terior to himself;”[1] “The Demiurgus of wholes looking to himself and always abiding in his own accustomed manner, produces the whole world, totally and at once collectively, and with eternally invariable sameness; for he does not make (create things) at one time, and at another not, lest he should depart from eternity.”[2] Spinoza as usual expresses the thought better for us. Condemning the views of some he says: “These latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar, or which he aims at as a definite goal.”[3]
The reader will excuse me for insisting on his discerning the far-reaching import of these quotations from the Neoplatonists and Spinoza. It is hardly possible to overestimate their bearing on the eternal character of the world, the timeless process of the creative act and the nature of the divine mind which necessitates such a process or is thereby revealed.
Hear Mrs. Eddy on this subject once more: “For God to know is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally exist;”[4] “He who is all understands all. He can have no knowledge or inference but his own consciousness;”[5] “What Deity foreknows Deity must foreordain, else he is
- ↑ On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 364.) cf. Bk. 4. (Vol. II. p. 257.)
- ↑ On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 237.)
- ↑ Eth. 1. 33. Note 2. cf. Eth. 1. Appendix.
- ↑ No and Yes. p. 24.
- ↑ No and Yes. p. 25.
