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| Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even When We Shall Be Like God. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
16.—Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even
When We Shall Be Like God.
Wherefore that Word of God is in
such wise so called, as not to be called a thought of God, lest we
believe that there is anything in God which can be revolved, so
that it at one time receives and at another recovers a form, so as
to be a word, and again can lose that form and be revolved in some
sense formlessly. Certainly that excellent master of speech knew
well the force of words, and had looked into the nature of thought,
who said in his poem, “And revolves with himself the varying
issues of war,”994 i.e.
thinks of them. That Son of God, then, is not called the Thought of
God, but the Word of God. For our own thought, attaining to what we
know, and formed thereby, is our true word. And so the Word of God
ought to be understood without any thought on the part of God, so
that it be understood as the simple form itself, but containing
nothing formable that can be also unformed. There are, indeed,
passages of Holy Scripture that speak of God’s thoughts; but this
is after the same mode of speech by which the forgetfulness of God
is also there spoken of, whereas in strict propriety of language
there is in Him certainly no forgetfulness.
26. Wherefore, since we have found
now in this enigma so great an unlikeness to God and the Word of
God, wherein yet there was found before some likeness, this, too,
must be admitted, that even when we shall be like Him, when “we
shall see Him as He is”995 (and certainly he who said this was
aware beyond doubt of our present unlikeness), not even then shall
we be equal to Him in nature. For that nature which is made is ever
less than that which makes. And at that time our word will not
indeed be false, because we shall neither lie nor be deceived.
Perhaps, too, our thoughts will no longer revolve by passing and
repassing from one thing to another, but we shall see all our
knowledge at once, and at one glance. Still, when even this shall
have come to pass, if indeed it shall come to pass, the creature
which was formable will indeed have been formed, so that nothing
will be wanting of that form to which it ought to attain; yet
nevertheless it will not be to be equalled to that simplicity
wherein there is not anything formable, which has been formed or
reformed, but only form; and which being neither formless nor
formed, itself is eternal and unchangeable substance.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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