Chapter I. The Attributes Of God.
In contemplating the words and acts of God, as in contemplating the words
and acts of individual men, we are compelled to assign uniform and
permanent effects to uniform and permanent causes. Holy acts and words, we
argue, must have their source in a principle of holiness; truthful acts
and words, in a settled proclivity to truth; benevolent acts and words, in
a benevolent disposition.
Moreover, these permanent and uniform sources of expression and action to
which we have applied the terms principle, proclivity, disposition, since
they exist harmoniously in the same person, must themselves inhere, and
find their unity, in an underlying spiritual substance or reality of which
they are the inseparable characteristics and partial manifestations.
Thus we are led naturally from the works to the attributes, and from the
attributes to the essence, of God.
For all practical purposes we may use the words essence,
substance, being, nature, as synonymous with each other. So, too,
we may speak of attribute, quality, characteristic, principle,
proclivity, disposition, as practically one. As, in cognizing
matter, we pass from its effects in sensation to the qualities
which produce the sensations, and then to the material substance
to which the qualities belong; and as, in cognizing mind, we pass
from its phenomena in thought and action to the faculties and
dispositions which give rise to these phenomena, and then to the
mental substance to which these faculties and dispositions belong;
so, in cognizing God, we pass from his words and acts to his
qualities or attributes, and then to the substance or essence to
which these qualities or attributes belong.
The teacher in a Young Ladies’ Seminary described substance as a
cushion, into which the attributes as pins are stuck. But pins and
cushion alike are substance,—neither one is quality. The opposite
error is illustrated from the experience of Abraham Lincoln on the
Ohio River. “What is this transcendentalism that we hear so much
about?” asked Mr. Lincoln. The answer came: “You see those
swallows digging holes in yonder bank? Well, take away the bank
from around those holes, and what is left is transcendentalism.”
Substance is often represented as being thus transcendental. If
such representations were correct, metaphysics would indeed be
“that, of which those who listen understand nothing, and which he
who speaks does not himself understand,” and the metaphysician
would be the fox who ran into the hole and then pulled in the hole
after him. Substance and attributes are correlates,—neither one is
possible without the other. There is no quality that does not
qualify something; and there is no thing, either material or
spiritual, that can be known or can exist without qualities to
differentiate it from other things. In applying the categories of
substance and attribute to God, we indulge in no merely curious
speculation, but rather yield to the necessities of rational
thought and show how we must think of God if we think at all. See
Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:240; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:172-188.
I. Definition of the term Attributes.
The attributes of God are those distinguishing characteristics of the
divine nature which are inseparable from the idea of God and which
constitute the basis and ground for his various manifestations to his
creatures.
We call them attributes, because we are compelled to attribute them to God
as fundamental qualities or powers of his being, in order to give rational
account of certain constant facts in God’s self-revelations.
II. Relation of the divine Attributes to the divine Essence.
1. _The attributes have an objective existence._ They are not mere names
for human conceptions of God—conceptions which have their only ground in
the imperfection of the finite mind. They are qualities objectively
distinguishable from the divine essence and from each other.
The nominalistic notion that God is a being of absolute simplicity, and
that in his nature there is no internal distinction of qualities or
powers, tends directly to pantheism; denies all reality of the divine
perfections; or, if these in any sense still exist, precludes all
knowledge of them on the part of finite beings. To say that knowledge and
power, eternity and holiness, are identical with the essence of God and
with each other, is to deny that we know God at all.
The Scripture declarations of the possibility of knowing God, together
with the manifestation of the distinct attributes of his nature, are
conclusive against this false notion of the divine simplicity.
Aristotle says well that there is no such thing as a science of
the unique, of that which has no analogies or relations. Knowing
is distinguishing; what we cannot distinguish from other things we
cannot know. Yet a false tendency to regard God as a being of
absolute simplicity has come down from mediæval scholasticism, has
infected much of the post-reformation theology, and is found even
so recently as in Schleiermacher, Rothe, Olshausen, and Ritschl.
E. G. Robinson defines the attributes as “our methods of
conceiving of God.” But this definition is influenced by the
Kantian doctrine of relativity and implies that we cannot know
God’s essence, that is, the thing-in-itself, God’s real being.
Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 141—“This notion of the divine
simplicity reduces God to a rigid and lifeless stare.... The One
is manifold without being many.”
The divine simplicity is the starting-point of Philo: God is a
being absolutely bare of quality. All quality in finite beings has
limitation, and no limitation can be predicated of God who is
eternal, unchangeable, simple substance, free, self-sufficient,
better than the good and the beautiful. To predicate any quality
of God would reduce him to the sphere of finite existence. Of him
we can only say _that_ he is, not _what_ he is; see art. by
Schürer, in Encyc. Brit., 18:761.
Illustrations of this tendency are found in Scotus Erigena: “Deus
nescit se quid est, quia non est quid”; and in Occam: The divine
attributes are distinguished neither substantially nor logically
from each other or from the divine essence; the only distinction
is that of names; so Gerhard and Quenstedt. Charnock, the Puritan
writer, identifies both knowledge and will with the simple essence
of God. Schleiermacher makes all the attributes to be
modifications of power or causality; in his system God and world =
the “natura naturans” and “natura naturata” of Spinoza. There is
no distinction of attributes and no succession of acts in God, and
therefore no real personality or even spiritual being; see
Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 110. Schleiermacher said: “My
God is the Universe.” God is causative force. Eternity,
omniscience and holiness are simply aspects of causality. Rothe,
on the other hand, makes omniscience to be the all-comprehending
principle of the divine nature; and Olshausen, on _John 1:1_, in a
similar manner attempts to prove that the Word of God must have
objective and substantial being, by assuming that knowing =
willing; whence it would seem to follow that, since God wills all
that he knows, he must will moral evil. Bushnell and others
identify righteousness in God with benevolence, and therefore
cannot see that any atonement needs to be made to God. Ritschl
also holds that love is the fundamental divine attribute, and that
omnipotence and even personality are simply modifications of love;
see Mead, Ritschl’s Place in the History of Doctrine, 8. Herbert
Spencer only carries the principle further when he concludes God
to be simple unknowable force.
But to call God everything is the same as to call him nothing.
