CONTRA FATUM

“[...]when we see the execrable character of evil, we grasp His own unalterable pureness as regards this: when we consider death's dissolution to be the worst of ills, we give the name of Immortal and Indissoluble at once to Him Who is removed from every conception of that kind” ( CE 2 477, NPNF, p. 298)

"Perhaps we have not clearly learned that the names which signify that which comes into being are successive to the things and that nominal words are like the shadows of things, which receive form according to the movements of that which subsists in hypostasis ( τῶν ὑφεστωτων)?" (CE II, GNO I, 269, 11-14, tr. Maspero, 2007, p. 104)

"[...]conception is the method by which we discover things that are unknown, going on to further discoveries by means of what adjoins to and follows from our first perception with regard to the thing studied. For when we have formed some idea of what we seek to know, by adapting what follows to the first result of our discoveries we gradually conduct our inquiry to the end of our proposed research. But why enumerate the greater and more splendid results of this faculty? For every one who is not unfriendly to truth can see for himself that all else that Time has discovered for the service and benefit of human life, has been discovered by no other instrumentality than that of conception." (ἐπίνοια, i.e. ἔφοδος εὑρετικὴ τῶν ἀγνοουμένων, διὰ τῶν προσεχῶν τε καὶ ἀκολούθων...τὸ ἐφέξῆς ἐξευρίσκουσα) (Answer to Eunomius' Second Book, NPNF, p. 268)

”Since the spirit is in itself something thinking and immaterial, it would have a savage (αμιχτον) and incommunicable beauty if its interior movement had not been capable of being revealed by an ingenious invention (ἐπίνοια). It is to this end that this organic constitution was necessary, so that the interior movement might succeed in being interpreted (ἑρμηνευση) through the varied formation of articulations by touching, like a plectrum, the organs destined for the voice.” (De Op. Hom. tr. Balthasar, p. 60)

“The Divine Nature, whatever It may be in Itself, surpasses (ὑπέρκειται) every mental concept (ἐπινοίας). For It is altogether inaccessible (ἀπρόσιτος) to reasoning (ἐπινοίαις) and conjecture (στοχαστικαῖς), nor has there been found any human faculty (δύναμις) capable of perceiving the incomprehensible; for we cannot devise a means of understanding inconceivable things. Therefore the great Apostle calls His ways unsearchable, meaning by this that the way that leads to (σημαίνων) knowledge (τὴν γνῶσιν) of the Divine Essence is inaccessible to thought (λογισμοῖς). That is to say, none of those who have passed through life before us has made known to the intelligence so much as a trace (σημαινο) by which might be known what is above knowledge. Since such is He whose nature is above every nature, the Invisible and Incomprehensible is seen and apprehended in another manner. Many are the modes (τρόποι) of such perception. For it is possible to see Him who has made all things in wisdom by way...

“But if it be part of our religion to attribute to Him none of these things, then it is a sacred duty to use of Him names privative of the things abhorrent to His Nature, and to say all that we have so often enumerated already, viz. that He is imperishable, and unending, and ungenerate, and the other terms of that class, where the sense inherent in each only informs us of the privation of that which is obvious to our perception, but does not interpret the actual nature of that which is thus removed from those abhorrent conditions.” (CE 2, NPNF p. 308) "εἰ δὲ τούτων εὐαγές ἐστιν οὐδὲν περὶ αὐτὸν ἐννοεῖν, εὐσεβὲς ἂν εἴη πάντως τοῖς χωριστικοῖς τῶν ἀπεμφαινόντων ῥήμασιν ἐπ' αὐτοῦ κεχρῆσθαι καὶ λέ γειν ταῦτα ἃ ἤδη πολλάκις εἰρήκαμεν, ἄφθαρτόν τε καὶ ἀτελεύτητον καὶ ἀγέννητον καὶ ὅσα τοῦ τοιούτου εἴδους ἐστί, τῆς ἐγκειμένης ἑκάστῳ τούτων τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐμφά σεως μόνον τὸν χωρισμὸν τῶν ἡμῖν προχείρων εἰς κατα νόησιν διδασκούσης, οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν τὴν τῶν ἀπεμφαι νόντων κεχωρ...

”[...]when we consider death's dissolution to be the worst of ills, we give the name of Immortal and Indissoluble at once to Him Who is removed from every conception of that kind[...]” (CE 2, p. 298)

"[...]is it strange that the Prophet, knowing the Divine will, so far as it was lawful for him to tell it and for us to hear it, revealed it by known and familiar words, describing God's discourse after human fashion, not indeed expressed in words, but signified by the effects themselves?” (CE 2, p. 277)

“[...]whereas no suitable word has been found to express the Divine nature, we address God by many names, each by some distinctive touch adding something fresh to our notions respecting Him[...] I say, then, that men have a right to such word-building, adapting their appelations to their subject, each man according to his judgment[...]” (CE 2)

“[...]God is of Himself what also He is believed to be, but He is named, by those who call upon Him, not what He is essentially (for the nature of Him Who alone is is unspeakable), but He receives His appelations from what are believed to be His operations in regard to our life.” (CE 2, p. 265)

”Thus the whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself. And even if it somehow thinks it is looking at something beyond itself, that which it sees outside itself has no being. One may struggle to surpass or transcend diastemic conception (διάστηματικην εννοιαν) by the understanding of the created universe, but he does not transcend. For in every object it conceptually discovers, it always comprehends the diastema in the being of the apprehended object, and diastema is nothing other than creation itself.” (In Eccl. GNO V, 412, 6-14)

"In applying such appelations to the divine essence, 'which passes all understanding', we do not seek to glory in it by the names we employ, but to guide our own selves by the aid of such terms towards the comprehension of things which are hidden." (Contra Eunomium, NPNF, p. 265)