NOTES
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Universe. Conditions may have been too smooth and quiescent. 23.
G. Santayana, The Unknowable, in Oxford Lectures on Philosophy 1910 to 1923, Kessinger Whitefish, MT, 1924, p. 4.
24.
R.D. Lunginbill, Theology: the study of God, http://associate.com / ministry_files/mirrors/ichthys.com/ ITheo.htm
25.
M. Wiles and M. Santer, Documents in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 6.
26.
This theological system, known as the apophatic way, from the Greek apophatikos — meaning 'negative' — is emphasised in Eastern Christianity and follows the interpretation of Gregory of Nyssa, 'Therefore St John, who also entered into this bright mist, says that no one has seen God at any time, meaning by this negation that the knowledge of the divine nature is impossible not only for humans but for every created intellect', Gregory of Nyssa, Opera Omnia, J.-P. Migne, ed., Paris, 1863, p. 376d and A. Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, Routledge, London, 1999.
27. See for example the discussions by A. Flew, God and Philosophy, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1966, and W.L. Rowe, The Cosmological Argument, Princeton University Press, 1975. 28.
http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology.html
29. There is a string of formal deductions that can be made along these ontological lines. For example, that God exists. Assume the property of existence is an attribute of perfection. Define a god as any being that has all perfections. Then it follows that All gods exist, that is, every god has the property of existence. Now assume that given any perfection Q, if all things having Property Q also have the property of existence, then there is at least one entity having the Property Q. Then we can prove that something exists, that is, there is at least one entity that has the property of existence. Now, assume first, that given any collection of perfections, the property of having all the perfections in the collection is again a perfection, and second, that given any collection of perfections, the property of having all the perfections in the collection is again a perfection. Then we