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influence of Platonic thought, and through them it found its 
way into the great Trinitarian controversy of the fourth 
century. Athanasius himself quotes Plato as submissively 
as though he were one of the inspired writers.* * * § St. Augus- 
tine, when he speaks of God, speaks quite as enigmatically .-J* 
In fact, the early fathers loved, if possible, to exaggerate 
the mystery of the Being of God, that they might exalt 
the value to humanity of the revelation which is by Jesus 
Christ .J 
17. Modern philosophy is just as helpless before the mys- 
tery of the Divine Existence as ancient. We find the con- 
troversy between Bishop Browne and Dr. Clarke quite as 
perplexing as the language of ancient philosophy. We are 
equally at fault whether we are told by Spinoza that “ God 
is the being absolutely infinite — i.e., the substance consisting 
of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an infinite and 
eternal essence ; ”§ or by Fichte, that existence implies origin, 
and God is beyond origin ; or by Schelling, that the Absolute 
is neither real nor ideal, neither thought nor being. || It is 
to this last conception that Sir W. Hamilton, Dean Mansel, 
and Mr. Herbert Spencer would bring us. God is the 
* Contra Gentes (Paris ed., 1627), vol. i. p. 3. But though God, being 
good, and more than good, is said, in Plato’s words, to transcend all being, 
we are, nevertheless, told that He gives the apprehension ( twoia ) and know- 
ledge of Himself to man. So, in his letter on the Decrees of the Nicene 
Synod, ch. xxi., Athanasius writes that God’s Essence is incomprehensible 
(^d<aTa\rf7TTov). And in his Epistle to the Monks he tells us that if we 
cannot comprehend what God is, we can at least say what He is not. 
t As for instance : “ Neque enim voluntas Dei creatura est, sed ante 
creaturam, quia non crearetur aliquid, nisi Creatoris voluntas prsecederet. 
Ad ipsam ergo Dei substantiam pertinet voluntas ejus.” — Conf., xi. 10. And, 
again, “ Prsecedis omnia praeterita celsitudine semper prsesentis seternitatis 
et superas omnia futura, quia ilia futura sunt, et cum venerint, prseterita 
erunt. Tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficiunt. Anni tui nec eunt nec 
veniunt .... anni hie omnes simul stant, quoniam stant, nec euntes a 
venientibus excluduntur .... Anni tui dies unus, et dies tuus non quotidie, 
sed hodie.” — Ibid., xi. 13. 
X As in Tertullian’s well-known “ Certum est quia impossible .” — De 
Came Christi, ch. v. 
§ Ethics, First Part, Definition 6. 
|| See Mansel, lect. iii. note 7, p. 49. These writers give various 
explanations of the Infinite, the Absolute, and the Unconditioned. Fichte 
regards God as the moral order of the universe and nothing more. Schelling, 
in his Vom Ich als Princip der Philosophic, says that the Unconditioned 
can be found neither in the sphere of the subject nor the object, but only 
lies in the “Absolute Ich.” Of this he tells us that “it is, simply because 
it is ; and is conceived of, simply because it is conceived of” (p. 8). In like 
manner, in his Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (Works, p. 152), he says 
that the existence of God is as incapable of being proved as our own. 
