The supreme God
exists necessarily, and by the same necessity He exists always and everywhere. Whence
also He is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to
understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all
corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so
have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all
things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can, therefore neither be
seen or heard or touched; nor ought He to be worshiped under the representation of any
corporeal thing. We have ideas of His attributes but what the real substance of anything
is we know not. In bodies we see only their figures and colors, we hear only the sound, we
touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells and taste the savors, but
their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses or by any reflex act of
our minds; much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know Him only by
His most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes; we admire Him for His
perfections, but we reverence and adore Him on account of His dominion, for we adore Him
as His servants.
(Thayer, 1953, 45)
From His true dominion it
follows that the true God is a living, intelligent and powerful being; and from His other
perfections, that He is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent
and omniscient; that is, His duration reaches from eternity to eternity; His presence from
infinity to infinity; He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done.
He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; He is not duration or space, but
He endureth and is present. He endureth forever, and is everywhere present; and
by existing always and everywhere, He constitutes duration and space . . . In
Him are all things contained and moved.”
(Burtt, 1951, 257)
________________
Thayer,
H. S. Newton's Philosophy of
Nature. New York: Hafner
Publishing Company, 1953.
Burtt,
E. A. The Methaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. New York: The
Humanities Press Inc., 1951.
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