Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

304 Conclusion. CHAP. xi.
It has given us an acquaintance with the limits of human
reason which we had not before, and has enabled us to
distinguish more accurately what we know from what we
do not know, what we can say from what we cannot, on
some it important questions has tested the ; correctness of
: many important assumptions but it does not follow that
those are particularly to blame who wrote before such im
provement in the acquaintance with the limits of human
reason took place.
On this definite basis, then, and with the great dis
advantage of a less accurate knowledge of the limits of
human reason than has been attained in more recent times,
S. Augustine and his school proceeded to the general ques
tion of the Divine Omnipotence. And they commenced
with an assumption, which no modern philosopher would
allow, that the Divine Power must be an absolutely un
limited thing. That the Divine Power is not liable to any
foreign control is a principle which every
one must admit
who believes properly in a Deity ; but that there is no
intrinsic limit to it in the possibilities of things would not
be admitted, in the present state of philosophy,
in which
this whole subject is properly understood to be out of the
range of human reason. The Divine Omnipotence must
be admitted practically and in every sense which can be
wanted for the purpose of religion ; but we have not facul
ties for speculation upon its real nature. These writers,
however, insisted on an unlimited omnipotence, arguing
logically upon the simple word or abstract idea, that if
omnipotence was limited, it was not omnipotence. And
upon this assumption they went on to assert that God could,
had He pleased, have created a better universe than He
has ; a universe without evil and without sin ; and that,
sin existing in the world, He could by His simple power
have removed it, and have changed the wills of all wicked
men from evil to good. Upon such an idea of the Divine
Power, these writers were indeed somewhat perplexed for
an answer to the objection which naturally arose to the
Divine Goodness. A limit supposed to the possibilities of
things is indeed an impregnable defence to the theologian