PREFACE I

PREFACE

I

The connection [with the preceding article].

§ 1. Just as Holy Scripture is the only principle of knowing in theology, so God—the best in goodness, the greatest in power—is the only and greatest principle of being with respect to both Holy Scripture itself (which contains the Word of God or the divine revelation) and the divine works that are treated in theology. God is also the center of all Scripture, the nucleus of theology, the end of our knowledge and desire. Therefore we are proceeding in appropriate order from the article on Holy Scripture to the article on the nature of God and the divine attributes.

First, the necessity of this doctrine.

§ 2. (1) Necessity, (2) utility, and (3) difficulty commend to us this doctrine of God (which the devout ancients uniquely call “theology”).

(1) The necessity of this doctrine is proved by: (1) The purpose [finis] of created man. Just as all things were created for the sake of man, so man was made to know God rightly as his Creator and to worship, love, and praise Him. Lactantius, Div. instit., bk. 6, beginning of c. 1: “Furthermore, God has made us and given us life not that we might see the sky and sun, as Athenagoras thought, but that we might, with a pure and complete mind, worship God, who made the sky and sun.” For this reason God gave to man (whom He had created) the Law, from which man could and should have learned that he was bound by natural law to acknowledge and worship his Creator. The apostle discusses this purpose clearly in Acts 17:26; Rom. 1:20; etc. Because all the other living creatures lack reason, they also lack the ability to know God as their Creator. Of all animate creatures, man alone has been endowed with reason. In fact, he was created in the image of God so that he might understand the purpose of his creation, know his Creator from His works, and offer Him due obedience.

(2) The purpose of divine revelation. As God came forth from the hidden throne of His majesty, He revealed Himself to humans out of His boundless goodness not only in the creation of the world but also and especially in the revelation of His Word (Exod. 29:43). He did this surely for no other reason than that people might know God rightly, preserve the true doctrine of God—pure and untainted by every leaven of error—and teach it to their descendants on the basis of that revelation. This is something the holy patriarchs who “preached in the name of the eternal God” (Gen. 12:8; 21:33; 26:25) knew well. That is, to their households and the rest of the listeners who gathered themselves into that household church, they set forth the doctrine of God, the Creator and Preserver of all things; the doctrine of the fall of their original parents; the doctrine of the remedy for the fall in the promised and awaited Messiah; the doctrine of the sacrifices to be offered in faith in the Messiah; the doctrine of the true worship to be offered to God; the doctrine of the final judgment; the doctrine of eternal life and death; etc.

(3) The blindness of our mind. Before the fall, in the mind of man created after the image of God, a bright light of the knowledge of God used to glow. As a result of and following the fall, however, terrible darkness was introduced into man’s mind—for which no remedy can be provided except from the light of the Word. Therefore it is exceedingly necessary that we teach the doctrine of God from the revealed Word and that in this way, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the light of the salutary knowledge of God be rekindled in man’s mind.

(4) The multiplicity of error. Satan, the great deceiver, knows that the doctrine of God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the citadel and acropolis of true doctrine. As a result, Satan has stirred up so many errors against it and, by wretched delivery, has produced so many monstrous heresies that oppose it. So that devout minds may be warned and strengthened against all these, we must teach and declare the orthodoxy of this article.

(5) The wretched condition of the human who is ignorant of God. That person is not worthy of the name “human” who either does not know or does not rightly know his Creator as He reveals Himself in His Word. God is the greatest good for man. Whoever has and possesses that good and enjoys what he has is blessed. Whoever does not know, does not love, does not possess that greatest good, therefore, is most wretched and unfortunate. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 8, p. 137: “Whoever does not know God does not know how to know.” Jerome, Epitaph. Nepot.: “Every man who lacks a knowledge of his Creator is a beast.” Augustine, Confess., bk. 5, c. 4: “It is an unfortunate man who knows all those things but does not know You [God]. But he is a blessed man who knows You, though he does not know those things. Whoever knows both You and those things is not more blessed because of those things but is blessed because of You alone if, as he understands You, he glorifies and thanks You as God and does not go off into his own thoughts.” The same Augustine, or whoever else is the author of the book De speculo, at the beginning of c. 33: “To turn away from Him is to fall; to turn to Him is to rise up again. To remain in Him is to stand unshaken. Not to know Him is to die; to know Him is to live. To reject Him is to perish, but to serve Him is to rule.”

