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Page 28
(49) These points being noted, I must now inquire:
(50) I. Whether by the natural light of reason we can conceive of
God as a law-giver or potentate ordaining laws for men?
(51) II. What is the teaching of Holy Writ concerning this
natural light of reason and natural law?
(52) III. With what objects were ceremonies formerly instituted?
(53) IV. Lastly, what is the good gained by knowing the
sacred histories and believing them?
(54) Of the first two I will treat in this chapter, of the remaining two in the following one.
(55) Our conclusion about the first is easily deduced from the nature of
God's will, which is only distinguished from His understanding in relation
to our intellect - that is, the will and the understanding of God are in
reality one and the same, and are only distinguished in relation to
our thoughts which we form concerning God's understanding. (56) For
instance, if we are only looking to the fact that the nature of a triangle
is from eternity contained in the Divine nature as an eternal verity, we say
that God possesses the idea of a triangle, or that He understands the
nature of a triangle; but if afterwards we look to the fact that the nature
of a triangle is thus contained in the Divine nature, solely by the
necessity of the Divine nature, and not by the necessity of the nature and
essence of a triangle - in fact, that the necessity of a triangle's essence
and nature, in so far as they are conceived of as eternal verities, depends
solely on the necessity of the Divine nature and intellect, we then style
God's will or decree, that which before we styled His intellect. (57)
Wherefore we make one and the same affirmation concerning God when we say
that He has from eternity decreed that three angles of a triangle are equal
to two right angles, as when we say that He has understood it.
(58) Hence the affirmations and the negations of God always involve
necessity or truth; so that, for example, if God said to Adam that He did
not wish him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it would have
involved a contradiction that Adam should have been able to eat of it, and
would therefore have been impossible that he should have so eaten, for the
Divine command would have involved an eternal necessity and truth. (59) But
since Scripture nevertheless narrates that God did give this command to
Adam, and yet that none the less Adam ate of the tree, we must perforce say
that God revealed to Adam the evil which would surely follow if he should
eat of the tree, but did not disclose that such evil would of necessity
come to pass. (60) Thus it was that Adam took the revelation to be not an
eternal and necessary truth, but a law - that is, an ordinance followed by
gain or loss, not depending necessarily on the nature of the act performed,
but solely on the will and absolute power of some potentate, so that the
revelation in question was solely in relation to Adam, and solely through
his lack of knowledge a law, and God was, as it were, a lawgiver and
potentate. (61) From the same cause, namely, from lack of knowledge, the
Decalogue in relation to the Hebrews was a law, for since they knew not the
existence of God as an eternal truth, they must have taken as a law that
which was revealed to them in the Decalogue, namely, that God exists, and
that God only should be worshipped. (62) But if God had spoken to them
without the intervention of any bodily means, immediately they would have
perceived it not as a law, but as an eternal truth.
(63) What we have said about the Israelites and Adam, applies also to all
the prophets who wrote laws in God's name - they did not adequately conceive
God's decrees as eternal truths. (64) For instance, we must say of Moses
that from revelation, from the basis of what was revealed to him, he
perceived the method by which the Israelitish nation could best be united in
a particular territory, and could form a body politic or state, and further
that he perceived the method by which that nation could best be constrained
to obedience; but he did not perceive, nor was it revealed to him, that this
method was absolutely the best, nor that the obedience of the people in a
certain strip of territory would necessarily imply the end he had in view.
(65) Wherefore he perceived these things not as eternal truths, but as
precepts and ordinances, and he ordained them as laws of God, and thus it
came to be that he conceived God as a ruler, a legislator, a king, as
merciful, just, &c., whereas such qualities are simply attributes of human
nature, and utterly alien from the nature of the Deity. (66)Thus much we may
affirm of the prophets who wrote laws in the name of God; but we must not
affirm it of Christ, for Christ, although He too seems to have written laws
in the name of God, must be taken to have had a clear and adequate
perception, for Christ was not so much a prophet as the mouthpiece of God.
(67) For God made revelations to mankind through Christ as He had before
done through angels - that is, a created voice, visions, &c. (68) It would
be as unreasonable to say that God had accommodated his revelations to the
opinions of Christ as that He had before accommodated them to the opinions
of angels (that is, of a created voice or visions) as matters to be revealed
to the prophets, a wholly absurd hypothesis. (69) Moreover, Christ was sent
to teach not only the Jews but the whole human race, and therefore it was
not enough that His mind should be accommodated to the opinions the Jews
alone, but also to the opinion and fundamental teaching common to the whole
human race - in other words, to ideas universal and true. (70) Inasmuch as
God revealed Himself to Christ, or to Christ's mind immediately, and not as
to the prophets through words and symbols, we must needs suppose that Christ
perceived truly what was revealed, in other words, He understood it, for a,
matter is understood when it is perceived simply by the mind without words
or symbols.
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