The circumstance which caused men to believe in the existence of divine
attributes is similar to that which caused others to believe in the
corporeality of God. The latter have not arrived at that belief by
speculation, but by following the literal sense of certain passages in
the Bible. The same is the case with the attributes; when in the books
of the Prophets and of the Law, God is described by attributes, such
passages are taken in their literal sense, and it is then believed that
God possesses attributes; as if He were to be exalted above
corporeality, and not above things connected with corporeality, i.e.,
the accidents, I mean psychical dispositions, all of which are
qualities [and connected with corporeality]. Every attribute which the
followers of this doctrine assume to be essential to the Creator, you
will find to express, although they do not distinctly say so, a quality
similar to those which they are accustomed to notice in the bodies of
all living beings. We apply to all such passages the principle, “The
Torah speaketh in the language of man,” and say that the object of all
these terms is to describe God as the most perfect being, not as
possessing those qualities which are only perfections in relation to
created living beings. Many of the attributes express different acts of
God, but that difference does not necessitate any difference as regards
Him from whom the acts proceed. This fact, viz., that from one agency
different effects may result, although that agency has not free will,
and much more so if it has free will, I will illustrate by an instance
taken from our own sphere. Fire melts certain things and makes others
hard, it boils and burns, it bleaches and blackens. If we described the
fire as bleaching, blackening, burning, boiling, hardening and melting,
we should be correct, and yet he who does not know the nature of fire,
would think that it included six different elements, one by which it
blackens, another by which it bleaches, a third by which it boils, a
fourth by which it consumes, a fifth by which it melts, a sixth by
which it hardens things—actions which are opposed to one another, and
of which each has its peculiar property. He, however, who knows the
nature of fire, will know that by virtue of one quality in action,
namely, by heat, it produces all these effects. If this is the case
with that which is done by nature, how much more is it the case with
regard to beings that act by free will, and still more with regard to
God, who is above all description. If we, therefore, perceive in God
certain relations of various kinds—for wisdom in us is different from
power, and power from will—it does by no means follow that different
elements are really contained in Him, that He contains one element by
which He knows, another by which He wills, and another by which He
exercises power, as is, in fact, the signification of the attributes of
God according to the Attributists. Some of them express it plainly, and
enumerate the attributes as elements added to the essence. Others,
however, are more reserved with regard to this matter, but indicate
their opinion, though they do not express it in distinct and
intelligible words. Thus, e.g., some of them say: “God is omnipotent by
His essence, wise by His essence, living by His essence, and endowed
with a will by His essence.” (I will mention to you, as an instance,
man’s reason, which being one faculty and implying no plurality,
enables him to know many arts and sciences; by the same faculty man is
able to sow, to do carpenter’s work, to weave, to build, to study, to
acquire a knowledge of geometry, and to govern a state. These various
acts resulting from one simple faculty, which involves no plurality,
are very numerous; their number, that is, the number of the actions
originating in man’s reason, is almost infinite. It is therefore
intelligible how in reference to God, those different actions can be
caused by one simple substance, that does not include any plurality or
any additional element. The attributes found in Holy Scripture are
either qualifications of His actions, without any reference to His
essence, or indicate absolute perfection, but do not imply that the
essence of God is a compound of various elements.) For in not admitting
the term “compound,” they do not reject the idea of a compound when
they admit a substance with attributes.
There still remains one difficulty which led them to that error, and
which I am now going to mention. Those who assert the existence of the
attributes do not found their opinion on the variety of God’s actions;
they say it is true that one substance can be the source of various
effects, but His essential attributes cannot be qualifications of His
actions, because it is impossible to imagine that the Creator created
Himself. They vary with regard to the so-called essential attributes—I
mean as regards their number—according to the text of the Scripture
which each of them follows. I will enumerate those on which all agree,
and the knowledge of which they believe that they have derived from
reasoning, not from some words of the Prophets, namely, the following
four:—life, power, wisdom, and will. They believe that these are four
different things, and such perfections as cannot possibly be absent
from the Creator, and that these cannot be qualifications of His
actions. This is their opinion. But you must know that wisdom and life
in reference to God are not different from each other; for in every
being that is conscious of itself, life and wisdom are the same thing,
that is to say, if by wisdom we understand the consciousness of self.
Besides, the subject and the object of that consciousness are
undoubtedly identical [as regards God]; for according to our opinion,
He is not composed of an element that apprehends, and another that does
not apprehend; He is not like man, who is a combination of a conscious
soul and an unconscious body. If, therefore, by “wisdom” we mean the
faculty of self-consciousness, wisdom and life are one and the same
thing. They, however, do not speak of wisdom in this sense, but of His
power to apprehend His creatures. There is also no doubt that power and
will do not exist in God in reference to Himself; for He cannot have
power or will as regards Himself; we cannot imagine such a thing. They
take these attributes as different relations between God and His
creatures, signifying that He has power in creating things, will in
giving to things existence as He desires, and wisdom in knowing what He
created. Consequently, these attributes do not refer to the essence of
God, but express relations between Him and His creatures.
Therefore we, who truly believe in the Unity of God, declare, that as
we do not believe that some element is included in His essence by which
He created the heavens, another by which He created the [four]
elements, a third by which He created the ideals, in the same way we
reject the idea that His essence contains an element by which He has
power, another element by which He has will, and a third by which He
has a knowledge of His creatures. On the contrary, He is a simple
essence, without any additional element whatever; He created the
universe, and knows it, but not by any extraneous force. There is no
difference whether these various attributes refer to His actions or to
relations between Him and His works; in fact, these relations, as we
have also shown, exist only in the thoughts of men. This is what we
must believe concerning the attributes occurring in the books of the
Prophets; some may also be taken as expressive of the perfection of God
by way of comparison with what we consider as perfections in us, as we
shall explain.