Chapter 5
331 | Text and Translation Chapter 5 That God is whatever it is better to be than not to be, and that, alone existing through himself, he makes everything else from nothing What, then, are you, lord God, than whom none greater can be thought? What, indeed, are you but that which, as the highest of all, alone existing through itself, created everything else from nothing?
For whatever is not this is less than what can be thought. But this cannot be thought about you. Therefore, what good does the supreme good, through which all good exists, lack?
You are, then, just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just, blessed than not blessed.
Chapter 6 How he is perceptive, even though he is not a body Since, however, it is better to be than not to be perceptive, omnipotent, compassionate, impassible, how are you perceptive if you are not corporeal, or omnipotent if you cannot do everything, or both compassionate and impassible at one and the same time?
For if only what is corporeal is perceptive, since the senses center around the body and are in the body, how can you be perceptive when you are not a body but a supreme spirit, which is better than the body?
But if to sense is nothing other than to know, or for the sake of nothing other than knowing—for he who perceives knows in accord with that sense what is proper to it, such as colors through sight, flavors through taste—then it is not unfitting that whatever in some way knows, may, in some way, be said to perceive.
Therefore, lord, although you are not bodily, you truly are supremely perceptive in the way in which you know supremely all things, without knowing, as an animal does, by means of corporeal senses.
3321] PROSLOGION
CAPITULUM VII
Quomodo sit omnipotens, cum multa non possit Sed et omnipotens quomodo es, si omnia non potes? Aut si non potes corrumpi nec mentiri nec facere verum esse falsum, ut quod factum est non esse factum, et plura similiter: quomodo potes omnia?
An haec posse non est potentia, sed impotentia?
Nam qui haec potest quod sibi non expedit et quod non debet potest. Quae quanto magis potest, tanto magis adversitas et perversitas possunt in illum et ipse.minus contra illas. Qui ergo sic potest, non potentia potest, sed impotentia. Non enim ideo dicitur posse, quia ipse possit, sed quia sua impotentia facit aliud in se posse; sive aliquo alio genere loquendi, sicut multa improprie dicuntur.
Ut cum ponimus «esse» pro «non esse», et «facere» pro eo quod est «non facere», aut pro «nihil facere». Nam saepe dicimus ei, qui rem aliquam esse negat: sic est, quemadmodum dicis esse; cum magis proprie videatur dici: sic non est quemadmodum dicis non esse. Item dicimus: iste sedet, sicut ille facit, aut: iste quiescit, sicut ille facit; cum «sedere» sit quiddam non facere et
«quiescere» sit nihil facere.
Sic itaque, cum dicitur habere potentiam faciendi aut patiendi quod sibi non expedit aut quod non debet, impotentia intelligitur per potentiam; quia quo plus habet hanc potentiam, eo adversitas et perversitas in illum sunt potentiores, et ille contra eas impotentior.
Ergo, Domine Deus, inde verius es omnipotens, quia nihil potes per impotentiam, et nihil potest contra te.