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Indiana University Studies 



that a heaven-sent ecstasy is ah that can give one even a 

 fleeting vision of God — hke Moses on the Mount or before 

 the burning bush. Recognizing that finite mind cannot grasp 

 the infinite God, he yet proceeds as if the unknowable were 

 knowable.^ How he does this is thru the Pentateuch, in which 

 he believes is all truth. If all truth is there, then God is there. 

 But in the Pentateuch the statements about God are colored by 

 finite minds and can only present God as a superman. Philo's task 

 is to try and strip off this human disguise as far as possible and to 

 arrive at a close approximation of God. 



One of the first elements which he recognizes in God is his omni- 

 presence. This is shown in the account of the Garden of Eden first, 

 and in many passages later. Closely allied to this ubiquity is God's 

 immanence. Admitting that God is above and outside his creation, 

 and is superior to time and space so that past and future time are 

 all present time with God, yet Philo says that God pervades all 

 creation. Drummond says on this point: '^Although God remains 

 immovable in his omnipresence, yet his power may be manifested 

 with varying intensity in different places, just as he is said to dwell 

 in the purified souls as in a house, because his watchful providence is 

 most conspicuous there." The simplest way to represent this idea of 

 time and space is to say merely '^God is." 



Again, God is all-safficient within himself (avrapxEdrarog tavro)), 

 (I, 582). While men stand in need of things, God needs nothing. 



God is also perfect peace. With Heraclitus, Philo holds that 

 everything is in constant flux and flow {navra pel), and that 

 strife is a natural and necessary condition of progress, but that 

 God changes not and is perfect peace. Here we note a similarity 

 with Aristotle's thought about God which he arrived at thru an 

 ecstasy of contemplation. Aristotle made God simply thought 

 reacting upon thought {v6'/;Jig votj (Jsug), which would mean that 

 God has little or nothing to do with his creation or creatures. Philo 

 does not go so far as this, for he stresses also God's goodness which 

 makes him take a personal interest in what he has made. He creates 

 constantly, or as Philo expresses it: ^^God never ceases to create, 



-Philo's arguments remind us on the one hand of Spinoza's pantheistic 

 argument for the existence of God, and on the other of Berkeley's dilemma 

 in trying to recognize God as creator and conservator of nature, while realizing 

 that nature is absolute and mathematical. Philo is at times almost as troubled 

 as the good bishop by the seeming impossibilit}^ of reconciling these two 

 ideas. 