With Dorner, we say that “definition is no limitation.” As we rise
in the scale of creation from the mere jelly-sac to man, the
homogeneous becomes the heterogeneous, there is differentiation of
functions, complexity increases. We infer that God, the highest of
all, instead of being simple force, is infinitely complex, that he
has an infinite variety of attributes and powers. Tennyson, Palace
of Art (lines omitted in the later editions): “All nature widens
upward: evermore The simpler essence lower lies: More complex is
more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.”
_Jer. 10:10_—God is “the living God”; _John 5:26_—he “hath life in
himself”—unsearchable riches of positive attributes; _John
17:23—_“thou lovedst me”—manifoldness in unity. This complexity in
God is the ground of blessedness for him and of progress for us:
_1 Tim. 1:11—_“the blessed God”; _Jer. 9:23, 24—_“let him glory in
this, that he knoweth me.” The complex nature of God permits anger
at the sinner and compassion for him at the same moment: _Ps.
7:11—_“a God that hath indignation every day”; _John 3:16—_“God so
loved the world”; _Ps. 85:10, 11—_“mercy and truth are met
together.” See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:116 _sq._; Schweizer,
Glaubenslehre, 1:229-235; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk,
1:43, 50; Martensen, Dogmatics, 91—“If God were the simple One, τὸ
ἁπλῶς ἕν, the mystic abyss in which every form of determination
were extinguished, there would be nothing in the Unity to be
known.” Hence “nominalism is incompatible with the idea of
revelation. We teach, with realism, that the attributes of God are
objective determinations in his revelation and as such are rooted
in his inmost essence.”
2. _The attributes inhere in the divine essence._ They are not separate
existences. They are attributes of God.
While we oppose the nominalistic view which holds them to be mere names
with which, by the necessity of our thinking, we clothe the one simple
divine essence, we need equally to avoid the opposite realistic extreme of
making them separate parts of a composite God.
We cannot conceive of attributes except as belonging to an underlying
essence which furnishes their ground of unity. In representing God as a
compound of attributes, realism endangers the living unity of the Godhead.
Notice the analogous necessity of attributing the properties of matter to
an underlying substance, and the phenomena of thought to an underlying
spiritual essence; else matter is reduced to mere force, and mind, to mere
sensation,—in short, all things are swallowed up in a vast idealism. The
purely realistic explanation of the attributes tends to low and
polytheistic conceptions of God. The mythology of Greece was the result of
personifying the divine attributes. The _nomina_ were turned into
_numina_, as Max Müller says; see Taylor, Nature on the Basis of Realism,
293. Instance also Christmas Evans’s sermon describing a Council in the
Godhead, in which the attributes of Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, and Power
argue with one another. Robert Hall called Christmas Evans “the one-eyed
orator of Anglesey,” but added that his one eye could “light an army
through a wilderness”; see Joseph Cross, Life and Sermons of Christmas
Evans, 112-116; David Rhys Stephen, Memoirs of Christmas Evans, 168-176.
We must remember that “Realism may so exalt the attributes that no
personal subject is left to constitute the ground of unity. Looking upon
Personality as anthropomorphism, it falls into a worse personification,
that of omnipotence, holiness, benevolence, which are mere blind thoughts,
unless there is one who is the Omnipotent, the Holy, the Good.” See
Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 70.
3. _The attributes belong to the divine essence as such._ They are to be
distinguished from those other powers or relations which do not appertain
to the divine essence universally.
The personal distinctions (_proprietates_) in the nature of the one God
are not to be denominated attributes; for each of these personal
distinctions belongs not to the divine essence as such and universally,
but only to the particular person of the Trinity who bears its name, while
on the contrary all of the attributes belong to each of the persons.
The relations which God sustains to the world (_predicata_), moreover,
such as creation, preservation, government, are not to be denominated
attributes; for these are accidental, not necessary or inseparable from
the idea of God. God would be God, if he had never created.
To make creation eternal and necessary is to dethrone God and to
enthrone a fatalistic development. It follows that the nature of
the attributes is to be illustrated, not alone or chiefly from
wisdom and holiness in man, which are not inseparable from man’s
nature, but rather from intellect and will in man, without which
he would cease to be man altogether. Only that is an attribute, of
which it can be safely said that he who possesses it would, if
deprived of it, cease to be God. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:335—“The
attribute is the whole essence acting in a certain way. The centre
of unity is not in any one attribute, but in the essence.... The
difference between the divine attribute and the divine person is,
that the person is a mode of the _existence_ of the essence, while
the attribute is a mode either of the _relation_, or of the
_operation_, of the essence.”
4. _The attributes manifest the divine essence._ The essence is revealed
only through the attributes. Apart from its attributes it is unknown and
unknowable.
But though we can know God only as he reveals to us his attributes, we do,
notwithstanding, in knowing these attributes, know the being to whom these
attributes belong. That this knowledge is partial does not prevent its
corresponding, so far as it goes, to objective reality in the nature of
God.
All God’s revelations are, therefore, revelations of himself in and
through his attributes. Our aim must be to determine from God’s works and
words what qualities, dispositions, determinations, powers of his
otherwise unseen and unsearchable essence he has actually made known to
us; or in other words, what are the revealed attributes of God.
_John 1:18—_“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”; _1
Tim. 6:16—_“whom no man hath seen, nor can see”; _Mat.
5:8—_“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”;
_11:27—_“neither doth any man know the Father, save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.” C. A. Strong:
“Kant, not content with knowing the reality _in_ the phenomena,
was trying to know the reality _apart from_ the phenomena; he was
seeking to know, without fulfilling the conditions of knowledge;
in short, he wished to know without knowing.” So Agnosticism
perversely regards God as concealed by his own manifestation. On
the contrary, in knowing the phenomena we know the object itself.
J. C. C. Clarke, Self and the Father, 6—“In language, as in
nature, there are no verbs without subjects, but we are always
hunting for the noun that has no adjective, and the verb that has
no subject, and the subject that has no verb. Consciousness is
necessarily a consciousness of self. Idealism and monism would
like to see all verbs solid with their subjects, and to write ‘I
do’ or ‘I feel’ in the mazes of a monogram, but consciousness
refuses, and before it says ‘Do’ or ‘Feel’ it finishes saying
‘I.’ ” J. G. Holland’s Katrina, to her lover: “God is not
worshiped in his attributes. I do not love your attributes, but
you. Your attributes all meet me otherwhere, Blended in other
personalities, Nor do I love nor do I worship them, Nor those who
bear them. E’en the spotted pard Will dare a danger which will
make you pale; But shall his courage steal my heart from you? You
cheat your conscience, for you know That I may like your
attributes. Yet love not you.”