Second, the usefulness of this doctrine.

§ 3. (II) The usefulness of the doctrine of God is explained by statements of Scripture which teach that our life and salvation consist in our knowledge of God. To Moses, who asks, “Show me Your face, O Lord” (Exod. 33:13), God responds, “I shall show you every good thing” (Exod. 33:19). Therefore every good thing consists in the knowledge of God. Wisdom 15:3: “For to know You is perfect uprightness, and to recognize Your might is the root of immortality.” Jer. 9:23[–24]: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; let not the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord.” John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Nevertheless we should note here that knowledge is not merely historical but also practical, not of the letter but of the spirit, not unworking and idle but working and effective, that is, it embraces true faith in Christ inwardly in the heart and commends itself outwardly through a zeal for good works. Bernard, De consid. ad Eugen., bk. 5: “It is only God whom we can never seek in vain, not even at the time when we cannot find Him.”

Third, the difficulty of this doctrine.

§ 4. (III) The difficulty of this doctrine is shown by: (1) The sublimity of this mystery. After all, because all the works of God are marvelous and mystic, filled with mysteries, how much more marvelous and sublime will be the doer of these works—God Himself. Just as “nothing more fruitful is found,” so also “no one errs more perilously anywhere nor is anything more difficult sought than when one seeks the unity of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” as Augustine says, De Trinit., bk. 1, at the beginning of c. 3.

(2) The weakness of our mind. Our intellect is finite; God is infinite. Therefore there is no comparison between the knowing intellect and the object it is to understand. Our intellect employs a physical instrument in the state of this life. God is not material, not physical. “He cannot be seen because He is brighter than sight. He cannot be comprehended because He is purer than touch. He cannot be evaluated because He is greater than feeling. He is infinite, immense. Only He knows how great He is,” according to Minucius Felix in the dialogue he calls Octavius. Nazianzen, Orat. 40. in sanct. bapt.: “What the sun is in regard to sensible things, that God is in intelligible things.” However, the sun outstrips our sight because of its brilliance. In the same way God greatly outstrips our weak and insignificant intellect with His majesty. Origen, , bk. 1, c. 1, p. 668: “Our mind is shut up within the closets of our flesh and blood and is rendered quite weak and dim because of such a sharing of matter. Although it may be considered far more excellent because it has acquired a physical nature, yet because it relies on the nonphysical things and investigates their purpose, it then barely holds the position of the glint of a lantern. Moreover, in all intellectual matters, what surpasses them all further than God?”

The remedies for the difficulty.

§ 5. Still, we can give thought to this difficulty: (1) With devout and fervent prayer, through which we receive the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit and a salutary understanding of Holy Scripture. Therefore with Moses let us say to the Lord: “Show me Your face” (Exod. 33:13); with Philip to the Son: “Show us the Father” (John 14:8); with the whole Church to the Holy Spirit: “Grant us to know the Father through You and to know also the Son. Grant us to believe You, the Spirit of both, at all times.”¹ No one “knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 4, c. 10, p. 238: “It is impossible to learn about God without God.” Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 5: “Therefore we must learn from God what we should know about God.”

