Complete Works, Vol. XXXIV

Length. error. Jeremiah 31:3: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity," that is, on you. There is also the length of patience, by which He waits for the wicked: for He dissembles the sins of men for the sake of repentance. There is in Him the height of wisdom, by which He surpasses every sense. The Apostle: "All things are naked and open to his eyes" Hebrews 4:13.
Depth. There is also in Him the depth of justice, by which He condemns sinners. Matthew 25:41: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire."

CHAPTER XV.

There should be no doubt that God is infinite: because since power and essence are the same in God, it is clear that His essence is infinite, just as His power is. Whence, just as the power of God cannot be so much in many things that it could not be in more, so the essence of God is not so much in some things that it could not be in more; indeed, if there were infinite worlds, He would fill them all.
Furthermore, since God is the efficient, formal, and final cause of things, just as one cannot say of God, insofar as He is the efficient cause, that He is "effected," nor insofar as He is the formal cause that He is "formed," by the same reasoning, one cannot say, since He is the final cause, that He is "finite." Therefore, in no way should it be said that God is finite according to substance, unless "finite" is said to mean complete and perfect.
Finite is threefold: negatively, privatively, contrarily. Certainly, the infinite is said to be threefold: namely, negatively, privatively, and contrarily or disparately. The infinite is called negative by the denial of an end; and thus that which is not finished is called infinite; and in this way, that which is not born to be finished is infinite. The infinite is privative if it is born to be finished, yet is not finished. The infinite is contrary if it has a contrary disposition to being finished. In the first way, the divine essence is infinite, because it does not have an end, nor is it born to be finished. Similarly, if it is said to be infinite in the third way. But if it is said to be infinite privatively, thus it cannot be said to be finite, because it is not born to be finished, but rather it is that which finishes all things.
Item, an end is said to be threefold: for it is called a limit, and according to this, continuous quantity is posited as infinite, because it is not dimensionable into infinity, and this is so because in the continuous there is no limit in production, just as there is no limit in addition in numbers. In another way, an end is said to be the same as perfection. In a third way, an end is said to be that for the sake of which each thing is finished. In the first way, God is infinite, not according to dimensional quantity, which is not in God, but according to virtual quantity, which is in Him. But because in God there is an all-manner of indivision of virtue and essence, there cannot be an infinity of virtue without there also being an infinity of essence. In the second way, matter is called infinite because it lacks perfection. In the third way, the evil of fault is called infinite, because it is not ordered to an end.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Creator cannot be known by the creature to the full, either in this way i.e., in this life or even in the homeland i.e., in heaven, because there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite. The Trinity is known only to Itself, and to the man Christ. Whence Bernard says: "Nothing is more present than God, and nothing more incomprehensible: for what is more present to any thing than its own being?" Indeed, I would call God the being of all things, not that those things are