III. Methods of determining the divine Attributes.
We have seen that the existence of God is a first truth. It is presupposed
in all human thinking, and is more or less consciously recognized by all
men. This intuitive knowledge of God we have seen to be corroborated and
explicated by arguments drawn from nature and from mind. Reason leads us
to a causative and personal Intelligence upon whom we depend. This Being
of indefinite greatness we clothe, by a necessity of our thinking, with
all the attributes of perfection. The two great methods of determining
what these attributes are, are the Rational and the Biblical.
1. _The Rational method._ This is threefold:—(_a_) the _via negationis_,
or the way of negation, which consists in denying to God all imperfections
observed in created beings; (_b_) the _via eminentiæ_, or the way of
climax, which consists in attributing to God in infinite degree all the
perfections found in creatures; and (_c_) the _via causalitatis_, or the
way of causality, which consists in predicating of God those attributes
which are required in him to explain the world of nature and of mind.
This rational method explains God’s nature from that of his creation,
whereas the creation itself can be fully explained only from the nature of
God. Though the method is valuable, it has insuperable limitations, and
its place is a subordinate one. While we use it continually to confirm and
supplement results otherwise obtained, our chief means of determining the
divine attributes must be
2. _The Biblical method._ This is simply the inductive method, applied to
the facts with regard to God revealed in the Scriptures. Now that we have
proved the Scriptures to be a revelation from God, inspired in every part,
we may properly look to them as decisive authority with regard to God’s
attributes.
The rational method of determining the attributes of God is
sometimes said to have been originated by Dionysius the
Areopagite, reputed to have been a judge at Athens at the time of
Paul and to have died A. D. 95. It is more probably eclectic,
combining the results attained by many theologians, and applying
the intuitions of perfection and causality which lie at the basis
of all religious thinking. It is evident from our previous study
of the arguments for God’s existence, that from nature we cannot
learn either the Trinity or the mercy of God, and that these
deficiencies in our rational conclusions with respect to God must
be supplied, if at all, by revelation. Spurgeon, Autobiography,
166—“The old saying is ’Go from Nature up to Nature’s God.’ But it
is hard work going up hill. The best thing is to go from Nature’s
God down to Nature; and, if you once get to Nature’s God and
believe him and love him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear
music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the
winds, and to see God everywhere.” See also Kahnis, Dogmatik,
3:181.
IV. Classification of the Attributes.
The attributes may be divided into two great classes: Absolute or
Immanent, and Relative or Transitive.
By Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we mean attributes which respect the
inner being of God, which are involved in God’s relations to himself, and
which belong to his nature independently of his connection with the
universe.
By Relative or Transitive Attributes, we mean attributes which respect the
outward revelation of God’s being, which are involved in God’s relations
to the creation, and which are exercised in consequence of the existence
of the universe and its dependence upon him.
Under the head of Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we make a three-fold
division into Spirituality, with the attributes therein involved, namely,
Life and Personality; Infinity, with the attributes therein involved,
namely, Self-existence, Immutability, and Unity; and Perfection, with the
attributes therein involved, namely, Truth, Love, and Holiness.
Under the head of Relative or Transitive Attributes, we make a three-fold
division, according to the order of their revelation, into Attributes
having relation to Time and Space, as Eternity and Immensity; Attributes
having relation to Creation, as Omnipresence, Omniscience, and
Omnipotence; and Attributes having relation to Moral Beings, as Veracity
and Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth; Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive
Love; and Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness.
This classification may be better understood from the following schedule:
1. Absolute or Immanent Attributes:
A. Spirituality, involving (a) Life, (b) Personality.
B. Infinity, involving (a) Self-existence, (b) Immutability, (c)
Unity.
C. Perfection, involving (a) Truth, (b) Love, (c) Holiness.
2. Relative or Transitive Attributes:
A. Related to Time and Space—(a) Eternity, (b) Immensity.
B. Related to Creation—(a) Omnipresence, (b) Omniscience, (c)
Omnipotence.
C. Related to Moral Beings—(a) Veracity, (b) Mercy, (c) Justice.
It will be observed, upon examination of the preceding schedule,
that our classification presents God first as Spirit, then as the
infinite Spirit, and finally as the perfect Spirit. This accords
with our definition of the term God (see page 52). It also
corresponds with the order in which the attributes commonly
present themselves to the human mind. Our first thought of God is
that of mere Spirit, mysterious and undefined, over against our
own spirits. Our next thought is that of God’s greatness; the
quantitative element suggests itself; his natural attributes rise
before us; we recognize him as the infinite One. Finally comes the
qualitative element; our moral natures recognize a moral God; over
against our error, selfishness and impurity, we perceive his
absolute perfection.
It should also be observed that this moral perfection, as it is an
immanent attribute, involves relation of God to himself. Truth,
love and holiness, as they respectively imply an exercise in God
of intellect, affection and will, may be conceived of as God’s
self-knowing, God’s self-loving, and God’s self-willing. The
significance of this will appear more fully in the discussion of
the separate attributes.
Notice the distinction between absolute and relative, between
immanent and transitive, attributes. Absolute = existing in no
necessary relation to things outside of God. Relative = existing
in such relation. Immanent = “remaining within, limited to, God’s
own nature in their activity and effect, inherent and indwelling,
internal and subjective—opposed to emanent or transitive.”
Transitive = having an object outside of God himself. We speak of
transitive verbs, and we mean verbs that are followed by an
object. God’s transitive attributes are so called, because they
respect and affect things and beings outside of God.
The aim of this classification into Absolute and Relative
Attributes is to make plain the divine self-sufficiency. Creation
is not a necessity, for there is a πλήρωμα in God (_Col. 1:19_),
even before he makes the world or becomes incarnate. And πλήρωμα
is not “the filling material,” nor “the vessel filled,” but “that
which is complete in itself,” or, in other words, “plenitude,”
“fulness,” “totality,” “abundance.” The whole universe is but a
drop of dew upon the fringe of God’s garment, or a breath exhaled
from his mouth. He could create a universe a hundred times as
great. Nature is but the symbol of God. The tides of life that ebb
and flow on the far shores of the universe are only faint
expressions of his life. The Immanent Attributes show us how
completely matters of grace are Creation and Redemption, and how
unspeakable is the condescension of him who took our humanity and
humbled himself to the death of the Cross. _Ps. 8:3, 4—_“When I
consider thy heavens ... what is man that thou art mindful of
him?” _113:5, 6—_“Who is like unto Jehovah our God, that hath his
seat on high, that humbleth himself?” _Phil. 2:6, 7—_“Who,
existing in the form of God, ... emptied himself, taking the form
of a servant.”
