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Grosse Errors |
He toys with the idea that a True statement might
be one about God only, but qualifies it to such an extent that he loses sight of its implications.
It is insightful of him to even ask the question
“Is it the same to be true and to be divine?” Yet without any justification, he refers to a tree as being a “true” tree, and abandons the search for a clear
definition of “truth” by not noticing the illogical reasoning in jumping from the statement “to be true is to be divine” to “that is a true tree because it is
a divine tree.” It is incomprehensible to see that a Christian would refer to a tree as a “divine” tree. He has taken a large step in the wrong direction
of logic and Biblical exegesis.
We see a hint of what he might mean by “supreme truth” when he associates the phrase with “seeing God.” But since such a phrase can be so easily misinterpreted, “seeing God” becomes possible for almost any one who is of “pure mind.” One of “pure mind” is also undefined, but seems to imply someone who is generally good-natured and well-behaved, a very low threshold for “seeing God.” Furthermore, his conjectures are based on the incorrect beliefs of Augustine instead of on Scripture, and concludes that there is “another truth” than the “supreme truth", proposing now three levels of truth:1-The supreme truth; 2- Truth as seen by those pure in heart, and 3- truth as seen by those who are NOT pure in heart!
Again: it is written in the Gospel: But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light. (John 3:21) Man, therefore, does some truth; but no one does the supreme truth. There is, therefore, another truth from it. The best commentators interpret “doing the truth” as living a conscientious life. The verse has no relevance to the nature of truth. Grosseteste misinterprets the verse and continues to build a philosophy of truth on a misunderstood verse. Again: from the words of Augustine in the book on Falsehood,7 it can be gathered that truth is double: namely, one in contemplation and the other in proposition. And the former, which is in contemplation, Augustine sets above the mind, saying this: as the mind must be set above the body, so too truth must be set above the mind, since the soul desires it, not only more than the body, but even more than itself.8 – But since nothing is to be set above the mind except God, it is evident that the truth concerning which Augustine is thinking here, is God. – After that, he does not dare to prefer the truth which is in proposition above the mind, but he intimates that it is to be preferred above all temporal things, saying this:9If any one should propose to himself so to love truth, not only truth which is in contemplation but likewise that which is in true proposition because it is true too in its genus of things, and if he should propose to bring forth opinion not otherwise by the motion of the body than it is conceived and observed in the mind, to the end that he might set the true beauty of faith above not only gold and silver and gems and pleasant estates, but above even the whole temporal life and every good of the body, I know not whether he could be said wisely to err in anything.
Grosseteste further complicates the issue by introducing the ideas of “truth in contemplation” and “truth in proposition.” It leads him to accept Augustine’s absurd conclusion that one who loves the truth above all else, becomes free of error.
In this Augustine distinguishes evidently enough two truths, the second of which he does not dare to equate to
the mind, much less prefer it. But, if he did not believe, or at least if he doubted, that the truth of proposition is other than the supreme truth, he would
not doubt that it is to be preferred to the soul.
It seems, however, that
there is not another truth than the supreme truth according to
Anselm, who in his book
On Truth10
concludes finally that there is a single truth of all truths and that
that is the supreme truth, even as there is one time of all things which
are together in one time.
Again: it is probable that if
the truth of any one statement by which the statement is true of
creatures, be the supreme truth, and if the truth of all
statements and all that can be stated be the same truth,
nothing then lacks beginning and end except the supreme truth.
But the truth of this: seven and three are ten, lacks beginning and end.
Therefore, this truth is the supreme truth.
– To this Augustine agrees in the book On the Free
Will,11
saying this:
[…] seven and three are ten, and not only now, but always; nor have seven and
three in any way at any time not been ten, nor will seven and three at any time
not be ten. I have said, therefore, that this incorruptible truth of number is
common to me and to any one at all who reasons.
The truth of such things is,
therefore, eternal and, by that, is the supreme truth.
