![]() Anything predicated of God is totally different from our attributes no definition can comprehend both therefore His existence and that of any other being totally differ from each other, and the term existence is applied to both homonymously, as I shall explain. The same is the case with an other comparisons: they can only be made between two things belonging to the same class, as has been shown in works on Natural Science. For in the same way as all people must be informed, and even children must be trained in the belief that God is One, and that none besides Him is to be worshipped, so must all be taught by simple authority that God is incorporeal that there is no similarity in any way whatsoever between Him and His creatures: that His existence is not like the existence of His creatures, His life not like that of any living being, His wisdom not like the wisdom of the wisest of men and that the difference between Him and His creatures is not merely quantitative, but absolute : I mean to say that all must understand that our wisdom and His, or our power and His do not differ quantitatively or qualitatively, or in a similar manner for two things, of which the one is strong and the other weak, are necessarily similar, belong to the same class, and can be included in one definition. ![]() It is not for the beginner, and he should abstain from it, as the little child has to abstain from taking solid food and from carrying heavy weights.ĭo not think that what we have laid down in the preceding chapters on the importance, obscurity, and difficulty of the subject, and its unsuitableness for communication to ordinary persons, includes the doctrine of God's incorporeality and His exemption from all affections. For these reasons it was proper that the study of Metaphysics should have been exclusively cultivated by privileged persons, and not entrusted to the common people. He will not attain to that for which he is fitted by his abilities, or he will acquire imperfect knowledge, a confused mass of true and false ideas. Even the perfect man to whom we have referred, if too busy with these necessary things, much more so if busy with unnecessary things, and filled with a great desire for them-must weaken or altogether lose his desire for study, to which he win apply himself with interruption, lassitude, and want of attention. ![]() Of providing for wife and children be superadded: much more so if he seeks superfluities in addition to his ordinary wants, for by custom and bad habits these become a powerful motive. ![]()
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