[305] I come now to his next section or paragraph, where he tries to prove that, by denying incorporeal substance, I take away God’s existence. The words he quotes here are indeed mine: ‘To say that an angel or spirit is an incorporeal substance, is to say, in effect, that there is no angel or spirit at all.’ It is also true that, to say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say, in effect, that there is no God at all. What arguments does he bring against this, apart from the scholastic ones I have already refuted? He can’t derive any arguments from the Bible, since the word ‘incorporeal’ is not found in the Bible. . . .

[306] Let us now see how he proves that God is incorporeal by his own reason, and without the Bible. He says: ‘God is either incorporeal or finite.’ He knows I deny both, and say that he is corporeal and infinite. He offers no disproof of this, but merely (as is typical of his manner of arguing) calls it ‘the root of atheism,’ and asks me what real thing is left in the world, apart from body and accidents, if God is not incorporeal. [n.2] I say that there is nothing left apart from corporeal substance, since I have denied (as he knows) that there is any reality in accidents. Nevertheless, I maintain that God exists, and that he is a most pure, and most simple corporeal spirit. . . .

[307] In the primitive church there was a heretical sect who maintained that Jesus Christ did not have a true, real body, but was only a phantasm or ghost, [n.3] or what the Romans called a ‘spectre’. Against the head of this sect (whose name I think was Apelles), Tertullian wrote a book, which is still extant, with the title On the Flesh of Christ. In this book, he discussed the nature of phantasms, and showed that they had no reality in them. He concluded with the words: ‘Whatever is not body, is nothing.’. . .

[308] So I have answered his accusation about the eternity and existence of the Divine substance, and made it evident that in fact the dispute between us is as to whether God is a phantasm (i.e. a figment of the imagination, which St. Paul says is nothing), or a corporeal spirit, that is to say, something which has magnitude. . . .

[309] Body (Latin, corpus; Greek, soma) is that substance which has indeterminate magnitude, and is the same as corporeal substance. But a body is that substance which has determinate magnitude, and consequently is understood as being something complete or whole. Pure and simple body is body which is of one and the same kind throughout all its parts. If it is mixed with body of another kind, the resultant is a compound or mixture, but the parts retain their simplicity. For example, when water and wine are mixed, the parts of both kinds of body retain their simplicity, since water and wine cannot both be in one and the same place at the same time. . . .

Spirit is thin, fluid, transparent, invisible body. The word in Latin means ‘breath’, ‘air’, ‘wind’, and the such like. In Greek, pneuma, from pneo, spiro, flo.

I, and many others, have seen an experiment with two types of water: river water, and a mineral water. Although they were indistinguishable from each other [310] by sight, yet when they were mixed together, the compound substance was not visibly distinguishable from milk. However, we know that they were not blended in such a way that every part of the one was in every part of the other, since it is impossible for two bodies to be in the same place. The only way in which every part could be changed is by the activity of the mineral water, making the water appear differently to the senses, but without being everywhere and in every part of it.

So if gross bodies such as these can have so much active power, what should we think of spirits, of which there are as many kinds as there are kinds of liquids, and which have greater active power? [n.4] Can it then be doubted that God, who is an infinitely fine spirit, and intelligent too, can create and alter all species and kinds of body as he pleases? I dare not say that this is actually the way in which God operates, since it is beyond my comprehension. On the other hand, it is very useful for demonstrating that the omnipotence of God implies no contradiction; and it is better than reducing the Divine substance to a ghost or phantasm (i.e. nothing) through claiming to increase its fineness.[n.5]. . .

[313] Here his Lordship asks: ‘What do I leave God to be?’ My answer is that I leave him to be a most pure, simple, invisible, corporeal spirit. By ‘corporeal’ I mean a substance that has magnitude. This is what all educated people mean by it, whether or not they are clergymen; although there are perhaps some ordinary folk who are so uneducated as to call nothing a ‘body’ unless they can see and feel it.

His second question is: ‘What real being can God have among bodies and accidents?’ My answer is the being of a spirit, not of a ghost. If I were to ask a really subtle metaphysician what name they would give to something which was half-way between an infinitely subtle substance and a mere thought or phantasm, they might perhaps call it an ‘incorporeal substance.’ If so, ‘incorporeal’ will mean something half-way between infinitely subtle and nothing, and it will be more subtle than infinitely subtle, and yet less subtle than a thought. [n.6] He says he accepts that the nature of God is incomprehensible. Does it therefore follow that we can give the Divine substance whatever negative name we like?

He says that the whole Divine substance is here and there and everywhere throughout the world, and that the soul of a human is here and there and everywhere throughout their body. But must we take this as a mystery of the Christian religion, simply because he, or some other scholastic, says so? It is not in the [314] Bible, which calls nothing a mystery apart from the incarnation of the eternal God. Or is ‘incorporeal’ a mystery, when it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible? On the contrary, it is written that: ‘The fulness of the Deity was bodily in Christ.’ When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible, I can accept what the Bible says; but when the meaning of words is incomprehensible, I cannot accept the authority of a scholastic. . . .

[340] He has said this about ‘incorporeal substance’ before, and I answered what he said at the time. I am surprised he keeps on rolling the same stone so often. He is like Sisyphus in the poet’s hell. He rolls a heavy stone up a hill, and as soon as he brings it up to daylight, it slips down again to the bottom, and does the same to him perpetually. In the same way, his Lordship rolls this and other questions with a lot of fuss, until they come to the light of the Bible, and then they vanish; and he, fretting, and sweating, and swearing, starts all over again, and with no more success than before.

From what I say about the universe, he infers that I make God to be nothing. But his inference is absurd. What he could have inferred correctly is that I make God a corporeal, but pure spirit. By ‘the universe,’ I mean the aggregate of all things which have being in themselves; and that’s what everybody else means too. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. [n.7] Nor does his Lordship set about disproving this, but instead he only seems to be surprised by it. . . .

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