Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/164

 the borders of something limited. I am not exaggerating, am not on purpose expressing myself in a strange manner, on the contrary, I am using every effort to soften the wildness of the expressions. Read pp. 123-125! What am I saying! Open those two volumes anywhere, and read them! It is all the time the same, and the farther you proceed, the more liberated from all laws of the connection of thoughts and words!

“21. The will of God may be viewed from two sides: in itself and in relation to creatures. In the first case it presents itself to us (a) in the highest degree free according to its essence, and (b) all-holy in its free activity. In the latter it appears, first of all, (a) all-good,—since goodness is the first and chief cause of all divine acts in relation to all creatures, rational and irrational; then, (b) in particular, in relation to rational creatures only, true and correct, for it is revealed to them in the form of a moral law for their wills, and in the form of promises or moral incitements toward the performance of this law; finally (c) all-just, in so far as it watches the moral actions of these creatures and repays them according to their deserts. Thus the chief properties of the will of God, or, more correctly, the chief divine properties according to his will, are (1) highest freedom, (2) completest holiness, (3) infinite goodness, (4) completest truth and correctness, and (5) infinite justice.” (pp. 129 and 130.)

So it turns out that the limitless, unlimited God is free, and this is proved by texts. And, as always, the texts show that those who wrote and spoke those words did not understand God and only approached a comprehension of him and spoke of a strong, pagan god, but not of the God we believe in.

“I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my out-stretched arm, and have given it unto