In the same way, it was true
without beginning that
something will have been;
but it was not true
except by its own truth. Therefore, its truth is eternal and supreme; similarly,
the truth of all conditional propositions as:
if he is man, he is animal.
By hypothesis, therefore,
all statable truth is the supreme truth. Moreover, Augustine says in the book
On the True Religion12
that
truth is that which shows that which is.
Its truth, therefore, reveals the being of each thing. For
since
this is the definition of truth, it is proper for all truth to show that which is. But any truth will show the being of nothing other than the being of that of
which it is the truth. Therefore, if nothing else shows the being of any thing to the inspection of the mind than the light of the supreme truth,
there is no other truth than the supreme truth.
There is, however, in the things which are said by this eternal Speech,
a conformity to the speech itself by which they are said. Moreover, the
very conformity of things to this eternal speaking is the rightness of
them and the obligation to be what they are. For a thing is right and is
as it should be, in so far as it is in conformity to this Word. But in
so far as a thing is as it should be, to that extent it is true.
Therefore,
the truth of things is for them to be as they
should be and is their rightness and conformity to the Word by which
they are said eternally.
And since
this rightness is perceptible to the mind alone
and in this respect is distinguished from visible corporeal rightness,
it is evident that truth is defined appropriately by Anselm when he says18
that
it is rightness perceptible to the mind alone.
And this definition embraces also the supreme truth, which is rightness
rectifying as well as the truths of things which are rightnesses
rectified. Rightness, however, is in none a departing from one’s self or
a deviating from one’s self.
Again: each thing in so far as it falls short of that which it tends to
be, to that extent that which tends or contrives to be is false. For
that is false, as Augustine says in the book of
Soliloquies19
which contrives to be what it is not or in any way tends to be and is not.–
Again, the same author says in the same work:20
That is false which is accommodated to the likeness of anything and
nevertheless is not that to which it seems like.
Wherefore,
everything is true which is free from defect.
– Wherefore
truth is the privation of defect or the plentitude of being;
for a tree is a true tree when it has the plenitude of being
tree and lacks the deficiency of being tree, and what is this
plenitude of being except
conformity to the reason of tree in the eternal Word?
If everything is true which is free from defect, then both Augustine and
Grosseteste should immediately have concluded that there is nothing true in
creation because there is nothing in it which is free from defect. But
because they are unable to discard the idea that 7+3=10 must be eternally
true, they destroy logic and reason and arrive at a definition of truth that
is indefensible.
The being of things, however, is double: a first and a second: a thing can have full first being and lack the plenitude of second being. And because of this
the same thing can be true and false,
as a true man is an animal, which is composed of body and
rational soul. Augustine also makes the same distinctions: if he
is mendacious and vicious, he is a false man.– Similarly, the
proposition is true that man is an ass, because it has full
first being of discourse, but it is false because it lacks the
plenitude of second being. For the second perfection of
discourse is this, to signify that
that which is, is, and that that which is not, is not.
And when one thing is said at the same time to be true and false in this way, it is not a contrary assertion concerning the same
thing, because a plenitude and deficiency of the same being is not asserted. But when falsity is spoken of, it is
true falsity, and
the false is truly false. Is the contrary present in its contrary and does the rule of logicians fail in these terms, as it does, according to Augustine, in the case of good and evil?21
And if it fails in true and false as it does in good and evil, are there no more
contrarieties
besides these two in which it fails? – And what is the difference
between the contrarieties in which the rule of logicians fails, and the contrarieties in which it does not fail? Does the rule of logicians fail only in
those contrarieties of which one of the contraries follows being? For
every thing which is, is good; and
everything which is, is true.
Wherefore, they are not in the least false and evil, or they are not false and evil except in the true and the good.
