Of God and His Creatures
That the Propositions which our Understanding forms of God are
not void of meaning
FOR all the absolute simplicity of God, not in vain does our
understanding form propositions concerning Him, putting together and
putting asunder.* For though our
understanding arrives by way of divers concepts to the knowledge of
God, still it understands the absolute oneness of the object answering
to all those concepts. Our mind does not attribute the manner of its
understanding to the object is understood:*
thus it does not attribute immateriality to a stone, though it knows
the stone immaterially.* And therefore it
asserts unity of the object by an affirmative proposition, which is a
sign of identity, when it says, 'God is good': in which case any
diversity that the composition shows is referable to the understanding,
but unity to the thing understood. And on the same principle sometimes
our mind forms a statement about God with some mark of diversity by
inserting a preposition, as when it is said, 'Goodness is in God.'
Herein is marked a diversity, proper to the understanding; and a unity,
proper to the thing.
1.35 : That the several Names predicated of God are not synonymous
1.38 : That God is His own Goodness