Sect. 71The Ineffability of GodThe Ineffability of God
I. An object may be ineffable in two ways. First, the knowledge we have of it may be defective, and consequently the expression of it must be defective; or, secondly, language may be inadequate to express the knowledge really possessed.
1. God is ineffable or inexpressible inasmuch as no created mind has an adequate knowledge of Him. In this sense the Divine Ineffability is a corollary of the Divine Incomprehensibility, and is likewise a matter of faith. We have already explained in § 56 how, notwithstanding the attribute of Ineffability, man is able to speak about God and to give Him various names.
2. God is also ineffable in the sense that no created mind can give to the highest knowledge of God an expression adequate to convey it to other minds. In this sense the Divine Ineffability is a corollary of the Divine Invisibility. Moreover, a created medium cannot be adequate to convey a knowledge of the Infinite as it is in itself. The kind of ineffability in question belongs also, to a certain extent, to the supernatural knowledge of God sometimes communicated to saints even in this life—a knowledge which they cannot express in words; like St. Paul, who “heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4).
II. It is highly probable, though by no means certain, that in the Beatific Vision the knowledge of the blessed is not a mental representation (species expressa), as in all other acts of intellectual cognition. If this is the case, God is ineffable to such a degree that not only is an adequate expression of Him impossible, but even any sort of expression of Him as He is in Himself.
III. To Himself, however, God is not ineffable. He produces in Himself an adequate expression of His Being which is His consubstantial Word (λόγος.) By means of this Word, Who is, as it were, the Face of God, the blessed see the Divine Essence as it is in itself.
I. An object may be ineffable in two ways. First, the knowledge we have of it may be defective, and consequently the expression of it must be defective; or, secondly, language may be inadequate to express the knowledge really possessed.
1. God is ineffable or inexpressible inasmuch as no created mind has an adequate knowledge of Him. In this sense the Divine Ineffability is a corollary of the Divine Incomprehensibility, and is likewise a matter of faith. We have already explained in § 56 how, notwithstanding the attribute of Ineffability, man is able to speak about God and to give Him various names.
2. God is also ineffable in the sense that no created mind can give to the highest knowledge of God an expression adequate to convey it to other minds. In this sense the Divine Ineffability is a corollary of the Divine Invisibility. Moreover, a created medium cannot be adequate to convey a knowledge of the Infinite as it is in itself. The kind of ineffability in question belongs also, to a certain extent, to the supernatural knowledge of God sometimes communicated to saints even in this life—a knowledge which they cannot express in words; like St. Paul, who “heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4).
II. It is highly probable, though by no means certain, that in the Beatific Vision the knowledge of the blessed is not a mental representation (species expressa), as in all other acts of intellectual cognition. If this is the case, God is ineffable to such a degree that not only is an adequate expression of Him impossible, but even any sort of expression of Him as He is in Himself.
III. To Himself, however, God is not ineffable. He produces in Himself an adequate expression of His Being which is His consubstantial Word (λόγος.) By means of this Word, Who is, as it were, the Face of God, the blessed see the Divine Essence as it is in itself.
Seção 25% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.