De Consideratione

15. What is God? The best object of thought.¹ If you approve, you ought not to countenance the belief that there is something which is the essence of Godhead, and yet is not God.² If there were, it would doubtless be better than God. Must it not of necessity be better than God if it is not God, but constitutes His being? But it is wiser for us to confess that the divinity which men say is the essence of God is the same as God. Unless it be God it cannot be in God. 'What', say our opponents, 'do you deny that God has divinity?' No; but what God has, that He is. 'Do you deny that God exists in virtue of His divinity?' No; but we say that He exists in virtue of no other divinity than that which He Himself is. If you have discovered some other divinity, I fall back upon the doctrine of the Tri-une God, and stiffen my back against your new-found 'divinity'. You may divide the world into four quarters if you please: you must not so map out the Godhead. God is a Trinity: God is each of the three Persons. If you like to add a fourth divinity, I have already fully convinced myself that no divinity which is not God ought to be worshipped. I suppose you think so too: for 'thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve'.³ That is truly a glorious divinity which dare not claim for itself divine honours. But we do better in rejecting the fourth term altogether than in receiving it without due honour. We say that there are many things in God—it is sound Catholic doctrine—but the many are but one. Otherwise, if we regard them as individually distinct, we have God not only fourfold, but a hundredfold. For example, we speak of His greatness, goodness, justice, and innumerable other attributes; but unless you consider them all as one in God, and with God, you will have a manifold God.

16. It is not difficult for me to frame a better idea of God than this of yours. 'What is your view?' you say. I regard God as absolute simplicity.⁴ A sound judgement prefers simplicity of nature to that which is manifold. I know the usual answer to this. ‘We maintain’, say they, ‘that the many attributes do not constitute the being of God, but only one divinity composed of them all.’ You assert, then, that although God is not manifold, He is twofold, and you have not reached the highest conception of God as absolute simplicity. That is as far from being simple which involves even one form,⁵ as she is no longer a virgin who is known to even one man. I speak freely; even a twofold God shall not be my God: I have a better one. Suppose I do prefer a twofold Divine Being to a God multitudinous and manifold; I nevertheless utterly despise such a God in comparison with a God of a ‘simple’ nature. My God is none other than what He is in the catholic sense. We must not institute a comparison between what He includes and excludes. He is what He is. We are not told all that He is. He is pure spirit, simple, complete in Himself, self-consistent, adding nothing to Himself from time, place, material things, losing nothing of Himself in them; incapable of numerical division, and not composed of several parts to make a collective whole. For He is a unit, not a union. He has no corporeal parts like our bodies; no different affections, like our souls; He is not susceptible of many ‘forms’, like all creation; nor does He assume even one form, as our opponents conceive of 'form'. Surely God is greatly to be praised for that He is content with one 'form', so that He may exempt Himself from all deformity. This is equivalent to saying that the nature of all else is conditioned in many ways, but that God's nature is absolute. What? Will He, through whose goodness all things exist, stoop for His being to the goodness of another? That praise, to use a common expression, means blasphemy. Is it not higher excellence to need nothing than to need one thing? Have reverence for God, so that you may give Him the best. If your heart has been able to rise to this level, how will you place your God lower down? He is His own 'form',⁶ His own essence. For a while I look up to Him at this elevation; if a higher rank were revealed to me, I would rather give it to Him. We surely need not fear that thought will soar above Him. However high it may attain, He is still beyond. To look for the Most High beneath the summit of man's thought is absurd; to place Him there is impious. He must be sought beyond it, not on this side of it.

17. Ascend thus far if you can; lift up your heart, and God will be exalted. God is not dependent on form. He is pure form.⁷ God is not a feeling, He is a state of feeling; He is not compound, but absolute simplicity; and you know full well what I mean by 'simplicity': the word is synonymous with unity. In proportion as God is one, He is simple. Now He is one in such a sense as nothing else is. If the phrase be permissible, He is most of all one.⁸ There is one sun as no other can be; one moon also, as no other can be. So it is with God, but more so. How 'more so'? He is one even to Himself. Would you like a little light upon this? He is always the same, and never changes. It is not so with the one sun, or the one moon. Both proclaim that they are not one to themselves, the sun because of its movements, the moon on account of her phases. But God is not only one to Himself, He is also one in Himself. He has nothing in Himself but Himself. He knows no change through time, no difference in His substance. Hence the saying of Boethius⁹ concerning Him—'This is the true unity which is indivisible, and admits nothing foreign to itself. Nor can this unity be reduced to "forms", for it is pure form.'¹⁰ Compare with this unity all that can be called unity; God's unity will not be found there. Yet God is Three in One. What follows? Do we upset what has been said about the Unity by bringing in the thought of the Trinity? No; but we establish the Unity. We speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; still we maintain there are not three Gods, but one God. What, if I may so speak, is the meaning of this number which is not a number? If there are three particulars, must there not be numerical distinction? If there is but one, what becomes of the enumeration? But I have, you say, something that can be numbered, and yet not numbered. There is one substance, there are three Persons. Is there anything strange or obscure in this? Nothing, if the persons are conceived of separately from the Substance. The truth is that, inasmuch as the three Persons are one Substance, and the one Substance is the three Persons, there is no denying that we do number them, for they are really three; yet on the other hand we do not number them, for they are really one. If, again, you think an easy explanation is found by calling them three, tell me what it is you have numbered. Natures? There is one nature. Essences? There is one essence. Substances? There is one substance. Godheads? There is one Godhead. 'I do not number these', you say, 'but the Persons, and they are not that one nature, that one essence, that one substance, that one divinity.' You are a Catholic; you are not in the least likely to make such a concession.