Ladd, Theory of Reality, 69—“I know _that_ I am, because, as the
basis of all discriminations as to _what_ I am, and as the core of
all such self-knowledge, I immediately know myself as _will_” So
as to the non-ego, “that things actually are is a factor in my
knowledge of them which springs from the root of an experience
with myself as a _will_, at once active and inhibited, as an agent
and yet opposed by another.” The ego and the non-ego as well are
fundamentally and essentially _will_. “Matter must be, _per se_,
Force. But this is ... to be a Will” (439). We know nothing of the
atom apart from its force (442). Ladd quotes from G. E. Bailey:
“The life-principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent. There
is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence,
and this thrills through every atom of the whole Cosmos” (446).
“Science has only made the Substrate of material things more and
more completely self-like” (449). Spirit is the true and essential
Being of what is called Nature (472). “The ultimate Being of the
world is a self-conscious Mind and Will, which is the Ground of
all objects made known in human experience” (550).
On classification of attributes, see Luthardt, Compendium, 71;
Rothe, Dogmatik, 71; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:162; Thomasius, Christi
Person und Werk, 1:47, 52, 136. On the general subject, see
Charnock, Attributes; Bruce, Eigenschaftslehre.
V. Absolute or Immanent Attributes.
First division.—Spirituality, and attributes therein involved.
In calling spirituality an attribute of God, we mean, not that we are
justified in applying to the divine nature the adjective “spiritual,” but
that the substantive “Spirit” describes that nature (John 4:24, marg.—“God
is spirit”; Rom. 1:20—“the invisible things of him”; 1 Tim.
1:17—“incorruptible, invisible”; Col. 1:15—“the invisible God”). This
implies, negatively, that (_a_) God is not matter. Spirit is not a refined
form of matter but an immaterial substance, invisible, uncompounded,
indestructible. (_b_) God is not dependent upon matter. It cannot be shown
that the human mind, in any other state than the present, is dependent for
consciousness upon its connection with a physical organism. Much less is
it true that God is dependent upon the material universe as his sensorium.
God is not only spirit, but he is pure spirit. He is not only not matter,
but he has no necessary connection with matter (Luke 24:39—“A spirit hath
not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having”).
John gives us the three characteristic attributes of God when he
says that God is “spirit,”_ _“light,”_ _“love”_ (John 4:24; 1 John
1:5; 4:8)_,—not _a_ spirit, _a_ light, _a_ love. Le Conte, in
Royce’s Conception of God, 45—“God is spirit, for spirit is
essential Life and essential Energy, and essential Love, and
essential Thought; in a word, essential Person.” Biedermann,
Dogmatik, 631—“Das Wesen des Geistes als des reinen Gegensatzes
zur Materie, ist das _reine Sein_, das _in sich ist_, aber _nicht
da ist_.” Martineau, Study, 2:366—“The subjective Ego is always
_here_, as opposed to all else, which is variously _there_....
Without local relations, therefore, the soul is inaccessible.”
But, Martineau continues, “if matter be but centres of force, all
the soul needs may be centres from which to act.” Romanes, Mind
and Motion, 34—“Because within the limits of human experience mind
is only known as associated with brain, it does not follow that
mind cannot exist in any other mode.” La Place swept the heavens
with his telescope, but could not find anywhere a God. “He might
just as well,” says President Sawyer, “have swept his kitchen with
a broom.” Since God is not a material being, he cannot be
apprehended by any physical means.
Those passages of Scripture which seem to ascribe to God the possession of
bodily parts and organs, as eyes and hands, are to be regarded as
anthropomorphic and symbolic. “When God is spoken of as appearing to the
patriarchs and walking with them, the passages are to be explained as
referring to God’s temporary manifestations of himself in human
form—manifestations which prefigured the final tabernacling of the Son of
God in human flesh. Side by side with these anthropomorphic expressions
and manifestations, moreover, are specific declarations which repress any
materializing conceptions of God; as, for example, that heaven is his
throne and the earth his footstool (Is. 66:1), and that the heaven of
heavens cannot contain him (1 K. 8:27).”
_Ex. 33:18-20_ declares that man cannot see God and live; _1 Cor.
2:7-16_ intimates that without the teaching of God’s Spirit we
cannot know God; all this teaches that God is above sensuous
perception, in other words, that he is not a material being. The
second command of the decalogue does not condemn sculpture and
painting, but only the making of images of _God_. It forbids our
conceiving God after the likeness of a _thing_, but it does not
forbid our conceiving God after the likeness of our inward _self_,
_i. e._, as _personal_. This again shows that God is a spiritual
being. Imagination can be used in religion, and great help can be
derived from it. Yet we do not know God by
imagination,—imagination only helps us vividly to realize the
presence of the God whom we already know. We may almost say that
some men have not imagination enough to be religious. But
imagination must not lose its wings. In its representations of
God, it must not be confined to a picture, or a form, or a place.
Humanity tends too much to rest in the material and the sensuous,
and we must avoid all representations of God which would identify
the Being who is worshiped with the helps used in order to realize
his presence; _John 4:24—_“they that worship him must worship in
spirit and truth.”
An Egyptian Hymn to the Nile, dating from the 19th dynasty (14th
century B. C.), contains these words: “His abode is not known; no
shrine is found with painted figures; there is no building that
can contain him” (Cheyne, Isaiah, 2:120). The repudiation of
images among the ancient Persians (Herod. 1:131), as among the
Japanese Shintos, indicates the remains of a primitive spiritual
religion. The representation of Jehovah with body or form degrades
him to the level of heathen gods. Pictures of the Almighty over
the chancels of Romanist cathedrals confine the mind and degrade
the conception of the worshiper. We may use imagination in prayer,
picturing God as a benignant form holding out arms of mercy, but
we should regard such pictures only as scaffolding for the
building of our edifice of worship, while we recognize, with the
Scripture, that the reality worshiped is immaterial and spiritual.
