodness — brought about, not with an imperial decree but with a familiar hand, preceded by a coaxing word: 'Let us make humanity in our image and likeness.' Goodness spoke; goodness formed clay into so great a substance of flesh, constructed from a single material with so many qualities; goodness breathed into the soul — not a dead one, but a living one; goodness placed humanity in charge of all things to be enjoyed and ruled, and also to be named; goodness added further delights so that, although possessing the whole world, humanity might linger in more pleasant places, transferred into paradise — already then from the world into the church; the same goodness also looked out for help, lest anything not good remain. 'It is not good for the human to be alone,' it says (Genesis 2:18). God knew that sex would be profitable for the man, and thereafter for the church. But the law that you accuse, that you twist into controversies — goodness imposed that, too, consulting for the human's sake, so that he might cling to God, lest he seem not so much free as cast off, equal to his servants, the other animals, released by God and freed from disgust. Rather, goodness intended that the human alone might glory, because he alone was worthy to receive the law from God, and that as a rational creature capable of intellect and knowledge, he might also be contained by rational freedom, subject to the one who had subjected all things to him. Goodness equally prescribed the plan for observing this law: 'On the day you eat of it, you will die by death' (Genesis 2:17). For it most kindly demonstrated the outcome of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger assist negligence in obedience. Furthermore, if the reason for imposing the law came first, the observance of it followed as well, so that punishment might be ascribed to transgression — which, however, the one who had foretold it beforehand did not want to happen. Therefore recognize the goodness of our God, at least up to this point, from the good works, from the good blessings, from the indulgences, from the providences, from the good and kind laws and warnings.