God does not 'make' — the maker is deficient; God simply is all things
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αἴτιος δὲ ὁ πατὴρ τῶν τέκνων καὶ τῆς σπορᾶς καὶ τῆς τροφῆς, τὴν ὄρεξιν λαβὼν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ διὰ τοῦ ἡλίου· τὸ γὰρ ἀγαθόν ἐστι τὸ ποιητικόν· τοῦτο δὲ οὐ δυνατὸν ἐγγενέσθαι ἄλλῳ τινὶ ἢ μόνῳ ἐκείνῳ, τῷ μηδὲν μὲν λαμβάνοντι, πάντα δὲ θέλοντι εἶναι· οὐ γὰρ ἐρῶ, ὦ Τάτ, ποιοῦντι· ὁ γὰρ ποιῶν ἐλλιπής ἐστι πολλῷ χρόνῳ, ἐν ᾧ ὁτὲ μὲν ποιεῖ, ὁτὲ δὲ οὐ ποιεῖ, καὶ ποιότητος καὶ ποσότητος· ποτὲ μὲν γὰρ ποσὰ καὶ ποιά. ὁτὲ δὲ τὰ ἐναντία· ὁ δὲ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ καὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν τῷ εἶναι τὰ πάντα.
The father is a cause of children, of sowing and of nurture, having received the desire for the Good through the sun; for the Good is the productive power. And this cannot arise in any other than in that one alone, who receives nothing yet wills all things to be. For I will not say 'making,' O Tat; for the one who makes is deficient for a long time, in which he sometimes makes and sometimes does not make, and is subject to quality and quantity — for at one time they are quantities and qualities, at another the opposites. But God and Father and the Good is what he is by being all things.
The father is cause of children, of sowing and nurture, having received the desire for the Good through the sun; for the Good is the productive power. And this can arise in no one but God alone, who receives nothing yet wills all to be. For — Hermes will not say 'making,' Tat — the one who makes is deficient for a long time, in which he sometimes makes and sometimes does not, and is subject to quality and quantity: for at one time his works are quantities and qualities, at another their opposites. But God and Father and the Good is what he is by being all things.
The section guards the doctrine against a misunderstanding: God does not 'make.' Ordinary fatherhood — 'of children, of sowing and nurture (τῶν τέκνων καὶ τῆς σπορᾶς καὶ τῆς τροφῆς)' — is a real causality, but a derived one, received 'through the sun,' the visible channel of the Good's productive power (τὸ ποιητικόν). Hermes then makes his sharpest terminological refusal: 'I will not say, O Tat, making (οὐ γὰρ ἐρῶ… ποιοῦντι).' Why refuse the honest word 'maker' for God? Because 'the one who makes is deficient (ὁ… ποιῶν ἐλλιπής ἐστι).'
The argument is compressed but exact. A maker works 'for a long time (πολλῷ χρόνῳ),' and time introduces intermittency — he 'sometimes makes, sometimes does not (ὁτὲ μὲν ποιεῖ, ὁτὲ δὲ οὐ ποιεῖ).' And a maker's products fall under 'quality and quantity (ποιότητος καὶ ποσότητος)' — the Aristotelian categories — now these, now their opposites. Everything about making bespeaks lack: it is spread in time, it starts and stops, it is measured and qualified. God is none of this. The closing line delivers the alternative in four words of Greek that English can only unfold: 'God… is by being all things (τῷ εἶναι τὰ πάντα).' God does not make the world as a craftsman makes a thing outside himself; God is the being of all things. This is the deepest turn of 'The Key,' and it is why the treatise refuses the language of craftsmanship that CH IV and the Timaeus were content to use: for the summary, God is not the maker of all but the is-ness of all.
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