89) Josephus also, no doubt in accordance with the same
tradition, declares that God is "the beginning, the center, and the end of
all things."(390) A corresponding rabbinical saying is: "Truth is the seal
of God."(391)

Chapter XXII. God's Knowledge and Wisdom

1. The attempt to enumerate the attributes of God recalls the story
related in the Talmud(392) of a disciple who stepped up to the reader's
desk to offer prayer, and began to address the Deity with an endless list
of attributes. When his vocabulary was almost exhausted, Rabbi Haninah
interrupted him with the question, "Hast thou now really finished telling
the praise of God?" Mortal man can never know what God really is. As the
poet-philosopher says: "Could I ever know Him, I would be He."(393) But we
want to ascertain what God is _to us_, and for this very reason we cannot
rest with the negative attitude of Maimonides, who relies on the
Psalmist's verse, "Silence is praise to Thee."(394) We must obtain as
clear a conception of the Deity as we possibly can with our limited
powers.

To the divine attributes already mentioned we must add another which in a
sense is the focus of them all. This is the knowledge and wisdom of God,
the omniscience which renders Him all-knowing and all-wise. Through this
all the others come into self-consciousness. We ascribe wisdom to the man
who sets right aims for his actions and knows the means by which to attain
them, that is, who can control his power and knowledge by his will and
bend them to his purpose. In the same manner we think of wisdom in view of
the marvelous order, design, and unity which we see in the natural and the
moral world. But this wisdom must be all-encompassing, comprising time and
eternity, directing all the forces and beings of the world toward the goal
of ideal perfection.(395) It makes no difference where we find this
lesson. The Book of Proverbs singles out the tiny ant as an example of
wondrous forethought;(396) the author of Job dwells on the working
together of the powers of earth and heaven to maintain the cosmic
life;(397) modern science, with its deeper insight into nature, enables us
to follow the interaction of the primal chemical and organic forces, and
to follow the course of evolution from star-dust and cell to the structure
of the human eye or the thought-centers of the brain. But in all these
alike our conclusion must be that of the Psalmist: "O Lord, how manifold
are Thy works, in wi