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Leo Strauss

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I may never have experienced a centaur, but by imagining one, I know that I can also imagine others that resemble this one and yet are different. But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One. As such, He cannot become an object of knowledge. And He cannot be imagined. A god that can be imagined would be a pagan deity (of which their always can be many), but not the One of the Bible. This is why the second of the Ten Commandments forbids the making of images; that is to say, it forbids any suggestion that God can become an object of knowledge by being an object of perception. It is because He cannot become an object of knowledge that He can, and indeed must, be an object of faith.
--
Harry V. Jaffa, citing ideas of Strauss, in "Leo Strauss, the Bible and Politics" in Leo Strauss : Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker (1994) edited by Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Nicgorski, p. 197; portions of this have become attributed to Strauss on the internet.

 
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