Brian Hamilton

If you can grasp it, it isn’t God

We must have no such ideas, no such thoughts about that Word. We must not form images of spiritual realities in materialistic terms. That Word, that God, is not less in his parts than in the whole. But you are quite unable to imagine or think of such a thing. And such ignorance is more religious and devout than any presumption of knowledge. After all, we are talking about God. It says, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1). We are talking about God; so why be surprised if you cannot grasp it? I mean, if you can grasp it, it isn’t God. Let us rather make a devout confession of ignorance, instead of a brash profession of knowledge, Certainly it is great bliss to have a little touch or taste of God with the mind; but completely to grasp him, to comprehend him, is altogether impossible.

God belongs to the mind, he is to be understood; material bodies belong to the eyes, they are to be seen. But do you imagine you can completely grasp, or comprehend, a body with your eyes? You most certainly can’t. I mean, whatever you look at, you are not looking at the whole of it. When you see someone’s face, you don’t see their back while you see their face; and when you see their back, you don’t at that moment see their face. So then you don’t see things in such a way as to grasp or comprehend them whole…. So then, brothers and sisters, what can be said about that Word? Look, here we are, saying about material things staring us in the face, that we cannot take them all in, grasp them totally, by a look. So what mind’s eye will be able to grasp God, take all of him in? It is enough to touch his fringes, if the mind’s eye is pure. But if it does touch upon him, it does so with a kind of immaterial and spiritual touch, but still does not embrace or comprehend him all; and that too, if the mind is pure.

And we human beings are made blessed by our hearts just brushing against that which abides always blessed; and that is itself eternal blessedness; and that by which we are made alive is eternal life; that by which we are made wise is perfect wisdom; that by which we are enlightened is eternal light. And notice how by brushing against it you are made into what you were not, while that which you brush against is not made into what it was not. What I am saying is: God does not increase thanks to those who know him, but those who know him do, thanks to their knowledge of God.

—St. Augustine, Sermon 117, 4–5

2 May 2008 |
tags: Augustine, Negative Theology, Phenomenology