Salesian Literature

Chapter 1:  The perfections we see in God are one single infinite perfection

​

A dark-purpled sunrise (we say), or a pale grey-green sunset, are signs of rain.  Not that the sun is red, black, grey or green; that great luminary knows no change of colour.  This is merely our way of speaking – how it seems to us; the sun’s apparently varied hues are due only to changes in the intervening atmosphere.

 

In exactly the same fashion we talk about God; not as he is in himself, but as he appears to us through what he does.  We refer to him in different ways, as though he had a whole host of excellencies, perfections; all depends on how we are thinking of him.

 

If we are concerned with the way he punishes the wicked, we term him just; if it is the way he rescues sinners from their unhappy state, we extol him as merciful; if it is the way he has created all things and wrought many wonders, we call him almighty; if it is the way he fulfils his promises to the letter, we proclaim him to the truthful; if it is the way he has fashioned everything in such perfect order, we call him wise.  So we go on, down through all his many-sided activities, endowing him with a multiplicity of excellencies and perfections.

 

But, for all that, there is no variety in God, no distinction of perfections whatever.  He is a single, simple, utterly unique perfection.  In God, you see, everything is identical with his divine being.  All the perfections that we say he has in such amazing variety – they are all one, a unity that is simple, indivisible.  The sun has none of the colours that we ascribe to it; only a single surpassing white radiance that illuminates, that makes visible the colours in other things.  Neither has God each of the perfections we imagine him to have; he is a single unmixed excellence which surpasses every perfection by being the source of it in every perfect thing.

 

To give an adequate name to that supreme excellence – whose unique unity encompasses and exceeds all perfections – is beyond the powers of any creature, human or angelic.  The human mind is far too weak to form any idea of an excellence so immeasurable.  To make even the slightest reference to God, we have no option but to resort to a large selection of names, saying that he is good, wise, almighty, true, just, holy, infinite, immortal, invisible.  Most assuredly, we are speaking the truth: God is all that, for he is more than all that.  In other words, he is all those things in such a pure, excellent, eminent way that his single perfection comprises the qualities, the excellencies of every possible perfection.

​

​

Back to Top

​