(2) By a cautious observance of the limits preestablished in the Scriptures. In Exod. 19:12, when the Divine Majesty wished to show itself in a special way on Mount Sinai through the solemn recitation of the Law, it ordered definite limits to be set for the people. No one could cross over these without the very present peril of death. In the same way, in Holy Scripture, definite boundaries and limits have been set upon our intelligence and investigation, and we must be scrupulous not to jump over them or walk across their marks. Prosper, De vocat. gent., bk. 1, c. 7: “We must not investigate what God wanted to be hidden. We must not deny what He has made obvious, lest we be found illicitly curious about the former and damnably ungrateful with regard to the latter.”

(3) With the chastising of human curiosity and rashness. Moses had the anxious desire to see God’s face; however, he was not permitted to see God’s face but, instead, His back. For this he was protected by the right hand of God and was placed in a cleft in the rock (Exod. 33:22). From this we understand that we look upon God in this life not through open doors but as if through a narrow crack, as if through a lattice and in an enigma. Furthermore, we do this as God Himself assists us and uplifts our weakness. Therefore we must be careful that our curiosity not seek out what has not been revealed and our rashness not rush forth to what is inaccessible. When the Lord passed before him on the mountain, the prophet Elijah covered his face with his cloak (1 Kings 19:13). By that act he confessed that the keenness of our mind is too dull to look upon the majesty of God. Thus the curious investigation of the mind should be covered with a mantle of holy ignorance. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 10, p. 160: “As the sun is to be seen in such a way that it can be seen, and as we must shut away as much of its light as we admit lest we achieve less than we can if we want to gaze on it too much, so also the form [ratio] of the Heavenly One must be understood to the extent that He allows Himself to be understood.” Athanasius, vol. 2, p. 248: “As it is not a matter of piety that we investigate all things boldly, so also it is not saintly to neglect absolutely all investigation.” Macarius, homily 12, p. 155: “If you cannot comprehend the thoughts of your own soul, how can you investigate the thoughts of God and, indeed, the mind of God?” Cyril asserts (Catech. 6.): “Confessing ignorance in what is said about God is the greatest wisdom.”

§ 6. From these points it is easy to understand what the response should be to the arguments some people use to try to prove that every debate about God has been forbidden. (1) Prov. 25:27: “He who searches out majesty will be crushed by glory,” with which the statement of Sirach 3:[21] fits: “Seek not what is too difficult for you nor investigate what is beyond your power.” We respond. We should distinguish between the devout meditation on those things that have been revealed about God in Scripture and the rash investigation of matters that have not been revealed. The former has been commanded, the latter forbidden. Let us, then, say with Bernard, sermon 26 on Song of Songs: “I am not afraid of the fact that Scripture threatens those who search out God’s glory because I am bringing a pure and guileless eye and am not seeking my glory but the glory of my God. I shall not be crushed by it but shall be admitted to it; otherwise, everyone is crushed by his own glory, not God’s glory. While inclined toward his own, he is not permitted to lift the neck (made heavy by lust) toward God’s [glory]. This being explained, let us investigate securely.” “To search out God’s majesty” does not mean wanting to learn from Scripture what one should determine concerning God and divine matters, for Christ commands such searching (John 5:39). Instead, it means wanting to reduce the mysteries of God to the calculations of reason, to weigh them in the balance of human searching, and to traverse the vast fields of religion with the measuring stick of one’s narrow intellect. We shall say nothing here about the fact that the words in the Hebrew text read literally: “It is not good to eat honey in great amounts, and searching out their glory is glory.”

(2) Rom. 11:34: “Who has known the mind of God?” We respond from 1 Cor. 2:10: “God has revealed to us through His Spirit,” and 1 Cor. 2:16: “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” We must, then, distinguish between the secret judgments of God and the mysteries revealed in His Word. Deut. 29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever so that we may do all the words of this Law.”

Furthermore, the doctrine of God consists of both nomenclature and factual material.² Nomenclature explains (1) its etymology, (2) its homonyms, and (3) its synonyms. The factual material is completed by its two sections, the first of which explains the , that is, the fact that God exists; the latter explains the , [that is,] what He is. We shall discuss each of these in order.