Tertullian: Thing

Tertullian was Christian theologian. Explore interesting quotes on thing.
Tertullian: 82   quotes 7   likes

“Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says.) "The Word was God," then you have two, One that commands that the thing be made. and the Other that makes. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another I have already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of Substance, in the way of distinction, not of division.”

Adv. Prax. 12 http://www.intratext.com/IXT/LAT0788/_P1.HTM
Original: (la) Qui si ipse deus est secundum Ioannem - Deus erat sermo - habes duos, alium dicentem ut fiat, alium facientem. Alium autem quomodo accipere debeas iam professus sum, personae non substantiae nomine, ad distinctionem non ad divisionem.

“Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.”
Quippe res dei ratio quia deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providit disposuit ordinavit, nihil [enim] non ratione tractari intellegique voluit. [3] Igitur ignorantes quique deum rem quoque eius ignorent necesse est quia nullius omnino thesaurus extraneis patet. Itaque universam vitae conversationem sine gubernaculo rationis transfretantes inminentem saeculo procellam evitare non norunt.

De Paenitentia (On Repentance), 1.2-3

“All things will be in danger of being taken in a sense different from their own proper sense, and, whilst taken in that different sense, of losing their proper one, if they are called by a name which differs from their natural designation. Fidelity in names secures the safe appreciation of properties.”
Omnia periclitabuntur aliter accipi quam sunt, et amittere quod sunt dum aliter accipiuntur, si aliter quam sunt cognominantur. Fides nominum salus est proprietatum.

De Carne Christi, 13.2

“For things which are worthy of God will prove the existence of God. We maintain that God must first be known from nature, and afterwards authenticated by instruction: from nature by His works; by instruction, through His revealed announcements.”

Variant translation: We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.
Book I, Chapter XVIII.—Notwithstanding Their Conceits, the God of the Marcionites Fails in the Vouchers Both of Created Evidence and of Adequate Revelation.
This was quoted by Galileo in his defense of natural sciences.
Galileo Galilei: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615 https://people.bu.edu/dklepper/RN242/duchess.html
Against Marcion https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0312.htm
Original: (la) Digna enim deo probabunt deum. Nos definimus deum primo natura cognoscendum, deinde doctrina recognoscendum, natura ex operibus, doctrina ex praedicationibus.