_cannot be comprehended by the knowledge of God._
As for their other assertion, that God's knowledge cannot comprehend
things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm, in order that
they may sound the depths of their impiety, that God does not know
all numbers. For it is very certain that they are infinite; since,
no matter at what number you suppose an end to be made, this number
can be, I will not say, increased by the addition of one more, but
however great it be, and however vast be the multitude of which it
is the rational and scientific expression, it can still be not only
doubled, but even multiplied. Moreover, each number is so defined by
its own properties, that no two numbers are equal. They are therefore
both unequal and different from one another; and while they are
simply finite, collectively they are infinite. Does God, therefore,
not know numbers on account of this infinity; and does His knowledge
extend only to a certain height in numbers, while of the rest He is
ignorant? Who is so left to himself as to say so? Yet they can hardly
pretend to put numbers out of the question, or maintain that they
have nothing to do with the knowledge of God; for Plato,[551] their
great authority, represents God as framing the world on numerical
principles; and in our books also it is said to God, "Thou hast
ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight."[552] The
prophet also says, "Who bringeth out their host by number."[553] And
the Saviour says in the Gospel, "The very hairs of your head are all
numbered."[554] Far be it, then, from us to doubt that all number
is known to Him "whose understanding," according to the Psalmist,
"is infinite."[555] The infinity of number, though there be no
numbering of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him
whose understanding is infinite. And thus, if everything which is
comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him
who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite
to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. Wherefore, if the
infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God, by
which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should
presume to fix limits to His knowledge, and say that unless the same
temporal things be repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God
cannot either foreknow His creatures that He may make them, or know
them when He has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply manifold,
and uniform in its variety, comprehends all incomprehensibles with
so incomprehensible a comprehension, that though He willed always
to make His later works novel and unlike what went before them, He
could not produce them without order and foresight, nor conceive them
suddenly, but by His eternal foreknowledge.