Note 62 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

There is yet another reason, according to Carneades, why God cannot have any virtue; because virtue is above its possessor, and there can be nothing above God.62 Moreover, what is the position of God in regard to speech? It was easy to show the absurdity of attributing speech to Him,63 but to call him speechless (ἄφωνος) seemed also to be opposed to the general belief.64 Quite independently, however, of details, the inconceivableness of God appears, so soon as the question is raised, whether the deity is limited or unlimited, material or immaterial. God cannot be unlimited; for what is unlimited is necessarily immovable because it has no place, and soulless because by virtue of its boundlessness it cannot form a whole permeated by a soul; but God we ordinarily think of both as moving and as endowed with a soul. Nor can God be limited; for all that is limited is incomplete. Moreover, God cannot be immaterial, for Carneades, like the Stoics, held that what is immaterial possesses neither soul, feeling, nor activity. Neither can he be material, all composite bodies being liable to change and destruction, and simple bodies, fire, water, and the like, possessing neither life nor reason.65 If, then, all the forms under which we think of God are impossible, His existence cannot be asserted.