Chapter 8, Section 1a

CHAPTER VIII Concerning ” Power ,” ” Righteousness ,” ” Salvation ,” ” Redemption “; and also concerning ” Inequality .” 1. Now since the Sacred Writers speak of the Divine Truthfulness and Supra-Sapient Wisdom as Power, and as Righteousness, and call It Salvation and Redemption, let us endeavour to unravel these Divine Names also. Now I do not think that any one nurtured in Holy Scripture can fail to know 155 that the Godhead transcends and exceeds every mode of Power however conceived. For often Scripture attributes the Dominion to the Godhead and thus distinguishes It even from the Celestial Powers. 421 421 The highest power our minds can conceive is that of the angels. But God has the dominion over them, and hence His power is of a yet higher kind such as we cannot conceive. In what sense, then, do the Sacred Writers speak of It also as Power when It transcends all Power? Or in what sense can we take the title Power when applied to the Godhead? 2. We answer thus: God is Power because in His own Self He contains all power beforehand and exceeds it, and because He is the Cause of all power and produces all things by a power which may not be thwarted nor circumscribed, and because He is the Cause wherefrom Power exists whether in the whole system of the world or in any particular part. 422 422 Since the ultimate Godhead is undifferentiated God’s power is conceived of as an undifferentiated or potential energy. Yea, He is Infinitely Powerful not only in that all Power comes from Him, but also because He is above all power and is Very Power, and possesses that excess of Power which produces in infinite ways an infinite number of other existent powers; and because the infinitude of powers which is continually being multiplied to infinity can never blunt that transcendently infinite 423 423 The inexhaustible multiplication of things in this world, though it should go on for ever, is a series made up of separate units. God’s inexhaustible energy is beyond this series because it is one indivisible act. The Undifferentiated transcends infinite divisibility. Cf. IX. 2. activity of His Power whence all power comes; and because of the unutterable, unknowable, inconceivable greatness of His all-transcendent Power which, through its excess of potency, gives strength to that which is weak and maintains and governs the lowest of its created copies, even as, in those things whose power strikes our senses, very brilliant 156 illuminations can reach to eyes that are dim and as loud sounds can enter ears dull of hearing. (Of course that which is utterly incapable of hearing is not an ear, and that which cannot see at all is not an eye. 424 424 This is meant to meet the objection that if God’s power is infinite there should be no decay or death. Things, says D., are sometimes incapable of responding, as a blind eye cannot respond to the light. ) 3. Thus this distribution of God’s Infinite Power permeates all things, and there is nothing in the world utterly bereft of all power. Some power it must have, be it in the form of Intuition, Reason, Perception, Life, or Being. And indeed, if one may so express it, the very fact that power exists 425 425 i. e. Power in the abstract. is derived from the Super-Essential Power. 4.