Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/163

 p. 95), we have had disclosed to us the essential properties of God (Art. 18, p. 102). Of the essential properties of God there have now been disclosed to us the essential properties of God in general (Art. 19, p. 103). We still are to get the disclosure of the properties, at first, of God’s mind (Art. 20, p. 122), and then of the properties of God’s will (Art. 21, p. 129).

“God’s mind may be viewed from two sides: from the theoretical and from the practical side, that is, in itself and in relation to God’s actions. In the first case we get the idea of one property of this mind, of omniscience; in the latter, of another, of the highest all-wisdom.”

God knows everything in himself. What else does he know if he has all-wisdom? On p. 127 it says:

“All-wisdom consists in the completest knowledge of the best purposes and the best means, and at the same time in the fullest ability to apply the latter to the first.”

The knowledge of the best purposes and means! But how can an unlimited, all-satisfied being have any purposes? And what concept of means can there be applied to an almighty being? But that is not enough:

“Holy Scripture defines in detail the subjects of the divine knowledge. It bears testimony in general to the fact that God knows everything, and in particular, that he knows himself and everything outside of himself: everything possible and actual, everything past, present, and future.” (p. 122.)

Then, in parts, with quotations from Holy Scripture, the author proves that God knows (a) everything, (b) himself, (c) everything possible, (d) everything existing, (e) the past, (f) the present, (g) the future. But God is outside of time, according to the Theology, above time,—so what past and future is there for him? And God is outside of space,—he is an unlimited, limitless, omniscient being,—how can there be anything “outside of” him? “Outside of” means beyond the limits, beyond