Otherwise our idea of God is brought down to the low level of
man’s material being. Even man’s spiritual nature may be
misrepresented by physical images, as when mediæval artists
pictured death, by painting a doll-like figure leaving the body at
the mouth of the person dying.
The longing for a tangible, incarnate God meets its satisfaction
in Jesus Christ. Yet even pictures of Christ soon lose their
power. Luther said: “If I have a picture of Christ in my heart,
why not one upon canvas?” We answer: Because the picture in the
heart is capable of change and improvement, as we ourselves change
and improve; the picture upon canvas is fixed, and holds to old
conceptions which we should outgrow. Thomas Carlyle: “Men never
think of painting the face of Christ, till they lose the
impression of him upon their hearts.” Swedenborg, in modern times,
represents the view that God exists in the shape of a man—an
anthropomorphism of which the making of idols is only a grosser
and more barbarous form; see H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 9,
10. This is also the doctrine of Mormonism; see Spencer, Catechism
of Latter Day Saints. The Mormons teach that God is a man; that he
has numerous wives by whom he peoples space with an infinite
number of spirits. Christ was a favorite son by a favorite wife,
but birth as man was the only way he could come into the enjoyment
of real life. These spirits are all the sons of God, but they can
realize and enjoy their sonship only through birth. They are about
every one of us pleading to be born. Hence, polygamy.
We come now to consider the positive import of the term Spirit. The
spirituality of God involves the two attributes of Life and Personality.
1. Life.
The Scriptures represent God as the living God.
_Jer. 10:10—_“He is the living God”; _1 Thess. 1:9—_“turned unto God from
idols, to serve a living and true God”; _John 5:26-_“hath life in
himself”; _cf._ _14:6—_“I am ... the life,” and _Heb. 7:16—_“the power of
an endless life”; _Rev. 11:11—_“the Spirit of life.”
Life is a simple idea, and is incapable of real definition. We know it,
however, in ourselves, and we can perceive the insufficiency or
inconsistency of certain current definitions of it. We cannot regard life
in God as
(_a_) Mere _process_, without a subject; for we cannot conceive of a
divine life without a God to live it.
_Versus_ Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1:10—“Life and mind are
processes; neither is a substance; neither is a force; ... the
name given to the whole group of phenomena becomes the
personification of the phenomena, and the product is supposed to
have been the producer.” Here we have a product without any
producer—a series of phenomena without any substance of which they
are manifestations. In a similar manner we read in Dewey,
Psychology, 247—“Self is an _activity_. It is not something which
acts; it is activity.... It is constituted by activities....
Through its activity the soul is.” Here it does not appear how
there can be activity, without any subject or being that is
active. The inconsistency of this view is manifest when Dewey goes
on to say: “The activity may further or develop the self,” and
when he speaks of “the organic activity of the self.” So Dr.
Burdon Sanderson: “Life is a state of ceaseless change,—a state of
change with permanence; living matter ever changes while it is
ever the same.” “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” But
this permanent thing in the midst of change is the subject, the
self, the being, that _has_ life.
Nor can we regard life as
(_b_) Mere _correspondence_ with outward condition and environment; for
this would render impossible a life of God before the existence of the
universe.
_Versus_ Herbert Spencer, Biology, 1:59-71—“Life is the definite
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and
successive, in correspondence with external coëxistences and
sequences.” Here we have, at best, a definition of physical and
finite life; and even this is insufficient, because the definition
recognizes no original source of activity within, but only a power
of reaction in response to stimulus from without. We might as well
say that the boiling tea-kettle is alive (Mark Hopkins). We find
this defect also in Robert Browning’s lines in The Ring and the
Book (The Pope, 1307): “O Thou—as represented here to me In such
conception as my soul allows—Under thy measureless, my
atom-width!—Man’s mind, what is it but a convex glass Wherein are
gathered all the scattered points Picked out of the immensity of
sky, To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, Our known Unknown,
our God revealed to man?” Life is something more than a passive
receptivity.
(_c_) Life is rather _mental energy_, or energy of intellect, affection,
and will. God is the living God, as having in his own being a source of
being and activity, both for himself and others.
Life means energy, activity, movement. Aristotle: “Life is energy
of mind.” Wordsworth, Excursion, book 5:602—“Life is love and
immortality, The Being one, and one the element.... Life, I
repeat, is energy of love Divine or human.” Prof. C. L. Herrick,
on Critics of Ethical Monism, in Denison Quarterly, Dec.
1896:248—“Force is energy under resistance, or self-limited
energy, for all parts of the universe are derived from the energy.
Energy manifesting itself under self-conditioning or differential
forms is force. The change of pure energy into force is creation.”
Prof. Herrick quotes from S. T. Coleridge, Anima Poetæ: “Space is
the name for God; it is the most perfect image of soul—pure soul
being to us nothing but unresisted action. Whenever action is
resisted, limitation begins—and limitation is the first
constituent of body; the more omnipresent it is in a given space,
the more that space is body or matter; and thus all body
presupposes soul, inasmuch as all resistance presupposes action.”
Schelling: “Life is the tendency to individualism.”
If spirit in man implies life, spirit in God implies endless and
inexhaustible life. The total life of the universe is only a faint
image of that moving energy which we call the life of God. Dewey,
Psychology, 253—“The sense of being alive is much more vivid in
childhood than afterwards. Leigh Hunt says that, when he was a
child, the sight of certain palings painted red gave him keener
pleasure than any experience of manhood.” Matthew Arnold: “Bliss
was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.”
The child’s delight in country scenes, and our intensified
perceptions in brain fever, show us by contrast how shallow and
turbid is the stream of our ordinary life. Tennyson, Two Voices:
“’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for
which we pant; More life, and fuller, that we want.” That life the
needy human spirit finds only in the infinite God. Instead of
Tyndall’s: “Matter has in it the promise and potency of every form
of life,” we accept Sir William Crookes’s dictum: “Life has in it
the promise and potency of every form of matter.” See A. H.
Strong, on The Living God, in Philos. and Religion, 180-187.
2. Personality.
The Scriptures represent God as a personal being. By personality we mean
the power of self-consciousness and of self-determination. By way of
further explanation we remark:
(_a_) Self-consciousness is more than consciousness. This last the brute
may be supposed to possess, since the brute is not an automaton. Man is
distinguished from the brute by his power to objectify self. Man is not
only conscious of his own acts and states, but by abstraction and
reflection he recognizes the self which is the subject of these acts and
states. (_b_) Self-determination is more than determination. The brute
shows determination, but his determination is the result of influences
from without; there is no inner spontaneity. Man, by virtue of his
free-will, determines his action from within. He determines self in view
of motives, but his determination is not caused by motives; he himself is
the cause.
