Irenaeus reminds us that there is only one God who created everything freely and entirely, exposing the absurdity of infinite gods and the peril of multiplicity in divine beings. Augustine confesses that he sought God outside himself for too long, only to realize that the One he craved was present all along—calling, shining, touching him until his soul burned with longing. Aquinas, meanwhile, teaches that while our intellect can conceive the idea of “infinite,” it cannot truly grasp infinity, just as we can behold the sea but never contain it within our minds. Each reading, in its own way, calls us to a deeper humility before the one true God: He is singular, present within, and beyond the full comprehension of our finite understanding. (Irenaeus Against Heresies 2.1; Augustine Confessions 10.37–38; Aquinas ST I‑II q.85 a.2)

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Today’s reflections continue our deep dive into how the soul encounters God. Augustine wrestles with why truth often provokes hatred—it demands change. People want truth that confirms their desires, not truth that convicts. Yet he insists: wherever we find truth, we find God, because God is the Truth—and He lives in our memory not as an image or feeling, but as the unchanging reality who can be remembered but never confined. Aquinas then asks whether we can know spiritual beings through material things. His answer is yes, but only dimly: we know the immaterial like we know the wind—by its effects, not its essence. Finally, Irenaeus begins his formal attack on the Gnostic framework, exposing its supposed “Bythus” as a fabricated projection, unworthy of worship or wonder. These three voices together remind us that truth is not an idea—it is a Person, and He can be remembered, reasoned toward, and revealed, but never controlled (John 14:6; Romans 1:20; Psalm 139:23–24).

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In today’s readings, Augustine reflects on the painful irony that although all people claim to love truth, many secretly resent it—because truth doesn’t just illuminate; it exposes. He meditates on how God dwells in memory—not in a physical space, but as the Truth Himself, who cannot be forgotten once known. Aquinas follows with a related insight in Summa Theologica by arguing that our intellect knows individuals not directly, but through the imagination, which supplies the sensory particulars that abstract knowledge alone lacks. Finally, Irenaeus opens Book II of Against Heresies by recounting how Book I dismantled the Gnostic system at its roots, and now he prepares to unravel their structure further, head-on and point-by-point, beginning with the absurdity of their "Bythus." Together, these texts explore the tension between abstraction and experience, memory and matter, error and the embodied truth of God (John 14:6; Galatians 4:16; Romans 1:20).

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