The distinction between a positive and an exhaustive conception has been overlooked in the recent discussions respecting the possibility of man's possessing a positive conception of the infinite.
If by a positive knowledge is meant an infinite or perfect knowledge that exhausts all the mystery of an object, then man cannot have a positive knowledge of even any finite thing. But if by positive is meant true and valid as far as the cognition reaches,--if the term relates to quality and not to quantity,--then man's knowledge of the infinite is as positive as his knowledge of the finite.
In this latter and only proper use of the term, man's conception of eternity is as positive as his conception of time, and his apprehension of divine justice is no more a negation than his apprehension of human justice.
Man's knowledge of God, like his knowledge of the ocean, is a positive perception, as far as it extends. He does not exhaustively comprehend the ocean, but this does not render his knowledge of the ocean, as to its quality, a mere negation.
But it is the quality and not the quantity of a cognition that determines its validity. There is for man no exhaustive or infinite knowledge of either the finite or the infinite. He finds it as impossibly to give an all-comprehending definition of time as he does of eternity, of an atom of matter as of the essence of God.
William G.T. Shedd, in A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, pp.185-86.
Posted by apelles at September 23, 2003 10:25 PM