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Word of God, through whom alone 1 man can attain to the knowledge
of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our 2 being.
Turning now to nature, the handiwork of the Creator, we shall try to show
from it that, in one sense, the idea of plurality does not necessarily conflict
with that of unity. But before dealing with this subject at all we must beg our
readers to remember that we fully admit (1) that no perfect analogy can
be drawn between God Most High and any of His creatures and, (2) that we are
not now endeavouring to prove by these illustrations the truth of the
doctrine of the Trinity. We fully grant that this doctrine cannot be proved in
any way but one, and that is by reference to the revealed word of God Himself.
Man did not discover this truth, nor could he discover it. We have already
proved that the doctrine is clearly taught in the holy Scriptures, and we
conceive that this proof is sufficient for all who accept those Scriptures as
containing a revelation from God Most High. Our present object is merely to show
that the doctrine is not inconsistent with what we learn from a careful
study of God's works in the world around us, and of man's own inner nature.
Should any one of our illustrations in this section fail to commend itself to
our readers, or should they all seem devoid of weight, then the result will
evidently be
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DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY
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merely that our attempt to remove difficulties from his path has been
unsuccessful. But such failure on our part cannot in any way alter the fact that
the holy Scriptures teach the doctrine of the Trinity, for we are not now
dealing with the holy Scriptures. Nor are we attempting to show that nature
unequivocally teaches this divine mystery, and that it may be learned without a
divine revelation. Should any opponent, therefore, assert that nature does not
clearly teach this mystery, we fully agree with him. Our whole object in this
section, as we have said before, is only to illustrate from nature the facts
taught us by revelation in the holy Scriptures.
Philosophers have held that all things that exist may be considered to
possess severally three relations
(نِسْبَةُ) or categories, those of Essence, Form and
Effect
(الذّات
واْلصّورة
واْلقُوّة).1 Somewhat similarly it may be said that, in our thoughts
of anything that is visible or cognizable to the senses, we consider it under
the three categories of Quantity, Quality and Relation.2 Therefore
our knowledge of that object is made up of knowledge of these three matters. Or,
if we leave abstract thought and come to the examination of such a common object
as fire, we find that it may be said to consist
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