Confessor. No, I think it's better to stop there. First of all, let us everywhere bear in mind the relativity of all human concepts as applied to questions of faith. You say: "personality". And can you, having separated the concept of "personality" from the concept of "body", speak with sufficient reason about its "boundaries"? Here again you impose "spatiality", so necessary for your perceptions of the material world and completely alien to spiritual existence. The qualities of which you have spoken, mind, will, feeling, they themselves do not occupy any space, and therefore, when you speak of the irreconcilable contradictions of the divine attributes with the definition of Him as a person, you see here an imaginary contradiction because you see before you a material "person" and apply to it the concept of a non-material order. But if you were to admit a personality without a material basis, leaving only reason, will, and feeling behind it, you would immediately pass into an entirely different, "non-spatial plane" and cease to be confused by these seeming contradictions. You would have to admit that both God and soul are equally spaceless, and that the difference between the person of God and the person of man is not that man occupies "little" space and God is present "everywhere," that is, he occupies "much space," but that the unknown being of the one is relative and the other absolute. In enumerating these absolute properties in earthly concepts, we at the same time think that they relate to what these earthly concepts will correspond to there, in completely different conditions of existence. We understand that space in our earthly sense will not be there. But something corresponds to our space there as well. This "something" appears to God in absolute fullness, but to the human soul only relatively, therefore limited. That is why we affirm, bearing in mind the absoluteness of this property, which corresponds to spatiality, that God is omnipresent.

Unknown. I am satisfied to a certain extent with your explanations. But then I do not understand why you speak of the incomprehensibility of the Godhead.

Confessor. We speak of incomprehensibility because to know about certain attributes of God, which the Lord Himself revealed about Himself to people, does not mean to comprehend with a limited human consciousness the entire boundless content of the Essence of God.

Unknown. How can one recognize the incomprehensible? After all, we recognize everything as existing only to the extent that we can comprehend it with reason?

Confessor. No way. There is something quite real that the unbelieving mind recognizes as existing and at the same time cannot but recognize as incomprehensible.

Unknown. Namely?

Confessor. The infinity of space and the eternity of time.

Unknown. For me, this is not entirely clear.

Confessor. After all, by recognizing only the material world, you recognize the reality of space and time as they are given to your consciousness. You think of them "metaphysically", they are a real "extension" for you, which serves to measure things and alternate phenomena. Therefore, the concept of "infinity" in the sense of space having no end, and "eternity" in the sense of time having no limit, has a very real meaning for you. For you, this is not a "bad infinity", but objectively and really existing.

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. But does your mind "comprehend" the concepts of infinite space and boundless time? It is absurd for you, because the omnipresent God is incomprehensible. But it is not at all absurd, though equally incomprehensible, that "infinite" space is. Can you, by the nature of your mind, think of something that has no end and no limit? Since space is "reality" for you, try to draw a line "without end" in your mind, try to imagine a universe that has no limit. Imagine that you are counting billions of versts somewhere far away from the Earth on which you are standing, and no matter how many versts you count, you are not at all approaching the end. You could count these miles for thousands of years and still be in the same position, because there is no end at all. Try to imagine all this, and you will understand with complete clarity the impossibility for the human mind to comprehend the concept of infinity. You think of everything as having a limit. Such is the quality of your limited mind. And if you set the same task in relation to time, your mind will be in the same helpless position. Try to imagine the billions of centuries that have already passed and the billions of centuries to come, and at the same time feel with all reality that no monstrous figures in the past and the future can in the least bring you closer to any limit, because time has neither beginning nor end. And the utter inability of your mind to comprehend the concept of eternity will become absolutely evident to you. And so, in spite of this impossibility of comprehending the infinity of space and the infinity of time, you affirm the undoubted reality of both.

Unknown. This is inevitable. How can I admit a limit? It is clear that although my mind is incapable of conceiving the infinite, it would be absurd to admit a limit, for no matter how huge the figure we take, it can always be increased even more.

Confessor. Exactly. The situation of your mind is hopeless: on the one hand, it is impossible to imagine infinity, and on the other hand, it is impossible to set a limit. You find a way out of this hopeless situation by recognizing the unknowable concept of infinity as undoubtedly existing. Isn't it?

Unknown. Yes, that's right.