Chapter 4
329 | Text and Translation Chapter 4 How the fool said in his heart what cannot be thought But how has he said in his heart what he could not think, or how could he not think what he said in his heart, when to say in the heart and to think are one and the same?
For if he truly—or rather, because he truly—both thought, because he said it in his heart, and did not say it in his heart, because he could not think it, something is not said in the heart or thought in only one way. For in one sense, a thing is thought when the word signifying it is thought; in another sense, when that which the thing itself is is understood. In the first sense, then, God can be thought not to exist; but in the second sense, not at all. For no one understanding what God is can think that God does not exist, even though he may say these words in his heart either without any or with some foreign signification. For God is that than which a greater cannot be thought. Whoever really understands this clearly understands that it itself so exists that not even for thought can it not exist. Therefore, whoever understands that God is such, cannot think him not to exist.
Thanks to you, good lord, my thanks to you. For what I first believed through your gift, I now so understand though your illumination that even if I did not want to believe that you existed, I could not fail to understand.
|PROSLOGION
CAPITULUM V
Quod Deus sit quidquid melius est esse quam non esse: et solus existens per se omnia alia faciat de nihilo Quid igitur es. Domine Deus, quo nil maius valet cogitari? Sed quid es, nisi id quod summum omnium solum existens per seipsum, omnia alia fecit de nihilo? Quidquid enim hoc non est, minus est quam cogitari possit.
Sed hoc de te cogitari non potest. Quod ergo bonum deest summo bono, per quod est omne bonum?
Tu es itaque iustus, verax, beatus, et quidquid melius est esse quam non esse. Melius namque est esse iustum quam non iustum, beatum quam non beatum.
CAPITULUM VI
Quomodo sit sensibilis, cum non sit corpus Verum cum melius sit esse sensibilem, omnipotentem, misericordem, impassibilem quam non esse: quomodo es sensibilis, si non es corpus; aut omnipotens, si omnia non potes; aut misericors simul et impassibilis?
Nam si sola corporea sunt sensibilia, quoniam sensus circa corpus et in corpore sunt: quomodo es sensibilis, cum non sis corpus, sed summus spiritus, qui corpore melior est?
Sed si sentire non nisi cognoscere aut non nisi ad cognoscendum est — qui enim sentit cognoscit secundum sensuum proprietatem, ut per visum colores, per gustum sapores — : non inconvenienter dicitur aliquo modo, sentire quidquid aliquo modo cognoscit.
Ergo, Domine, quamvis non sis corpus, vere tamen eo modo summe sensibilis es, quo summe omnia cognoscis, non quo animal corporeo sensu cognoscit.