Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/129

 is recognized as existing. But, at the same time, since the conception of God cannot be anything but a conception of the beginning of everything conceived by reason, it is evident that God, as the beginning of everything, cannot be comprehended by reason. Only by following along the path of rational thinking can God be found at the extreme limit of reason, but the moment this conception is reached, reason ceases to comprehend. It is this that is expressed in all the passages which are quoted from Holy Scripture and from the holy fathers, seemingly for and against the comprehensibility of God.

From the profound, sincere statements of the apostles and the fathers of the church, which prove only the incomprehensibility of God, is deduced, in a mere external manner, the comprehensibility of God. It is the dialectic problem of the Theology to prove that God cannot be comprehended altogether, but that he can be comprehended “in part.” Not only is the reasoning purposely twisted, but in these pages I for the first time came across a direct mutilation, not only of the meaning, but also of the words of Holy Scripture. The real text of John i. 18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” is rendered by different words. From the famous 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which treats on love, one verse is quoted in a mutilated form in order to prove the thesis.

Then follow quotations from the holy fathers: “The Divinity will be limited if it is comprehended by reason, for conception is a form of limitation,” says one of those whom the Theology counts among the advocates of incomprehensibility.

“What I call incomprehensible is not that God exists, but what he is. Do not use our sincerity as a cause for atheism,” says Gregory the Divine, whom the Theology counts among the advocates of comprehensibility.