From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInconvenient can mean unfitting, unsuitable, or inconsistent with the nature and purpose of something.
- In TraherneThe account of redemption asks how God can accomplish what no creature can do when the required suffering is inconvenient for God.
- In this editionThe 2026 note to II.38 gives the theological gloss and compares Anselm.
- A place to beginThe inadequacy of creatures and the unfittingness of divine suffering create the redemptive dilemma.
Meaning
Inconvenient can mean unfitting, unsuitable, or inconsistent with the nature and purpose of something. It is stronger than a minor practical nuisance or disruption of comfort.
Use in the book
The account of redemption asks how God can accomplish what no creature can do when the required suffering is inconvenient for God. The difficulty concerns fitness to divine nature, not unwillingness to accept inconvenience. In the childhood enquiry, imagined arrangements of the universe and an infinitely bulky body prove inconvenient because they fail to make a workable and beautiful order. The word therefore participates in both theological and natural reasoning: a proposed solution must suit the being and relations involved.
Places to read
In this edition
The 2026 note to II.38 gives the theological gloss and compares Anselm. That comparison is editorial; Traherne does not name Anselm in this meditation.
Source note
Primary text: II.38, III.19; gloss and theological comparison: 2026 edition note to II.38.