BOOK I CHAPTER IV
Concerning the nature of Deity: that it is incomprehensible.
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(3). 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(4) 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(5) is the beginning of conflict, and conflict of
separation, and separation of dissolution, and dissolution is altogether
foreign to God(6).
Again, how will it also be maintained(7) that God permeates and fills the universe? as the Scriptures say, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lords(8)? For it is an impossibility(9) 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(1) 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(2). 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(4). 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(5). For He does not belong to the
class of existing things: not that He has no existence(6), 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(7): and, conversely, that which is above
essence(7) 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(8). 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(9). 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.
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