 | |
Ars Brevis | | |
 1. God
1. The First Subject, God, Discussed with the Principles
God can be discussed with the principles and the rules. Now God is good, great etc. Many definitions
of God can be given, in the broad sense. But here we only
give one of Him: God is the being who needs nothing outside himself, because every perfection is in
Him.
By this definition, god is different from all other beings, because all other beings need something
outside of themselves.
In God there is no contrariety or minority, because these are privative and defective principles.
Nonetheless, in God there is majority with regard to other beings. And there is equality, because He
has equal principles, namely goodness, greatness etc. and He
has equal relations and acts.
In God there is difference between correlatives, without which these correlatives have no way of existing;
nor can God have infinite and eternal intrinsic action
without them; so much so that without them, all His reasons would remain idle, which is utterly impossible.
In God there is concordance, with which He is infinitely and eternally removed from contrariety, and
His correlatives convene infinitely and eternally in one essence
and nature; and the same can be said about His reasons.
In God there is neither quantity, nor time, nor any accident. This is because His substance is stripped
of all accidents and segregated from them, because it is
infinite and eternal. Now that God has been conditioned with the four above conditions, the intellect
understands that it is conditioned to understand God and the
things that can be said about him with the principles and rules proper to God, and it knows and understands
that if angels, like other creatures, have their own
innate natural power, God has much more of it, as He is a much loftier subject, according to the proof
concluding from the smaller to the greater.
| 