Things can hardly get more absurd, because our philosopher has been cornered and
he proposes the ridiculous statement that the same thing can be both true and
false. Because he realizes that any created thing can be the subject of
imperfection and deception, his solution to this problem is to state that every
being is a duality of truth and falsehood. [These difficulties are evident in
many texts. Most writers begin with an incorrect definition of Truth, which
makes it impossible to come to correct conclusions.]
In this manner,
I think that
many impure men, too, see the supreme truth
and many of them do not perceive in any wise that they see it,
as, if anyone should see colored bodies for the first time in the light of the
sun and should never turn his gaze to the sun, nor should have learned from any
one that there is a sun or any other light that illumined bodies which are seen,
he would ignore wholly that he sees bodies in the light of the sun and he would
ignore that he sees anything besides only colored body. The
pure in heart,
however, and those
perfectly purified,
look upon the light of truth in itself, which the impure are not able to do.
There is no one, therefore, who knows any truth, who does not also know in some manner, knowingly or ignorantly, the supreme
truth itself.
It is evident now, therefore, how the pure in heart alone see the supreme truth and how
not even the impure are kept wholly from the vision of it.
Here is the introduction of another foolish dichotomy. “Seeing” the Supreme
Truth by “looking” upon it, and “knowing” the Supreme Truth. Our writer is
totally confused because he has no idea what Truth means.
We think too, as Augustine intimates in the book on Falsehood,24
that
the truth of things is multiplex.
Otherwise the name of truth would not take on plurality and distribution. For
the simple comparison of one to many does not make that one many, as the
comparison of one time to many temporal things which are at the same time, does
not make it many times. There are not, in fact, many times at once. In the same
way,
if there were no truth except the supreme truth
which in itself is single because of the collation of its name to many,
there could be many true things, as there are many temporal things at one time.
But there would not therefore be many truths, as there are not many times at the
same time. For the plural name or the distributed universal sign requires many
subordinates. Wherefore, they could not be called many truths or all truth
if there were not many subordinate truths.
–
The
truths of things, therefore, which are the conformities to the
reasons of things in the eternal truth,
are subordinated in such expressions. But perhaps the name of
truth is nowhere applied except to signify in some way, at least
adjacently or obliquely, the supreme truth as form of the name.
For as the truth of a thing can not be understood except in the
light of the supreme truth, so perhaps it is not to be
hypostasized through the name of truth except when it bears the
signification of the supreme truth. Truth, therefore, signified
and predicated everywhere by this name truth, is single, as
Anselm insists, to wit, the supreme truth. But
that one truth is called many truths in the many
truths of things.
Since, however, truth is consequent to all things, even to its contrary, because
the false is necessarily the true false, likewise, contrary to the rule of the
logicians, the affirmation of truth is consequent also to every negation, and
moreover it is consequent even to the destruction of itself, because it follows:
if there is no truth, it is evident that there is truth, because truth is that
which is necessarily through itself. For whence, save because it is necessarily
through itself, is it consequent to all things even to the destruction of
itself? Truth, therefore, is that which is necessarily through itself or at least that which is the consequent
necessarily to a being necessary through itself. For otherwise it would not be consequent to every affirmation and negation.– But does the rule of the
logicians truly fail here? Or does being fall outside the division of any negation, so that when being is affirmed the affirmation of truth follows from
division? In whatsoever way it is,
the light of truth is manifestly inextinguishable, which illumines even the extinction of itself and can not be corrupted in any way.
But it can be doubted
whether any truth of things, which is the conformity of the things to
their eternal reasons, be eternal and without beginning. For
the truths of mathematical propositions seem to
be eternal
and
the truths of all conditional propositions and of
all negations concerning the existence of creatures seem to have had
truth without beginning before the creation of things, inasmuch as the
world is not was true,
and true without beginning, before the creation of the world and was in
conformity with its statement by which it was said in the eternal Word.
Therefore, the conformity of the statable to its statement in the
eternal Word is not God.
Therefore, something other than God was without
beginning.