God, as personal, is in the highest degree self-conscious and
self-determining. The rise in our own minds of the idea of God, as
personal, depends largely upon our recognition of personality in
ourselves. Those who deny spirit in man place a bar in the way of the
recognition of this attribute of God.
_Ex. 3:14—_“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said,
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me
unto you.” God is not the everlasting “IT IS,” or “I WAS,” but the
everlasting “I AM” (Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 128); “I
AM” implies both personality and presence. _1 Cor. 2:11—_“the
things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God”; _Eph.
1:9—_“good pleasure which he purposed”; _11—_“the counsel of his
will.” Definitions of personality are the following:
Boethius—“Persona est animæ rationalis individua substantia”
(quoted in Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:415). F. W. Robertson, Genesis
3—“Personality = self-consciousness, will, character.” Porter,
Human Intellect, 626—“Distinct subsistence, either actually or
latently self-conscious and self-determining.” Harris, Philos.
Basis of Theism: Person = “being, conscious of self, subsisting in
individuality and identity, and endowed with intuitive reason,
rational sensibility, and free-will.” See Harris, 98, 99,
quotation from Mansel—“The freedom of the will is so far from
being, as it is generally considered, a controvertible question in
philosophy, that it is the fundamental postulate without which all
action and all speculation, philosophy in all its branches and
human consciousness itself, would be impossible.”
One of the most astounding announcements in all literature is that
of Matthew Arnold, in his “Literature and Dogma,” that the Hebrew
Scriptures recognize in God only “the power, not ourselves, that
makes for righteousness” = the God of pantheism. The “I AM” of
_Ex. 3:14_ could hardly have been so misunderstood, if Matthew
Arnold had not lost the sense of his own personality and
responsibility. From free-will in man we rise to freedom in
God—“That living Will that shall endure, When all that seems shall
suffer shock.” Observe that personality needs to be accompanied by
life—the power of self-consciousness and self-determination needs
to be accompanied by activity—in order to make up our total idea
of God as Spirit. Only this personality of God gives proper
meaning to his punishments or to his forgiveness. See Bib. Sac.,
April, 1884:217-233; Eichhorn, die Persönlichkeit Gottes.
Illingworth, Divine and Human Personality, 1:25, shows that the
sense of personality has had a gradual growth; that its
pre-Christian recognition was imperfect; that its final definition
has been due to Christianity. In 29-53, he notes the
characteristics of personality as reason, love, will. The brute
_perceives_; only the man _apperceives_, _i. e._, recognizes his
perception as belonging to himself. In the German story,
Dreiäuglein, the three-eyed child, had besides her natural pair of
eyes one other to see what the pair did, and besides her natural
will had an additional will to set the first to going right. On
consciousness and self-consciousness, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol.,
1:179-189—“In consciousness the object is another substance than
the subject; but in self-consciousness the object is the same
substance as the subject.” Tennyson, in his Palace of Art, speaks
of “the abysmal depths of personality.” We do not fully know
ourselves, nor yet our relation to God. But the divine
consciousness embraces the whole divine content of being: “the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God”_ (1 Cor.
2:10)_.
We are not fully masters of ourselves. Our self-determination is
as limited as is our self-consciousness. But the divine will is
absolutely without hindrance; God’s activity is constant, intense,
infinite; _Job 23:13—_“What his soul desireth, even that he
doeth”; _John 5:17—_“My Father worketh even until now, and I
work.” Self-knowledge and self-mastery are the dignity of man;
they are also the dignity of God; Tennyson: “Self-reverence,
self-knowledge, self-control, These three lead life to sovereign
power.” Robert Browning, The Last Ride Together: “What act proved
all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen?”
Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 6, 161, 216-255—“Perhaps the
root of personality is capacity for affection.”... Our personality
is incomplete; we reason truly only with God helping; our love in
higher Love endures; we will rightly, only as God works in us to
will and to do; to make us truly ourselves we need an infinite
Personality to supplement and energize our own; we are complete
only in Christ (_Col. 2:9, 10—_“In him dwelleth all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full.”)
Webb, on the Idea of Personality as applied to God, in Jour.
Theol. Studies, 2:50—“Self knows itself and what is not itself as
two, just because both alike are embraced within the unity of its
experience, stand out against this background, the apprehension of
which is the very essence of that rationality or personality which
distinguishes us from the lower animals. We find that background,
God, present in us, or rather, we find ourselves present in it.
But if I find myself present in it, then it, as more complete, is
simply more personal than I. Our not-self is outside of us, so
that we are finite and lonely, but God’s not-self is within him,
so that there is a mutual inwardness of love and insight of which
the most perfect communion among men is only a faint symbol. We
are ’hermit-spirits,’ as Keble says, and we come to union with
others only by realizing our union with God. Personality is not
impenetrable in man, for ‘in him we live, and move, and have our
being’_ (Acts 17:28)_, and ‘that which hath been made is life in
him’_ (John 1:3, 4)_.” Palmer, Theologic Definition, 39—“That
which has its cause without itself is a thing, while that which
has its cause within itself is a person.”
Second Division.—Infinity, and attributes therein involved.
By infinity we mean, not that the divine nature has no known limits or
bounds, but that it has no limits or bounds. That which has simply no
known limits is the indefinite. The infinity of God implies that he is in
no way limited by the universe or confined to the universe; he is
transcendent as well as immanent. Transcendence, however, must not be
conceived as freedom from merely spatial restrictions, but rather as
unlimited resource, of which God’s glory is the expression.
_Ps. 145:3—_“his greatness is unsearchable”; _Job 11:7-9—_“high as
heaven ... deeper than Sheol”; _Is. 66:1—_“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool”; _1 K. 8:27—_“Heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain thee”; _Rom. 11:33—_“how unsearchable
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.” There can be no
infinite number, since to any assignable number a unit can be
added, which shows that this number was not infinite before. There
can be no infinite universe, because an infinite universe is
conceivable only as an infinite number of worlds or of minds. God
himself is the only real Infinite, and the universe is but the
finite expression or symbol of his greatness.
