process, and the knowledge of God which is always immediate or intuitive, or is simply consciousness. In the quotation from Spinoza, just given, in which he says “intellect” does not appertain to God's nature, he is making this very point. He, too, holds that God's knowledge is always immediate or intuitive knowledge or consciousness. The foundation for this strange speculation—and one could hardly discover a finer specimen of speculation is found in the statement of Plotinus, that there arises from or pertains to the “good” “an intellect not such as we possess.”[1]
I am here anticipating the discussion of Mrs. Eddy's psychology and need not now trace the comparison further. In dismissing the matter now I wish to note for the benefit of the reader that the way is being prepared by means of this kind of psychology for the teaching of the Neoplatonists, Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy, that God has no knowledge of deformity, discord or evil.
Now since Mrs. Eddy denies so much knowledge
to God we ask, why did she not deny all
knowledge to him? Since she rejects an
anthropomorphic God, how is it that she permits her god
to have any kind of knowledge, since knowledge is
a quality of human beings? Mrs. Eddy should
have followed the Neoplatonists consistently to
the end. Plotinus denies all knowledge to the one
or the good. For knoweledge requires the act of
discrimination or differentiation and in all knowl-
- ↑ 1. 8. 2. cf. 5. 3. 11; 5. 3. 13; 5. 6. 6. and 6. 9. 6. cf. Porphyry in Aux. 26; and Proclus in Prov. 1. (p. 4.)
