PART I: CONCERNING GOD.
Page: 17

his intellect, he would not be able to create anything more, and
this, they think, would clash with God's omnipotence; therefore,
they prefer to asset that God is indifferent to all things, and
that he creates nothing except that which he has decided, by some
absolute exercise of will, to create. However, I think I have
shown sufficiently clearly (by Prop. xvi.) that from God's
supreme power, or infinite nature, an infinite number of
things--that is, all things have necessarily flowed forth in an
infinite number of ways, or always flow from the same necessity;
in the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows from
eternity and for eternity, that its three interior angles are
equal to two right angles. Wherefore the omnipotence of God has
been displayed from all eternity, and will for all eternity
remain in the same state of activity. This manner of treating the
question attributes to God an omnipotence, in my opinion, far
more perfect. For, otherwise, we are compelled to confess that
God understands an infinite number of creatable things, which he
will never be able to create, for, if he created all that he
understands, he would, according to this showing, exhaust his
omnipotence, and render himself imperfect. Wherefore, in order
to establish that God is perfect, we should be reduced to
establishing at the same time, that he cannot bring to pass
everything over which his power extends; this seems to be a
hypothesis most absurd, and most repugnant to God's omnipotence.

Further (to say a word concerning the intellect and the will
which we attribute to God), if intellect and will appertain to
the eternal essence of God, we must take these words in some
significance quite different from those they usually bear. For
intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God,
would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human
intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with
them but the name; there would be about as much correspondence
between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly
constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. This I will
prove as follows. If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it