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Before we treat of the proper and fitting means of
union with God, which is faith, it behoves us to
prove how no thing, created or imagined, can serve
the understanding as a proper means of union with
God; and how all that the understanding can attain
serves it rather as an impediment than as such a
means, if it should desire to cling to it.
And now, in this chapter, we shall prove this in a
general way, and afterwards we shall begin to speak
in detail, treating in turn of all kinds of knowledge
that the understanding may receive from any sense,
whether inward or outward, and of the inconveniences
and evils that may result from all these kinds of
inward and outward knowledge, when it clings not, as
it progresses, to the proper means, which is faith.
2. It must be understood, then, that, according to
a rule of philosophy, all means must be proportioned
to the end; that is to say, they must have some
connection and resemblance with the end, such as is
enough and sufficient for the desired end to be
attained through them. I take an example. A man
desires to reach a city; he has of necessity to
travel by the road, which is the means that brings
him to this same city and connects[256] him with it.
Another example. Fire is to be combined and united
with wood; it is necessary that heat, which is the
means, shall first prepare the wood, by conveying to
it so many degrees of warmth that it will have great
resemblance and proportion to fire. Now if one would
prepare the wood by any other than the proper means
-- namely, with heat -- as, for example, with air or
water or earth, it would be impossible for the wood
to be united with the fire, just as it would be to
reach the city without going by the road that leads
to it.
Wherefore, in order that the understanding may be
united with God in this life, so far as is possible,
it must of necessity employ that means that unites it
with Him and that bears the greatest resemblance to
Him.
3. Here it must be pointed out that, among all the
creatures, the highest or the lowest, there is none
that comes near to God or bears any resemblance to
His Being. For, although it is true that all
creatures have, as theologians say, a certain
relation to God, and bear a Divine impress (some more
and others less, according to the greater or lesser
excellence of their nature), yet there is no
essential resemblance or connection between them and
God -- on the contrary, the distance between their
being and His Divine Being is infinite.
Wherefore it is impossible for the understanding
to attain to God by means of the creatures, whether
these be celestial or earthly, inasmuch as there is
no proportion or resemblance between them. Wherefore,
when David speaks of the heavenly creatures, he says:
'There is none among the gods like unto Thee, O
Lord';[257] meaning by the gods the angels and holy
souls. And elsewhere: 'O God, Thy way is in the holy
place. What God is there so great as our God?'[258]
As though he were to say: The way of approach to
Thee, O God, is a holy way -- that is, the purity of
faith. For what God can there be so great? That is to
say: What angel will there be so exalted in his
being, and what saint so exalted in glory, as to be a
proportionate and sufficient road by which a man may
come to Thee?
And the same David, speaking likewise of earthly
and heavenly things both together, says: 'The Lord is
high and looketh on lowly things, and the high things
He knoweth afar off'[259] As though he had said:
Lofty in His own Being, He sees that the being of
things here below is very low in comparison with His
lofty Being; and the lofty things, which are the
celestial creatures, He sees and knows to be very far
from His Being.
All the creatures, then, cannot serve as a
proportionate means to the understanding whereby it
may reach God.
4. Just so all that the imagination can imagine
and the understanding can receive and understand in
this life is not, nor can it be, a proximate means of
union with God. For, if we speak of natural things,
since understanding can understand naught save that
which is contained within, and comes under the
category of, forms and imaginings of things that are
received through the bodily senses, the which things,
we have said, cannot serve as means, it can make no
use of natural intelligence.
And, if we speak of the supernatural (in so far as
is possible in this life of our ordinary faculties),
the understanding in its bodily prison has no
preparation or capacity for receiving the clear
knowledge of God; for such knowledge belongs not to
this state, and we must either die or remain without
receiving it. Wherefore Moses, when he entreated God
for this clear knowledge, was told by God that he
would be unable to see Him, in these words: 'No man
shall see Me and remain alive.'[260] Wherefore Saint
John says: 'No man hath seen God at any time,[261]
neither aught that is like to Him.' And Saint Paul
says, with Isaias: 'Eye hath not seen Him, nor hath
ear heard Him, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man.'[262]
And it is for this reason that, as is said in the
Acts of the Apostles,[263] Moses, in the bush, durst
not consider for as long as God was present; for he
knew that his understanding could make no
consideration that was fitting concerning God,
corresponding to the sense which he had of God's
presence.
And of Elias, our father, it is said that he
covered his face on the Mount in the presence of
God[264] -- an action signifying the blinding of his
understanding, which he wrought there, daring not to
lay so base a hand upon that which was so high, and
seeing clearly that whatsoever he might consider or
understand with any precision would be very far from
God and completely unlike Him.
5. Wherefore no supernatural apprehension or
knowledge in this mortal state can serve as a
proximate means to the high union of love with God.
For all that can be understood by the understanding,
that can be tasted by the will, and that can be
invented by the imagination is most unlike to God and
bears no proportion to Him, as we have said.
All this Isaias admirably explained in that most
noteworthy passage, where he says: 'To what thing
have ye been able to liken God? Or what image will ye
make that is like to Him? Will the workman in iron
perchance be able to make a graven image? Or will he
that works gold be able to imitate Him[265] with
gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?'[266]
By the workman in iron is signified the
understanding, the office of which is to form
intelligences and strip them of the iron of species
and images. By the workman in gold is understood the
will, which is able to receive the figure and the
form of pleasure, caused by the gold of love. By the
silversmith, who is spoken of as being unable to
form[267] Him with plates of silver, is understood
the memory, with the imagination, whereof it may be
said with great propriety that its knowledge and the
imaginings that it can invent[268] and make are like
plates of silver.
And thus it is as though he had said: Neither the
understanding with its intelligence will be able to
understand aught that is like Him, nor can the will
taste pleasure and sweetness that bears any
resemblance to that which is God, neither can the
memory set in the imagination ideas and images that
represent Him. It is clear, then, that none of these
kinds of knowledge can lead the understanding direct
to God; and that, in order to reach Him, a soul must
rather proceed by not understanding than by desiring
to understand; and by blinding itself and setting
itself in darkness, rather than by opening its eyes,
in order the more nearly to approach the ray Divine.
6. And thus it is that contemplation, whereby the
understanding has the loftiest knowledge of God, is
called mystical theology, which signifies secret
wisdom of God; for it is secret even to the
understanding that receives it. For that reason Saint
Dionysius calls it a ray of darkness. Of this the
prophet Baruch says: 'There is none that knoweth its
way, nor any that can think of its paths.'[269]
It is clear, then, that the understanding must be
blind to all paths that are open to it in order that
it may be united with God. Aristotle says that, even
as are the eyes of the bat with regard to the sun,
which is total darkness to it, even so is our
understanding to that which is greater light in God,
which is total darkness to us. And he says further
that, the loftier and clearer are the things of God
in themselves, the more completely unknown and
obscure are they to us. This likewise the Apostle
affirms, saying: 'The lofty things of God are the
least known unto men.'[270]
7. But we should never end if we continued at this
rate to quote authorities and arguments to prove and
make clear that among all created things, and things
that can be apprehended by the understanding, there
is no ladder whereby the understanding can attain to
this high Lord. Rather it is necessary to know that,
if the understanding should seek to make use of all
these things, or of any of them, as a proximate means
to such union, they would be not only a hindrance,
but even an occasion of numerous errors and delusions
in the ascent of this mount. |