“He was speaking the truth; it was not known to Him.”
“Then he was not God?”
“That is a false deduction, for since God may do all things, He may certainly be ignorant of an event in futurity.”
I thought the way in which she brought in the word “futurity” almost sublime. Hedvig was loudly applauded, and her uncle went all round the table to kiss her. I had a very natural objection on the tip of my tongue, which she might have found difficult to answer, but I wanted to get into her good graces and I kept my own counsel.
M. d’Harcourt was urged to ask her some questions, but he replied in the words of Horace, ‘Nulla mihi religio est’. Then Hedvig turned to me and asked me to put her some hard question, “something difficult, which you don’t know yourself.”
“I shall be delighted. Do you grant that a god possesses in a supreme degree the qualities of man?”
“Yes, excepting man’s weaknesses.”
“Do you class the generative power as a weakness?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me, then, of what nature would have been the offspring of a union between a god and a mortal woman?”