|
It is plain, then, that there is a God. But what He is in His
essence anti nature is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable. For
it is evident that He is incorporeal. For how could that possess body
which is infinite, and boundless, and formless, and intangible and
invisible, in short, simple and not compound? How could that be
immutable which is circumscribed and subject to passion? And how could
that be passionless which is composed of elements and is resolved again
into them? For combination is the beginning of conflict, and conflict
of separation, and separation of dissolution, and dissolution is
altogether foreign to God.
Again, how will it also be maintained that God permeates and fills
the universe? as the Scriptures say, Do not I fill heaven and
earth, saith the Lords? For it is an impossibility that one body
should permeate other bodies without dividing and being divided, and
without being enveloped and contrasted, in the same way as all fluids
mix and commingle.
But if some say that the body is immaterial, in thee same way as the
fifth body of which the Greek philosophers speak (which body is an
impossibility), it will be wholly subject to motion like the heaven.
For that is what they mean by the fifth body. Who then is it that
moves it? For everything that is moved is moved by another thing.
And who again is it that moves that? and so on to infinity till we at
length arrive at something motionless. For the first mover is
motionless, and that is the Deity. And must not that which is moved
be circumscribed in space? The Deity, then, alone is motionless,
moving the universe by immobility. So then it must be assumed that the
Deity is incorporeal.
But even this gives no true idea of His essence, to say that He is
unbegotten, and without beginning, changeless and imperishable, and
possessed of such other qualities as we are wont to ascribe to God and
His environments. For these do not indicate what He is, but what
He is not. But when we would explain what the essence of anything
is, we must not speak only negatively. In the case of God,
however, it is impossible to explain what He is in His essence, and
it befits us the rather to hold discourse about His absolute separation
from all things. For He does not belong to the class of existing
things: not that He has no existence, but that He is above all
existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all forms of
knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is above
knowledge must certainly be also above essence: and, conversely, that
which is above essence will also be above knowledge.
God then is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is
comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility.
But all that we can affirm concerning God does not shew forth God's
nature, but only the qualities of His nature. For when you speak of
Him as good, and just, and wise, and so forth, you do not tell
God's nature but only the qualities of His nature. Further there
are some affirmations which we make concerning God which have the force
of absolute negation: for example, when we use the term darkness, in
reference to God, we do not mean darkness itself, but that He is not
light but above light: and when we speak of Him as light, we mean
that He is not darkness.
|
|
