I will give you in this chapter some illustrations, in order that you
may better understand the propriety of forming as many negative
attributes as possible, and the impropriety of ascribing to God any
positive attributes. A person may know for certain that a “ship” is in
existence, but he may not know to what object that name is applied,
whether to a substance or to an accident; a second person then learns
that the ship is not an accident; a third, that it is not a mineral; a
fourth, that it is not a plant growing in the earth; a fifth, that it
is not a body whose parts are joined together by nature; a sixth, that
it is not a flat object like boards or doors; a seventh, that it is not
a sphere; an eighth, that it is not pointed; a ninth, that it is not
round-shaped; nor equilateral; a tenth, that it is not solid. It is
clear that this tenth person has almost arrived at the correct notion
of a “ship” by the foregoing negative attributes, as if he had exactly
the same notion as those have who imagine it to be a wooden substance
which is hollow, long, and composed of many pieces of wood, that is to
say, who know it by positive attributes. Of the other persons in our
illustration, each one is more remote from the correct notion of a ship
than the next mentioned, so that the first knows nothing about it but
the name. In the same manner you will come nearer to the knowledge and
comprehension of God by the negative attributes. But you must be
careful, in what you negative, to negative by proof, not by mere words,
for each time you ascertain by proof that a certain thing, believed to
exist in the Creator, must be negatived, you have undoubtedly come one
step nearer to the knowledge of God.
It is in this sense that some men come very near to God, and others
remain exceedingly remote from Him, not in the sense of those who are
deprived of vision, and believe that God occupies a place, which man
can physically approach or from which he can recede. Examine this well,
know it, and be content with it. The way which will bring you nearer to
God has been clearly shown to you; walk in it, if you have the desire.
On the other hand, there is a great danger in applying positive
attributes to God. For it has been shown that every perfection we could
imagine, even if existing in God in accordance with the opinion of
those who assert the existence of attributes, would in reality not be
of the same kind as that imagined by us, but would only be called by
the same name, according to our explanation; it would in fact amount to
a negation. Suppose, e.g., you say He has knowledge, and that
knowledge, which admits of no change and of no plurality, embraces many
changeable things; His knowledge remains unaltered, while new things
are constantly formed, and His knowledge of a thing before it exists,
while it exists, and when it has ceased to exist, is the same without
the least change: you would thereby declare that His knowledge is not
like ours; and similarly that His existence is not like ours. You thus
necessarily arrive at some negation, without obtaining a true
conception of an essential attribute; on the contrary, you are led to
assume that there is a plurality in God, and to believe that He, though
one essence, has several unknown attributes. For if you intend to
affirm them, you cannot compare them with those attributes known by us,
and they are consequently not of the same kind. You are, as it were,
brought by the belief in the reality of the attributes, to say that God
is one subject of which several things are predicated; though the
subject is not like ordinary subjects, and the predicates are not like
ordinary predicates. This belief would ultimately lead us to associate
other things with God, and not to believe that He is One. For of every
subject certain things can undoubtedly be predicated, and although in
reality subject and predicate are combined in one thing, by the actual
definition they consist of two elements, the notion contained in the
subject not being the same as that contained in the predicate. In the
course of this treatise it will be proved to you that God cannot be a
compound, and that He is simple in the strictest sense of the word.
I do not merely declare that he who affirms attributes of God has not
sufficient knowledge concerning the Creator, admits some association
with God, or conceives Him to be different from what He is; but I say
that he unconsciously loses his belief in God. For he whose knowledge
concerning a thing is insufficient, understands one part of it while he
is ignorant of the other, as, e.g., a person who knows that man
possesses life, but does not know that man possesses understanding; but
in reference to God, in whose real existence there is no plurality, it
is impossible that one thing should be known, and another unknown.
Similarly he who associates an object with [the properties of] another
object, conceives a true and correct notion of the one object, and
applies that notion also to the other; while those who admit the
attributes of God, do not consider them as identical with His essence,
but as extraneous elements. Again, he who conceives an incorrect notion
of an object, must necessarily have a correct idea of the object to
some extent; he, however, who says that taste belongs to the category
of quantity has not, according to my opinion, an incorrect notion of
taste, but is entirely ignorant of its nature, for he does not know to
what object the term “taste” is to be applied.—This is a very difficult
subject; consider it well.
According to this explanation you will understand, that those who do
not recognize, in reference to God, the negation of things, which
others negative by clear proof, are deficient in the knowledge of God,
and are remote from comprehending Him. Consequently, the smaller the
number of things is which a person can negative in relation to God, the
less he knows of Him, as has been explained in the beginning of this
chapter; but the man who affirms an attribute of God, knows nothing but
the same; for the object to which, in his imagination, he applies that
name, does not exist; it is a mere fiction and invention, as if he
applied that name to a non-existing being, for there is, in reality, no
such object. E.g., some one has heard of the elephant, and knows that
it is an animal, and wishes to know its form and nature. A person, who
is either misled or misleading, tells him it is an animal with one leg,
three wings, lives in the depth of the sea, has a transparent body; its
face is wide like that of a man, has the same form and shape, speaks
like a man, flies sometimes in the air, and sometimes swims like a
fish. I should not say, that he described the elephant incorrectly, or
that he has an insufficient knowledge of the elephant, but I would say
that the thing thus described is an invention and fiction, and that in
reality there exists nothing like it; it is a non-existing being,
called by the name of a really existing being, and like the griffin,
the centaur, and similar imaginary combinations for which simple and
compound names have been borrowed from real things. The present case is
analogous; namely, God, praised be His name, exists, and His existence
has been proved to be absolute and perfectly simple, as I shall
explain. If such a simple, absolutely existing essence were said to
have attributes, as has been contended, and were combined with
extraneous elements, it would in no way be an existing thing, as has
been proved by us; and when we say that that essence, which is called
“God,” is a substance with many properties by which it can be
described, we apply that name to an object which does not at all exist.
Consider, therefore, what are the consequences of affirming attributes
to God! As to those attributes of God which occur in the Pentateuch, or
in the books of the Prophets, we must assume that they are exclusively
employed, as has been stated by us, to convey to us some notion of the
perfections of the Creator, or to express qualities of actions
emanating from Him.