11. What then is the Principle which one cannot even say that it is
(hypostatically) existent? This point will have to be conceded without
discussion, however, for we cannot prosecute this inquiry. What
indeed would we be seeking, when it is impossible to go beyond, every
inquiry leading to some one principle, and ceasing there? Besides, all
questions refer to one of four things: existence, quality, cause and
essence. From the beings that follow Him, we conclude to the essence
of the First, in that sense in which we say He exists. Seeking the
cause of His existence, however, would amount to seeking an (ulterior)
principle, and the Principle of all things cannot Himself have a
principle. An effort to determine His quality would amount to seeking
what accident inheres in Him in whom is nothing contingent; and there
is still more clearly no possible inquiry as to His existence, as
we have to grasp it the best we know how, striving not to attribute
anything to Him.
THE ORIGIN OF GOD PUZZLES US ONLY BECAUSE WE HABITUALLY START FROM SOME
PRE-EXISTENT CHAOS.
(Habitually) we are led to ask these questions about the nature (of
the divinity) chiefly because we conceive of space and location as
a chaos, into which space and location, that is either presented to
us by our imagination, or that really exists, we later introduce the
first Principle. This introduction amounts to a question whence and
how He came. We then treat Him as a stranger, and we wonder why He is
present there, and what is His being; we usually assume He came up
out of an abyss, or that He fell from above. In order to evade these
questions, therefore, we shall have to remove from our conception
(of the divinity) all notion of locality, and not posit Him within
anything, neither conceiving of Him as eternally resting, and founded
within Himself, nor as if come from somewhere. We shall have to content
ourselves with thinking that He exists in the sense in which reasoning
forces us to admit His existence, or with persuading ourselves that
location, like everything else, is posterior to the Divinity, and that
it is even posterior to all things. Thus conceiving (of the Divinity)
as outside of all place, so far as we can conceive of Him, we are not
surrounding Him as it were within a circle, nor are we undertaking to
measure His greatness, nor are we attributing to Him either quantity
or quality; for He has no shape, not even an intelligible one; He is
not relative to anything, since His hypostatic form of existence is
contained within Himself, and before all else.