Chapter 7, Section 1e

i and more especially because the Divine Reason is more simple than all simplicity, and, in the transcendence of Its Super-Essential Being, is independent of all things. 419 419 God is called Reason: (1) because He is the Giver of reason; (2j because reason causes unity (e.g. it unifies our thoughts, making them coherent), and God in His creative activity causes unity and in His ultimate Godhead is Unity. This Reason is the simple and verily existent Truth: that pure and infallible Omniscience round which divinely inspired Faith revolves. It is the permanent Ground of the faithful, which builds them in the Truth and builds the Truth in them by an unwavering firmness, through which they possess a simple knowledge of the Truth of those things which they believe 420 420 The Divine Omniscience is: (1) the Object of our faith because we trust in it; (2) the Ground of our faith because the development of our faith comes from it. Faith is a faint image of Divine Knowledge, and is gradually perfected by being changed into knowledge. For if Knowledge unites the knower and the objects of knowledge, 154 and if ignorance is always a cause of change and of self-discrepancy in the ignorant, naught (as saith Holy Scripture) shall separate him that believeth in the Truth from the Foundation of true faith on which he shall possess the permanence of immovable and unchanging firmness. For surely knoweth he who is united to the Truth that it is well with him, even though the multitude reprove him as one out of his mind. Naturally they perceive not that he is but come out of an erring mind unto the Truth through right faith. But he verily knows that instead of being, as they say, distraught, he hath been relieved from the unstable ever-changing movements which tossed him hither and thither in the mazes of error, and hath been set at liberty through the simple immutable and unchanging Truth. Thus is it that the Teachers from whom we have learnt our knowledge of Divine Wisdom die daily for the Truth, bearing their natural witness in every word and deed to the single Knowledge of the Truth which Christians possess: yea, showing that It is more simple and divine than all other kinds of knowledge, or rather that it is the only true, one, simple Knowledge of God. 399 All wisdom or knowledge implies the distinction between thinker and object of thought. The undifferentiated Godhead is beyond this distinction; but (in a sense) it exists in the Persons of the Trinity and between them and the world, and hence from Them comes Absolute Wisdom, though the Godhead transcends it. 400 1 Cor. i. 25 . 401 This is the Doctrine of Unknowing. Cf. “Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower, We feel that we are mightier than we know.” 402 The term “God” is rightly used here because the manifested Absolute is meant. 403 1 Cor. i. 25 . 404 Col. ii. 3 . 405 (1) Very Wisdom = Wisdom in the abstract. (2) Wisdom as a whole = Wisdom embodied in the universe as a whole. (3) Wisdom in each individual instance = Wisdom as shown in the structure of some particular plant or animal, or part of a plant or animal. (1) Is an Emanation; (2) and (3) are created. 406 i. e. They are not limited by the material world, which, with its laws, is known through sensation and discursive reason. 407 This speculation is, no doubt, based on experience. A concentration of the spiritual faculties in the act of contemplation produces that unity of the soul of which all mystics often speak.