De docta ignorantia

Our sacred ignorance teaches us in the earlier chapters that nothing is from itself except the maximum simply, where from itself, in itself, through itself are all the same, namely absolute being itself; and that everything which is, that which it is, insofar as it is, is necessarily from it. For how could that which is not from itself be otherwise than from eternal being? Since, however, the maximum itself is far from all envy, it cannot communicate itself as diminished. The creature, therefore, which is from being, does not have all that it is — corruptibility, divisibility, imperfection, diversity, plurality and other such things — from the maximum, eternal, indivisible, most perfect, indistinct, one, nor from any positive cause. For as the infinite line is infinite straightness, which is the cause of all linear being, while the curved line, in that it is a line, is from the infinite, in that it is curved, is not from the infinite, but curvature follows upon finitude, since it is curved for this reason, that it is not maximal (for if it were maximal, it would not be curved, as was shown above). So indeed it befalls things that, since they cannot be the maximum, they are diminished, other, distinct and suchlike, which indeed have no cause. The creature therefore has from God that it be one, discrete and connected to the universe, and the more one, the liker God.

But that its unity is in plurality, discretion in confusion, and connection in discordance, it does not have from God, nor from any positive cause, but contingently. Who therefore, joining together at once in the creature absolute necessity, from which it is, and contingency, without which it is not, can understand its being? For it seems that the creature itself, which is neither God nor nothing, is as it were after God and before nothing, between God and nothing, as one of the wise says: 'God is the opposition of nothing through the mediation of being'. Nor yet can it be composed of being and non-being. It seems therefore neither to be, through this that it descends from being, nor not to be, since it is before nothing, nor composed of them. Our intellect, however, which cannot pass beyond contradictories, does not attain the being of the creature divisively or compositively, although it knows its being to be only from the being of the maximum. The being of the creature is therefore not intelligible, since the being from which it is is not intelligible, just as neither is the being of an accident intelligible, if the substance in which it inheres is not understood. The creature, therefore, as creature, cannot be called one, since it descends from unity, nor many, since its being is from one, nor both copulatively, but its unity is contingently in a certain plurality; and so concerning simplicity and composition and the remaining opposites it seems must be said alike.

Since, however, the creature is created through the being of the maximum, and in the maximum being, making and creating are the same, then to create seems nothing other than for God to be all things. If therefore God is all things, and this is to create, how can this be understood, that the creature is not eternal, since the being of God is eternal, indeed eternity itself? For insofar as the creature itself is the being of God, no one doubts it is eternity; insofar therefore as it falls under time, it is not from God, who is eternal. Who therefore understands the creature to be from eternity and with this to be temporally? For the creature could not in being itself not be in eternity, nor could it be before time, since before time there was no before; and thus it always was, when it could be. Who finally can understand God to be the form of being, and yet not to be mingled with the creature? For from an infinite line and a finite curve no one composite can arise, which cannot be without proportion. That proportion between infinite and finite cannot fall, no one doubts. How therefore can the intellect grasp the being of the curved line to be from the infinite straight, which yet does not inform it as form, but as cause and reason, which reason it cannot participate by taking a part, since it is infinite and indivisible: neither as matter participates form, as Socrates and Plato humanity, nor as a whole is participated by parts, as the universe by its parts, nor as many mirrors the same face diversely, since the being of the creature is not before from being, since it is itself as it were a mirror, before both mirror and that it receive the image of the face. Who is there therefore who can understand how diversely the one infinite form is participated in diverse creatures, since the being of the creature can be nothing other than the very refulgence itself, not received by anything else positively, but contingently diverse? As perhaps if a fashioned thing wholly depending on the artificer's idea had no other being than that of dependence, from which it would have being and under whose influence it would be conserved, as the image of a species in a mirror, supposing that the same mirror before or after is in and of itself nothing.

Nor can it be understood how God can be made manifest to us through visible creatures; for not as our intellect, known only to God and to us, which, when it has come into thought, receives from certain phantasms a certain form in memory of color or sound or another, which before was unformed, and after this, assuming another form of signs, voices or letters, insinuates itself to others. For although God, for the sake of his goodness to be known, as they wish, or from this that maximal absolute necessity created the world to obey him, that there be those who know him and fear him and whom he judges, or otherwise, yet it is manifest that he neither puts on another form, since he is the form of all forms, nor appears in positive signs, since the signs themselves alike in that which they are would require others in which they would be, and so to infinity. Who could understand these things, how all things are the image of that one unique infinite form, having diversity from contingency, as if the creature were God occasioned, as accident is substance occasioned, and woman man occasioned? Since the infinite form itself is not, except finitely received, so that every creature is as it were finite infinity, or a created God, that it be in that mode in which it could not be better; as if the creator had said: 'Let it be, and since God could not be made, who is eternity itself, this is made which could be made likest God.' From which it is subinferred that every creature as such is perfect, even if in respect of another it seems less perfect. For the most loving God communicates being to all in that mode in which it can be received. Since therefore God communicates without diversity and envy and is received so that the contingency of another does not suffer to be received otherwise and differently, every created being rests in its perfection, which it has liberally from the divine being, desiring no other created being, as more perfect, but preferring that which it has from the maximum, desiring as it were a certain divine gift for this to be perfected incorruptibly and conserved.