Here we arrive at the logical conclusion of such warped reasoning, when we
accept the idea that there is truth in created things. We have to accept the
idea that something other than God was without beginning.
In the same way truths of such
sayings as something will have been
are without beginning, and they are
different from each other. For the truth of the saying something
will have been is not the same as that of sayings of this sort,
seven and three are ten. For the one truth is the conformity of
the former to its statement in the eternal Word, and the other
the conformity of the latter. There are therefore many,
indeed innumerable, truths without beginning, and they will be
without end.
“There are true, eternal propositions, other than God.” It is incomprehensible how a thoughtful person could come to such erroneous
conclusions.
To reply to these contentions,
however, I suggest this example: let it be asserted that there was from eternity
a praising of Caesar and, similarly, a praising of Socrates. According to this
assertion it is true from eternity that Caesar has been praised and Socrates has
been praised, because if there is a praising of Caesar, Caesar has been praised.
Let there be, then, this word A of which the definition is Caesar praised and
this word B of which the definition is Socrates praised; then, it is true that A
is eternal and B is eternal, so that the predication is per se and not
accidentally, as it is true per se that white cannot be black. It does not,
however, follow that Caesar and Socrates are eternal or that anything is eternal
except the praising, because eternity is not assigned when A is said to be
eternal except because of praise which is eternal in praising. Because of the
eternity of this, its correlative, praise, takes on the predication of eternity.
However, such correlations as praise or passion,
do not require an eternal subject or being or anything or any existence outside
the praising except the assertion.
Our writer is saying that neither Caesar nor Socrates have to exist
eternally, as long as their praises are being sung, then those praises are
eternally true. Can anyone be taken seriously at such nonsensical reasoning?
An example of the same sort is
that God knows all things from eternity. Wherefore, if he knows A of which the
definition is Socrates known by God and B of which the definition is Plato known
by God, it will be true, speaking per se, that A is eternally, B is eternally,
because clearly B itself is known eternally by God and A is not B nor
conversely, and neither of them is God and, nevertheless,
God alone is eternally;
because, when it is said A is not B and B is not A, and neither of them is God
the predication is made of corruptible subjects. But when it is said A or B are
eternally, the predication is made per se thanks to the form by which these
names are imposed,
which obviously are
called eternal because of the eternal knowledge of God.
Nor does the truth of such
a statement require the existence or co-eternity of anything outside of God.
Similarly, therefore, when it is said this truth is eternal or this statable
fact is eternal, the predication is made by the form correlative to the
statement in the eternal Word; for this relation, however, nothing is required
to be except God.
It becomes obvious that the god that this writer has in mind is a very small
god. Not only is he not the only eternal predication, but the most
inconsequential predications have the same Eternal property as him. The
writer makes the fatal error of ascribing to God every proposition that
comes into his own mind, a very common error.
Consequently, the objections listed above will be replied to thus, or else
we shall be compelled to confess that
statable facts are nothing else than the eternal reasons of
things in the divine mind.
It can, however, be inquired,
since truth and being are the same, because truth is, as Augustine says25
that which is, whether, as there does not seem to be any truth except in the
light of the supreme truth, so there does not seem to be any being, except in
the supreme being.
However, we said above that the healthy eye of the mind seeing the first and supreme light in itself would see, too,
all other things more clearly in it than if it examined the same things in themselves.
–
But, perhaps, it is not clear to some that a
thing can be seen more clearly in its exemplar than in itself. But since
the knowledge of a thing is double, one in itself, the other in its
exemplar or likeness, when the likeness or exemplar is of more lucid
essence than the thing itself of which it is the likeness, the knowledge
of the thing in its likeness or exemplar is more noble and more clear
and more open. But when, on the contrary, the thing is of more lucid
essence than its likeness or exemplar, the knowledge itself of the thing
in itself is more clear and more open to the healthy eye of the mind
than the knowledge in its likeness or exemplar. And according to this,
since the divine essence is the most lucid light, all knowledge of it by
likenesses is more obscure than knowledge through itself, but all
knowledge of a creature is more certain and more pure and more manifest
in the most lucid eternal reasons of creatures in the divine mind (which
are the most lucid exemplars of creatures) than in the creature itself.