We therefore object to the statement of Lotze, Microcosm,
1:446—“The complete system, grasped in its totality, offers an
expression of the whole nature of the One.... The Cause makes
actual existence its complete manifestation.” In a similar way
Schurman, Belief in God, 26, 173-178, grants infinity, but denies
transcendence: “The infinite Spirit may include the finite, as the
idea of a single organism embraces within a single life a
plurality of members and functions.... The world is the expression
of an ever active and inexhaustible will. That the external
manifestation is as boundless as the life it expresses, science
makes exceedingly probable. In any event, we have not the
slightest reason to contrast the finitude of the world with the
infinity of God.... If the natural order is eternal and infinite,
as there seems no reason to doubt, it will be difficult to find a
meaning for ‘beyond’ or ‘before.’ Of this illimitable,
ever-existing universe, God is the Inner ground or substance.
There is no evidence, neither does any religious need require us
to believe, that the divine Being manifest in the universe has any
actual or possible existence elsewhere, in some transcendent
sphere.... The divine will can express itself only as it does,
because no other expression would reveal what it is. Of such a
will, the universe is the eternal expression.”
In explanation of the term infinity, we may notice:
(_a_) That infinity can belong to but one Being, and therefore cannot be
shared with the universe. Infinity is not a negative but a positive idea.
It does not take its rise from an impotence of thought, but is an
intuitive conviction which constitutes the basis of all other knowledge.
See Porter, Human Intellect, 651, 652, and this Compendium, pages
59-62. _Versus_ Mansel, Proleg. Logica, chap. 1—“Such negative
notions ... imply at once an attempt to think, and a failure in
that attempt.” On the contrary, the conception of the Infinite is
perfectly distinguishable from that of the finite, and is both
necessary and logically prior to that of the finite. This is not
true of our idea of the universe, of which all we know is finite
and dependent. We therefore regard such utterances as those of
Lotze and Schurman above, and those of Chamberlin and Caird below,
as pantheistic in tendency, although the belief of these writers
in divine and human personality saves them from falling into other
errors of pantheism.
Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago: “It is not
sufficient to the modern scientific thought to think of a Ruler
outside of the universe, nor of a universe with the Ruler outside.
A supreme Being who does not embrace all the activities and
possibilities and potencies of the universe seems something less
than the supremest Being, and a universe with a Ruler outside
seems something less than a universe. And therefore the thought is
growing on the minds of scientific thinkers that the supreme Being
is the universal Being, embracing and comprehending all things.”
Caird, Evolution of Religion, 2:62—“Religion, if it would continue
to exist, must combine the monotheistic idea with that which it
has often regarded as its greatest enemy, the spirit of
pantheism.” We grant in reply that religion must appropriate the
element of truth in pantheism, namely, that God is the only
substance, ground and principle of being, but we regard it as
fatal to religion to side with pantheism in its denials of God’s
transcendence and of God’s personality.
(_b_) That the infinity of God does not involve his identity with “the
all,” or the sum of existence, nor prevent the coëxistence of derived and
finite beings to which he bears relation. Infinity implies simply that God
exists in no necessary relation to finite things or beings, and that
whatever limitation of the divine nature results from their existence is,
on the part of God, a self-limitation.
_Ps. 113:5, 6—_“that humbleth himself to behold the things that
are in heaven and in the earth.” It is involved in God’s infinity
that there should be no barriers to his self-limitation in
creation and redemption (see page 9, F.). Jacob Boehme said: “God
is infinite, for God is all.” But this is to make God all
imperfection, as well as all perfection. Harris, Philos. Basis
Theism: “The relation of the absolute to the finite is not the
mathematical relation of a total to its parts, but it is a
dynamical and rational relation.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol.,
1:189-191—“The infinite is not the total; ‘the all’ is a
pseudo-infinite, and to assert that it is greater than the simple
infinite is the same error that is committed in mathematics when
it is asserted that an infinite number plus a vast finite number
is greater than the simple infinite.” Fullerton, Conception of the
Infinite, 90—“The Infinite, though it involves unlimited
possibility of quantity, is not itself a quantitative but rather a
qualitative conception.” Hovey, Studies of Ethics and Religion,
39-47—“Any number of finite beings, minds, loves, wills, cannot
reveal fully an infinite Being, Mind, Love, Will. God must be
transcendent as well as immanent in the universe, or he is neither
infinite nor an object of supreme worship.”
Clarke, Christian Theology, 117—“Great as the universe is, God is
not limited to it, wholly absorbed by what he is doing in it, and
capable of doing nothing more. God in the universe is not like the
life of the tree in the tree, which does all that it is capable of
in making the tree what it is. God in the universe is rather like
the spirit of a man in his body, which is greater than his body,
able to direct his body, and capable of activities in which his
body has no share. God is a free spirit, personal, self-directing,
unexhausted by his present activities.” The Persian poet said
truly: “The world is a bud from his bower of beauty; the sun is a
spark from the light of his wisdom; the sky is a bubble on the sea
of his power.” Faber: “For greatness which is infinite makes room
For all things in its lap to lie. We should be crushed by a
magnificence Short of infinity. We share in what is infinite; ’tis
ours, For we and it alike are Thine. What I enjoy, great God, by
right of Thee, Is more than doubly mine.”
(_c_) That the infinity of God is to be conceived of as intensive, rather
than as extensive. We do not attribute to God infinite extension, but
rather infinite energy of spiritual life. That which acts up to the
measure of its power is simply natural and physical force. Man rises above
nature by virtue of his reserves of power. But in God the reserve is
infinite. There is a transcendent element in him, which no self-revelation
exhausts, whether creation or redemption, whether law or promise.
Transcendence is not mere outsideness,—it is rather boundless
supply within. God is not infinite by virtue of existing “extra
flammantia mœnia mundi” (Lucretius) or of filling a space outside
of space,—he is rather infinite by being the pure and perfect Mind
that passes beyond all phenomena and constitutes the ground of
them. The former conception of infinity is simply supra-cosmic,
the latter alone is properly transcendent; see Hatch, Hibbert
Lectures, 244. “God is the living God, and has not yet spoken his
last word on any subject” (G. W. Northrup). God’s life “operates
unspent.” There is “ever more to follow.” The legend stamped with
the Pillars of Hercules upon the old coins of Spain was _Ne plus
ultra_—“Nothing beyond,” but when Columbus discovered America the
legend was fitly changed to _Plus ultra_—“More beyond.” So the
motto of the University of Rochester is _Meliora_—“Better things.”
