1. The attempt to enumerate the attributes of God recalls the story related in the Talmud(392) of a disciple who stepped up to the reader’s desk to offer prayer, and began to address the Deity with an endless list of attributes. When his vocabulary was almost exhausted, Rabbi Haninah interrupted him with the question, “Hast thou now really finished telling the praise of God?” Mortal man can never know what God really is. As the poet-philosopher says: “Could I ever know Him, I would be He.”(393) But we want to ascertain what God is _to us_, and for this very reason we cannot rest with the negative attitude of Maimonides, who relies on the Psalmist’s verse, “Silence is praise to Thee.”(394) We must obtain as clear a conception of the Deity as we possibly can with our limited powers. To the divine attributes already mentioned we must add another which in a sense is the focus of them all. This is the knowledge and wisdom of God, the omniscience which renders Him all-knowing and all-wise. Through this all the others come into self-consciousness. We ascribe wisdom to the man who sets right aims for his actions and knows the means by which to attain them, that is, who can control his power and knowledge by his will and bend them to his purpose. In the same manner we think of wisdom in view of the marvelous order, design, and unity which we see in the natural and the moral world. But this wisdom must be all-encompassing, comprising time and eternity, directing all the forces and beings of the world toward the goal of ideal perfection.(395) It makes no difference where we find this lesson. The Book of Proverbs singles out the tiny ant as an example of wondrous forethought;(396) the author of Job dwells on the working together of the powers of earth and heaven to maintain the cosmic life;(397) modern science, with its deeper insight into nature, enables us to follow the interaction of the primal chemical and organic forces, and to follow the course of evolution from star-dust and cell to the structure of the human eye or the thought-centers of the brain. But in all these alike our conclusion must be that of the Psalmist: “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom hast Thou made them all.”(398) 2. Accordingly, if we are to speak in human terms, we may consider God’s wisdom the element which determines His various motive-powers,—omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness,—to tend toward the realization of His cosmic plan. Or we may call it the active intellect with which God works as Creator, Ordainer, and Ruler of the universe. The Biblical account of creation presupposes this wisdom, as it portrays a logical process, working after a definite plan, proceeding from simpler to more complex forms and culminating in man. Biblical history likewise is based upon the principle of a divinely prearranged plan, which is especially striking in such stories as that of Joseph.(399)