–
The example of this thing, however, namely that
a certain thing is seen more clearly in its likeness, is found obviously
in corporeal sight: for when a direct ray from the eye, by which ray,
clearly, the body is seen in itself, goes into a dim light, and when a
ray reflected from a mirror to the same body, by which ray, obviously,
that body is seen in its likeness, goes into a bright light, it will be
seen obscurely in itself and perspicuously in its likeness, as happens
when in the evening hours or at night trees are seen more clearly in the
water than they can be seen in themselves because of the ray reflected
from the water to the tree which passes to the lucid sky, while the ray
direct to the tree itself passes into the obscure light of some shadowy
thing opposite. On the other hand, when the ray reflected from the
mirror passes into obscure light and the ray direct to the body passes
into lucid light, the thing will be seen obscurely in its likeness and
perspicuously in itself.
The definitions of truth given above are common to all truths.
But if one descend to single things, a diversified principle [ratio] will be found for each
truth. For the truths of particular things are the definitions of their first or second being, inasmuch as the
truth of proposition, by which a proposition is true, is nothing other than the statement of something concerning something or the statement of
something from something; and that is the definition of its first being.
It seems, however, from the carefully examined statements [auctoritates] of Augustine, that the light
of the supreme truth and no other shows to the eye of the mind that which is. For he says, in his book of
Retractations,13
reconsidering something he had said concerning the opinion of Plato on
reminiscence and correcting it with these words:
For this reason, even they who are unlearned in certain disciplines give true
answers concerning them, because that is present to them, when they can grasp it in the light of eternal reason, in which they see these immutable truths.
The same Augustine says in the book
On the Free Will:14
The supreme truth reveals all goods which are true […] but just as they who
choose in the light of the sun that which they look on willingly and are
rejoiced by that sight; whereas if perchance there were any among them
endowed with very vigorous and healthy and very strong eyes, they would look
upon nothing more willingly than the sun itself, which lights up likewise
all the things by which weaker eyes are pleased: so the keen and vigorous
perception of the mind when it has gazed with sure reason on many and
immutable things, directs itself to that truth itself by which all things
are shown forth, and inhering in it, as it were, forgets other things and at
once in it enjoys them all.
Again in the book of Confessions:
15
And if we both see that what you say is true, and if we both see that what I say is true, where, I ask, do we see it? not I in you nor you in me, but both in that immutable truth which is above our minds?
The same Augustine in the book
On the Trinity:
16
When we seize by simple intelligence the ineffably beautiful art of corporeal
figures above the keen vision of the mind, we see by the sight of the mind in
that eternity, from which temporal things are made, the form, by which we are
and according to which, whether in ourselves or in bodies, we occupy ourselves
by true and right reason with anything.
The same Augustine
On John,
in homily 14:
17
No man can say that which belongs to truth unless he is illuminated by him who
can not lie.
These statements affirm evidently that everything which is
known to be true is observed to be true in the light of the supreme truth.
But if some one should say: since one and the same truth is shown at the same
time both in the light of this truth and of that other truth, does that light
of the supreme truth, then, not suffice to show what it illumines, or if it
suffices, how is the other not superfluous?
Besides, if the light of the sun wipes out the other luminaries so that when it is present they
reveal nothing to the sight of the body, how is it that that light, incomparably more lucid than any other spiritual light, will not all the
more overcome every other, so that when it is present every other light will accomplish nothing? These shadowy clouds of contrary opinions
would, perhaps, scatter and be dissipated, if the light of truth should for a short time grow clear for us. Therefore our attention must be
turned for a time to understanding what truth is.
