They tended still to think about God in the modern way, as an objective reality, “out there,” that could be categorized like any other being. During the 1950s, for example, I learned by heart this answer to the question “What is God?” in the Roman Catholic catechism: “God is the supreme spirit, who alone exists of himself and is infinite in all perfections.” Denys, Anselm, and Aquinas were probably turning in their graves. The catechism had no hesitation in asserting that it was possible simply to draw breath and define, a word that literally means “to set limits upon,” a transcendent reality
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