A disqualification in the nature of thought for knowing _x_ is, from the other side, a disqualification in the nature of _x_ from being known.

To say then that the First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is not simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part: it is a charge of inability against the First Cause too.

The dictum about it is this: 'It is a Being that may exist out of knowledge, but that is precluded from entering within the sphere of knowledge.' We are told in one breath that this Being must be in every sense 'perfect, complete, total--including in itself all power, and transcending all law' (p.

38); and in another that this perfect and omnipotent One is totally incapable of revealing any one of an infinite store of attributes.

Need we point out the contradictions which this position involves?
If you abide by it, you deny the Absolute and Infinite in the very act of affirming it, for, in debarring the First Cause from self-revelation, you impose a limit on its nature.