We are accustomed to
speak commonly of the truth of propositional discourse. And this
truth, as
the Philosopher
says, is no other than being in the thing signified, as the speech
specifies. And this is what some say truth is,
the adequation of speech and thing
and the
adequation of the thing to the understanding.– But
since
the speech is truer which is silent within than the one which
sounds without,
namely, the concept of the understanding through vocal speech,
truth will be rather an adequation of interior speech and the
thing, than of exterior speech; but if interior speech itself
were an adequation of itself to the thing, it would be, not only
true speech,
but truth itself.
– Wisdom,
however, and the word, or the Speech of the Father is in the
highest degree adequated by this manner of adequation to the
thing which it speaks of and states. For thus each thing is most
fully as this speech says, nor is it otherwise in anything than
is stated in this speech; nor is it only adequated but it is
itself the adequation of itself to the things it states.
Therefore, the very Speech of the Father is, according to this
definition of truth,
in the highest degree truth.–
Nor can this Speech not be spoken nor not be adequated to that
which it says. Wherefore, truth cannot not be.
Instead of referencing the record of the Fall of man and subsequent curse placed
upon all creation, (Gen. 3:14,17) and the fact that all of creation is lacking
in perfection, and thus truth, he introduces a completely illogical idea of a
duality so that he will be able to say that he can make both true and false
propositions about any created thing.
At the same time, this seems to me the closest that Grosseteste comes to the
idea that we need a Third Truth value to be able to deal with the facts around
us. Not, as he believes, that a being is Both True and False at the same time,
but that propositions about created beings are always Neither True Nor False.
This, it seems to me, never occurred to this thinker.
He has begun with a fundamentally incorrect assumption at which so many philosophers, ancient and modern, are diverted. They assume that if a
thing exists, even a created thing, it must be able to be ascribed a value of either true or false. Until they realize that truth or falsehood have no bearing
on any created thing, they will be unable to arrive at the correct definition of Truth.
Further, the true is anything whatever whose being is
conformed to its reason in the eternal Word and the false that which contrives to be and is not conformed to its reason in
the eternal Word. Since, however, everything that is, is only that and is wholly
that which it is said to be in the eternal Word, everything that is, so far as
it is and so much as it is, is true.– But, on the other hand, is all that which is without God, something false?
For since that is false which is accommodated to the likeness of something and,
nevertheless, is not that to which it is like, yet every creature has a likeness
to something which it nevertheless is not,
it seems that every creature is something false.
But if this is true,
is man, who is the likeness and image of God and still is not God, a
false God, as the statue of a man is a false man? To say that seems
absurd. And since at present no authority occurs which determines
that,
let us put off the solution of it for the time.
The analogy of the Sun shining upon objects and helping us to perceive colors does Not hold in
the case of Truth. We as fallen creatures are totally incapable of “looking” at the truth (the sun), because the truth is not something evident to our senses or
to our thoughts. Truth must be given to us. We are able to distinguish Truth from error only after we have been given the gift of Truth. Before that time, we
are powerless to imagine it, to perceive it or to distinguish it from a myriad errors by which we are surrounded and deceived.
God, however, is in no way something false, because all likeness is of equal to equal or of
inferior to superior, but God has neither equal nor superior to whose likeness he may be accommodated.
The Son, moreover, who is most fully like the Father, is that which the Father is. Whence, there is no falsity in him from any part, but full
truth and light, and there is no darkness in [him].
(1 John 1:5)
Since, however, as was said above,
the truth of each thing is the conformity of it
to its reason in the eternal Word,
it is evident that every
created truth
is seen only in the light of the supreme truth.– But
how can the conformity of something to something
else be observed, except by having observed also that to which it
conforms?
Or, how can the rightness of the thing be recognized, since it is
rightness although it is not rightness according to itself, except in
the rule of that which is right according to itself and according to
which the thing is rectified? This rule is nothing other than the
eternal reason of the thing in the divine mind. Or,
how may it be recognized that the thing is as it
should he, unless the reason be seen according to which it should be so?
