GOD According to Eriugena, God is not good but more than good, not wise but more than wise, not eternal but more than eternal This language, of course, does not really add anything, except a tone of awe, to the denial that any of these predicates are literally true of God Eriugena even goes as far as to say that God is not God but more than God So too with the individual persons of the Trinity: the Father is not a Father except metaphorically Among the Aristotelian categories that, according to Eriugena, are to be denied of God are those of action and passion God neither acts nor is acted upon, except metaphorically: strictly he neither moves nor is moved, neither loves nor is loved The Bible tells us that God loves and is loved, but that has to be interpreted in the light of reason Reason is superior to authority; authority is derived from reason and not vice versa; reason does not require any conWrmation from authority Reason tells us that the Bible is not using nouns and verbs in their proper sense, but using allegories and metaphors to go to meet our childish intelligence ‘Nothing can be said properly about God, since he surpasses every intellect, who is better known by not knowing, of whom ignorance is the true knowledge, who is more truly and faithfully denied in all things than aYrmed’ (Periphyseon, 1) Our knowledge of God, such as it is, is derived both from the metaphorical statements of theology and from ‘theophanies’, or manifestations of God to particular persons, such as the visions of the prophets God’s essence is unknown to men and angels: indeed, it is unknown to God himself Just as I, a human being, know that I am, but not what I am, so God does not know what he is If he did, he would be able to deWne himself; but the inWnite cannot be deWned It is no insult to God to say that he does not know what he is; for he is not a what (Periphyseon, 2) In describing the relation between God and his creatures Eriugena uses language which is easily interpreted as a form of pantheism, and it was this that led to his condemnation by a Pope three and a half centuries later God, he says, may be said to be created in creatures, to be made in the things he makes, and to begin to be in the things that begin to be (Periphyseon, 12) Just as our intellect creates its own life by engaging in actual thinking, so too God, in giving life to creatures, is making a life for himself To those who regarded such statements as Xatly incompatible with Christian orthodoxy, Eriugena could no doubt have replied that, like all other positive statements about God, they were only metaphors 287