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As for their other assertion, that God's knowledge cannot comprehend
things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm, in order that
they may sound the depths of their impiety, that God does not know all
numbers. For it is very certain that they are infinite; since, no
matter of what number you suppose an end to be made, this number can
be, I will not say, increased by the addition of one more, but
however great it be, and however vast be the multitude of which it is
the rational and scientific expression, it can still be not only
doubled, but even multiplied. Moreover, each number is so defined by
its own properties, that no two numbers are equal. They are therefore
both unequal and different from one another; and while they are simply
finite, collectively they are infinite. Does God, therefore, not
know numbers on account of this infinity; and does His knowledge
extend only to a certain height in numbers, while of the rest He is
ignorant? Who is so left to himself as to say so? Yet they can
hardly pretend to put numbers out of the question, or maintain that
they have nothing to do with the knowledge of God; for Plato, their
great authority, represents God as framing the world on numerical
principles: and in our books also it is said to God, "Thou hast
ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight." The prophet
also says," Who bringeth out their host by number." And the
Saviour says in the Gospel, "The very hairs of your head are all
numbered." Far be it, then, from us to doubt that all number is
known to Him "whose understanding," according to the Psalmist,
"is infinite." The infinity of number, though there be no numbering
of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him whose
understanding is infinite. And thus, if everything which is
comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who
knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to
God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. Wherefore, if the
infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God, by
which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should
presume to fix limits to His knowledge, and say that unless the same
temporal thing be repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God
cannot either foreknow His creatures that He may make them, or know
them when He has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply
manifold, and uniform in its variety, comprehends all
incomprehensibles with so incomprehensible a comprehension, that though
He willed always to make His later works novel and unlike what went
before them, He could not produce them without order and foresight,
nor conceive them suddenly, but by His eternal foreknowledge.
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