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De Moor IV:16: God as Intelligent Substance

3. α. The first Spiritual Faculty, with which God, as a Living Spiritual Substance, is furnished, is Intellect, which is expressly attributed to God in Sacred Scripture, Psalm 139:2; 147:5; and which is supposed in Knowledge, in such a way that Intellect better expresses the power of understanding, Knowledge the exercise of understanding; while the Eyes, Ears, and Nostrils ascribed to God are often emblems of of this Faculty of Intellect also. Neither is the first cause to be deprived of this Perfection, which one among the others is also chief. Neither is He able to act except in a rational mode, because He does not act by chance or by brute instinct, nor is He directed to certain ends by another; both of which are refuted both by the Independent Perfection of the divine Life, and by the entire arrangement of the Universe, which is such that even night to night proclaims the consummate Knowledge of the Creator.[1] The Conscience of each and every one joins in support: Who would acknowledge Deity that he would not worship? But who, except an exceedingly ἀσύνετος/witless Idolater would worship what he judges not to be furnished with Intelligence?


This is to be insisted on against Spinoza, who does indeed in some places attribute Infinite Intellect to God, but in other places altogether denies Intellect to Him, and contends that neither Intellect nor Will pertain to the Nature of God: see Most Eminent NIEUWENTYT, Gronden van Zekerheid, part IV, chapter V, § 7, 8, page 263, chapter XIII, § 7-9, pages 300-305, chapter XIV, page 350, who on page 349 shows that it is also able to be demonstrated out of Spinoza that the Infinite Intellect of the Spinozistic God at the same time has parts and is without parts.

[1] Psalm 19:2.

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