Tertullian — Against Marcion 24

But as God is eternal and rational, so, I think, He is perfect in all things. Be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48 Prove, then, that the goodness of your god also is a perfect one. That it is indeed imperfect has been already sufficiently shown, since it is found to be neither natural nor rational. The same conclusion, however, shall now be made clear by another method; it is not simply imperfect, but actually feeble, weak, and exhausted, failing to embrace the full number of its material objects, and not manifesting itself in them all. For all are not put into a state of salvation by it; but the Creator's subjects, both Jew and Christian , are all excepted.

Now, when the greater part thus perish, how can that goodness be defended as a perfect one which is inoperative in most cases, is somewhat only in few, naught in many, succumbs to perdition, and is a partner with destruction? And if so many shall miss salvation , it will not be with goodness, but with malignity, that the greater perfection will lie. For as it is the operation of goodness which brings salvation , so is it malevolence which thwarts it. Since, however, this goodness) saves but few, and so rather leans to the alternative of not saving, it will show itself to greater perfection by not interposing help than by helping. Now, you will not be able to attribute goodness (to your god) in reference to the Creator, (if accompanied with) failure towards all.

For whomsoever you call in to judge the question, it is as a dispenser of goodness, if so be such a title can be made out, and not as a squanderer thereof, as you claim your god to be, that you must submit the divine character for determination. So long, then, as you prefer your god to the Creator on the simple ground of his goodness, and since he professes to have this attribute as solely and wholly his own, he ought not to have been wanting in it to any one. However, I do not now wish to prove that Marcion's god is imperfect in goodness because of the perdition of the greater number.

I am content to illustrate this imperfection by the fact that even those whom he saves are found to possess but an imperfect salvation — that is, they are saved only so far as the soul is concerned, but lost in their body, which, according to him, does not rise again. Now, whence comes this halving of salvation , if not from a failure of goodness? What could have been a better proof of a perfect goodness, than the recovery of the whole man to salvation ? Totally damned by the Creator, he should have been totally restored by the most merciful god. I rather think that by Marcion's rule the body is baptized , is deprived of marriage, is cruelly tortured in confession.