Chapter 7, Section 1f

The angels are conceived of as being always in such a state of contemplation. 408 God is the Manifested Absolute. Hence qua Absolute He is supra-sapient, qua Manifested He is wise (cf. ch. i, § 1). The Persons of the Trinity possess one common Godhead (= the Absolute) which is supra-sapient, and in that Godhead. They are One. Yet they are known by us only in their differentiation wherein Supra-Sapience is revealed as Wisdom. 409 Via Negativa. It is not mere negation. 410 Susannah 42. 411 “According to its idea,” “according to the law of its species.” We perceive that this is a rose and that is a horse because we have two separate notions in our minds—one the notion of a rose and the other that of a horse. But in the Divine Knowledge there is only one Notion wherein such specific notions are elements, as the activities of several nerves are elements in one indivisible sensation of taste, or touch, or smell. 412 i. e. Suppose the light were conscious, and knew its own nature, it would know that if it withheld its brightness there would be darkness (for the very nature of light is that it dispels, or at least prevents, darkness). On the other hand, the light could not directly know the darkness, because darkness cannot exist where there is light. The simile is capable of being applied to illustrate God’s knowledge of the world, because the world is imperfect. It applies more fundamentally to God’s knowledge of evil, and is so employed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who quotes this passage and says (Summa, xiv. 10) that, since evil is the lack of good, God knows evil things in the act by which He knows good things, as we know darkness through knowing light. 413 God, being the Manifested Absolute, exists on two planes at once: that of Undifferentiation and that of Differentiation. On this second plane He moves out into creative activity. And thus He is both knowable and unknowable: knowable in so far as He passes outwards into such activity, unknowable in that His Being passes inwards into Undifferentiation. Thus He is known in His acts but not in His ultimate Nature. 414 He is the Super-Essence of all things, wherein all things possess their true being outside of themselves [as our perceptions are outside of ourselves in the things we perceive. (Vide Bergson, Matière et Mémoire.)]. 415 This is experience and not mere theory. 416 Prov. viii. 417 The reference is, of course, to the opening verses of St. John’s Gospel. The present passage shows that by the term “God” D. means not one Differentiation of the Godhead singly (i. e. not God the Father), but all Three Differentiations together; the undivided (though differentiated) Trinity. 418 Wisdom viii. i 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. 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.