Who has seen him, that he might tell us? and who can magnify him as he is?
Read Chapter 43
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Indeed, with what understanding can a person apprehend God when he does not even apprehend that very intellect of his own by which he wants to know God? And if he does already understand this, let him diligently consider then that there is nothing better in his nature than his intellect. Let him see, then, if he discovers in it any features of form, brilliance of colors, spatial broadness, distance of parts, extension of mass, spatial dislocation, or anything else of this kind. Certainly we find nothing of this sort in that which is best in us, that is, in our intellect, with which we attain wisdom to the extent we are able. So then, what we do not find in what is best in us, we must not look for in him who is much better than what is best in us. We conceive, therefore"if we can and to the extent we can"of good without quality, greatness without quantity, creator without necessity, in the first place without location, containing all things but without exteriority, entirely present everywhere without place, eternal without time, author of changeable things while remaining absolutely unchanged and foreign to all passivity. Whoever conceives of God in this way, though he still cannot discover perfectly what he is, at least avoids, with pious diligence and to the extent possible, attributing to him what he is not. - "On the Trinity 5.1.2"
