2. Let them dismiss, therefore, these
questions of dialectics and examine the truth, not with mischievous
exactness but with reverence. The judgment of our mind is given
us for the understanding of the truth. Now our God is the very
truth. ἡ αὐτοαλήθεια. So the
primary function of our mind is to know one God, but to know Him
so far as the infinitely great can be known by the very
small. When our eyes are first brought to the perception of
visible objects, all visible objects are not at once brought into
sight. The hemisphere of heaven is not beheld with one
glance, but we are surrounded by a certain appearance, though in
reality many things, not to say all things, in it are
unperceived;—the nature of the stars, their greatness, their
distances, their movements, their conjunctions, their intervals,
their other conditions, the actual essence of the firmament, the
distance of depth from the concave circumference to the convex
surface. Nevertheless, no one would allege the heaven to be
invisible because of what is unknown; it would be said to be
visible on account of our limited perception of it. It is
just the same in the case of God. If the mind has been
injured by devils it will be guilty of idolatry, or will be
perverted to some other form of impiety. But if it has
yielded to the aid of the Spirit, it will have understanding of
the truth, and will know God. But it will know Him, as the
Apostle says, in part; and in the life to come more
perfectly. For “when that which is perfect is come,
then that which is in part shall be done away.”
1 Cor. xiii.
10. The judgment of the mind is,
therefore, good and given us for a good end—the perception
of God; but it operates only so far as it can.