But if it be said that
this is the right reason according to which the thing should be thus, it
is asked again: where is this reason seen to be the right reason of this
thing and such as it should be, except, in turn, in its reason? And so
there will always be a regress until the thing is seen to be as it
should be in its first reason which is right according to itself. And,
therefore, the thing is as it should be because it conforms to that. All
created truth, then, is evident in so far as the light of its eternal
reason is present to the person observing, as Augustine testifies.22
Nor can any thing be known to be true in its created truth only, as a
body can not be seen to be colored in its color alone without an
extrinsic light spread upon it.
Created truth
too, therefore, shows that which is, but not in its own illumination
[lumen], but in the light [lux] of the supreme truth, as color shows
body, but only in the light spread upon it. Nor is this an insufficiency
of light, that it reveals body through color, since color itself is not
a shining light added to a superfused light; but the power of light is
this, that light does not obscure color which lights up beyond itself,
but, on the other hand, it does not illumine that which lights up beyond
itself.–
In the same fashion is the power of the light of the supreme truth,
which so illumines the created truth that, illumined itself, it reveals
the true object. Consequently, the light of the supreme truth is not to
other truths as the sun is to other luminaries of the sky, which it
obscures in its brightness, but rather as the sun to colors which it
illumines. The light alone therefore, of the supreme truth shows first
and through itself that which is, as light alone shows bodies. But by
this light the truth of the thing, too, shows that which is, as color
shows bodies by the light of the sun.
–
It is true, therefore, as Augustine testifies,23
that
no truth is perceived except in the light of
supreme truth.
But, as the weak eyes of the body do not see colored bodies, unless the
light of the sun is spread upon them, but are not able to look upon the
very light of the sun in itself, except only as it is spread upon
colored bodies, so, too, the weak eyes of the mind do not look upon true
things themselves except in the light of the supreme truth; but they are
not able to look on the supreme truth itself in itself, but only in a
kind of conjunction and superfusion in the true things themselves.
This erroneous assumption now leads our writer to another absurd conclusion,
permitting those of impure heart to perceive truth, even though previously he had concluded that this was an impossibility.
There are none who can be called perfectly purified. I cannot understand how any
Christian can even contemplate such a thought. Our writer and his predecessors
have begun with several completely unbiblical assumptions about the nature of
unregenerate and regenerated men, and thus inescapably arrive at totally
unbiblical conclusions.
In the same way it can be inquired concerning propositions
themselves.
For it is eternal that something will have been; similarly seven and three are ten; and
neither of them is the other and neither is God; therefore, they are other than God, and a great many of them are
eternal.
This writer does not know what Eternal means, therefore it is impossible for him to arrive at the correct definition of truth.
This is seen in an example such as the following: fluid water has in
itself and of itself no determined figure, but is figured always by the
figure of the container. Wherefore it can not be known and observed
truly by the mind that this water is square except by thinking and
observing that the figure of its container is square and except by
observing its shape in connection with the figure containing, figuring,
and supporting in its shape the water which is fluid and which slips of
itself, if it were left to itself, from that shape.
In the same way, every creature of itself, if it were left to itself, as
it is from nothing, it would thus slip back into nothing. –
Since,
therefore, it is not of itself, but considered in itself alone, it is
found apt to slip into nonbeing: where or how will that which is, be
seen, except in connection with that which supports it, lest it flow
into non-being and except in view of the fact that it is supported by
that? For any creature to be, therefore, is, as it seems, for it to be
supported by the eternal Word. Concerning which Word Paul says:
(Heb. 1:3)
Upholding all things
by the word of his power. Nor is it known truly that any thing is
created, unless it seems in the mind to be supported by the eternal
Word. And so, in all being, that which is to adhere to first being seems
in some manner first being, although in seeing, one may even ignore that
one sees first being, nor is posterior being seen except in the
comparison of it to the first being which supports it.
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