Howbeit for both causes shall they be justly punished: both because they thought not well of God, giving heed unto idols, and also unjustly swore in deceit, despising holiness.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Solomon 14:30 Go To Wisdom of Solomon 14
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Some attempt to apply to incorporeal and spiritual beings what they have perceived of corporeal beings through sensible experience or what they have learned about them thanks to the very nature of human intelligence, to keen reflection and with the aid of science. They want to measure and represent the former based on the latter. Others have an idea about God, if you can call this having an idea, consistent with the nature and affections of the human soul. From this error it follows that they discuss God based on incorrect and false principles. There are still others who attempt to transcend the created universe, which is obviously changeable, and to raise their vision to that unchanging being that is God. But, weighed down by their mortal nature and wanting to appear wise in what they do not know, and incapable of knowing what they want to know, they insist too boldly on conjectures. They thus preclude the ways of understanding, preferring to persist in their mistaken opinions rather than changing the opinion they once defended. This is the true evil of the three categories of persons we have just spoken of: those who think of God after the manner of bodily beings, those who conceive of him in a way consistent with spiritual creatures, like the soul, and finally those who, though keeping well away from corporeal and spiritual things, "thought erroneously about God," distancing themselves even more from the truth in that their idea of God is drawn neither from sensible experience, nor from spiritual creatures nor from the Creator himself.
