Psalm 145:3
Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
and his greatness is unsearchable.
Arnobius makes the point that God is beyond any description we can give, because human language is incapable of describing the glories of all that He is.
If you are willing to hear our conclusions [of God]…we fear to ascribe to so great a being even mental graces, and the very excellencies by which a few have been allowed with difficulty to distinguish themselves. For who will say that God is brave, firm, good, wise? who will say that He has integrity, is temperate, even that He has knowledge, understanding, forethought? that He directs towards fixed moral ends the actions on which He determines? These things are good in man; and being opposed to vices, have deserved the great reputation which they have gained.
But who is so foolish, so senseless, as to say that God is great by merely human excellencies? or that He is above all in the greatness of His name, because He is not disgraced by vice? Whatever you say, whatever in unspoken thought you imagine concerning God, passes and is corrupted into a human sense, and does not carry its own meaning, because it is spoken in the words which we use, and which are suited only to human affairs. There is but one thing man can be assured of regarding God’s nature, to know and perceive that nothing can be revealed in human language concerning God.
Arnobius of Sicca, The Case against the Pagans, Book III, cap. 19
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