To say that in man nature attains its highest perfection, that there is nothing beyond nature, and consequently nothing in existence higher than man, is atheism. To make out a God, all intellect and no will, all law and no love, a being admirable indeed, but unloving and unlovable, is to make God less good than man, -- as though what Holy Writ calls 'lovingkindness' were a sort of 'bend sinister,' a shade of inferiority in being. The argument in the text, -- by adversaries dubbed 'anthropomorphic,' -- goes to establish what present-day philosophers call 'a personal God,' meaning a God who has in Him something corresponding to what in man are called 'feelings,' and that something not ineffective or impotent in this world of law; a God consequently whom there is some use in praying to.

Of God and His Creatures: 3.95