Reason and Faith [pp. 648-685]

Reason and Faith.
mind may believe that some apparent contradictions are not
real, and that completer knowledge will dissipate them. This
state of things may often occur with regard to God and divine
verities. But it is wholly different from that contemplated in
this volume. It is perfectly consistent with our KNOWING in
whom we have believed, and that he is able to keep that which
we commit to him. Nay,
4. We believe that he is "able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think." We know that love which
yet passeth knowledge. We comprehend in one sense, a
height, and depth, and length, and breadth, which in another
sense defy comprehension. We know God. We know his
attributes. But we know his attributes and excellencies as
unlimited by the bounds of our knowledge, or any other
bounds-i. e., as infinite. But while God has thus all perfections in a degree surpassing our comprehension, yet we have
some knowledge of what thus passes our knowledge. Have
we no idea of what is meant by omnipotence, eternity, absolute
and infinite wisdom and goodness? A standard method of
defining the manner of our knowledge of God, is, that we
obtain it by way of causality, by way of eminence, by way of
negation. Our own consciousness of producing effects by our
own volitions enables us to have some idea of the First and
Omnipotent Cause making all things out of nothing. We
have a consciousness of knowledge, of approving righteousness
and condemning iniquity. We can have some idea then of
consummate intellectual and moral excellence in the Most
high. By negation is meant the removal of limits to any
excellence or attribute of God. Do we not in this way attain
a true though imperfect knowledge of God, and his adorable
perfections? It is to no purpose to retort upon this, as is done
by writers of the German school, that we thus form a conception of a magnified or infinite man, rather than of God. We
have the testimony of God himself, that man was made in the
image of God, and that this image consists in knowledge and
righteousness. And can we not know God primarily from this
similitude to him, and secondarily and still more fully by the
infinite distance between him and us, between the Infinite
and the finite? Dr. Young very forcibly calls attention to the
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