Since God’s infinite resources are pledged to aid us, we may, as
Emerson bids us, “hitch our wagon to a star,” and believe in
progress. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: “Men, my brothers, men the
workers, ever reaping something new. That which they have done but
earnest of the things that they shall do.” Millet’s L’Angelus is a
witness to man’s need of God’s transcendence. Millet’s aim was to
paint, not _air_ but _prayer_. We need a God who is not confined
to nature. As Moses at the beginning of his ministry cried, “Show
me, I pray thee, thy glory”_ (Ex. 33:18)_, so we need marked
experiences at the beginning of the Christian life, in order that
we may be living witnesses to the supernatural. And our Lord
promises such manifestations of himself: _John 14:21—_“I will love
him, and will manifest myself unto him.”
_Ps. 71:15—_“My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, And of thy
salvation all the day; For I know not the numbers thereof” = it is
infinite. _Ps. 89:2—_“Mercy shall be built up forever” = ever
growing manifestations and cycles of fulfilment—first literal,
then spiritual. _Ps. 113:4-6—_“Jehovah is high above all nations,
And his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto Jehovah our God,
That hath his seat on high, That humbleth himself [stoopeth down]
to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth?” _Mal.
2:15—_“did he not make one, although he had the residue of the
Spirit?” = he might have created many wives for Adam, though he
did actually create but one. In this “residue of the Spirit,” says
Caldwell, Cities of our Faith, 370, “there yet lies latent—as
winds lie calm in the air of a summer noon, as heat immense lies
cold and hidden in the mountains of coal—the blessing and the life
of nations, the infinite enlargement of Zion.”
_Is. 52:10—_“Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm” = nature does
not exhaust or entomb God; nature is the mantle in which he
commonly reveals himself; but he is not fettered by the robe he
wears—he can thrust it aside, and make bare his arm in
providential interpositions for earthly deliverance, and in mighty
movements of history for the salvation of the sinner and for the
setting up of his own kingdom. See also _John 1:16—_“of his
fulness we all received, and grace for grace” = “Each blessing
appropriated became the foundation of a greater blessing. To have
realized and used one measure of grace was to have gained a larger
measure in exchange for it χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος”; so Westcott, in
Bib. Com., _in loco_. Christ can ever say to the believer, as he
said to Nathanael _(John 1:50): _“thou shalt see greater things
than these.”
Because God is infinite, he can love each believer as much as if
that single soul were the only one for whom he had to care. Both
in providence and in redemption the whole heart of God is busy
with plans for the interest and happiness of the single Christian.
Threatenings do not half reveal God, nor his promises half express
the “eternal weight of glory”_ (2 Cor. 4:17)_. Dante, Paradiso,
19:40-63—God “Could not upon the universe so write The impress of
his power, but that his word Must still be left in distance
infinite.” To “limit the Holy One of Israel”_ (Ps. 78:41_—marg.)
is falsehood as well as sin.
This attribute of infinity, or of transcendence, qualifies all the
other attributes, and so is the foundation for the representations
of majesty and glory as belonging to God (see _Ex. 33:18_; _Ps.
19:1_; _Is. 6:3_; _Mat. 6:13_; _Acts 7:2_; _Rom. 1:23_; _9:23_;
_Heb. 1:3_; _1 Pet. 4:14_; _Rev. 21:23_). Glory is not itself a
divine attribute; it is rather a result—an objective result—of the
exercise of the divine attributes. This glory exists irrespective
of the revelation and recognition of it in the creation (_John
17:5_). Only God can worthily perceive and reverence his own
glory. He does all for his own glory. All religion is founded on
the glory of God. All worship is the result of this immanent
quality of the divine nature. Kedney, Christian Doctrine,
1:360-373, 2:354, apparently conceives of the divine glory as an
eternal material environment of God, from which the universe is
fashioned. This seems to contradict both the spirituality and the
infinity of God. God’s infinity implies absolute completeness
apart from anything external to himself. We proceed therefore to
consider the attributes involved in infinity.
Of the attributes involved in Infinity, we mention:
1. Self-existence.
By self-existence we mean
(_a_) That God is “_causa sui_,” having the ground of his existence in
himself. Every being must have the ground of its existence either in or
out of itself. We have the ground of our existence outside of us. God is
not thus dependent. He is _a se_; hence we speak of the aseity of God.
God’s self-existence is implied in the name “Jehovah”_ (Ex. 6:3)_
and in the declaration “I AM THAT I AM” (_Ex. 3:14_), both of
which signify that it is God’s nature to be. Self-existence is
certainly incomprehensible to us, yet a self-existent person is no
greater mystery than a self-existent thing, such as Herbert
Spencer supposes the universe to be; indeed it is not so great a
mystery, for it is easier to derive matter from mind than to
derive mind from matter. See Porter, Human Intellect, 661. Joh.
Angelus Silesius: “Gott ist das was Er ist; Ich was Ich durch Ihn
bin; Doch kennst du Einen wohl, So kennst du mich und Ihn.”
Martineau, Types, 1:302—“A _cause_ may be eternal, but nothing
that is _caused_ can be so.” He protests against the phrase
“_causa sui_.” So Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:338, objects to the
phrase “God is his own cause,” because God is the uncaused Being.
But when we speak of God as “_causa sui_,” we do not attribute to
him beginning of existence. The phrase means rather that the
ground of his existence is not outside of himself, but that he
himself is the living spring of all energy and of all being.
But lest this should be misconstrued, we add
(_b_) That God exists by the necessity of his own being. It is his nature
to be. Hence the existence of God is not a contingent but a necessary
existence. It is grounded, not in his volitions, but in his nature.
Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:126, 130, 170, seems to hold
that God is primarily will, so that the essence of God is his act:
“God’s essence does not precede his freedom”; “if the essence of
God were for him something given, something already present, the
question ‘from whence it was given?’ could not be evaded; God’s
essence must in this case have its origin in something apart from
him, and thus the true conception of God would be entirely swept
away.” But this implies that truth, reason, love, holiness,
equally with God’s essence, are all products of will. If God’s
essence, moreover, were his act, it would be in the power of God
to annihilate himself. Act presupposes essence; else there is no
God to act. The will by which God exists, and in virtue of which
he is _causa sui_, is therefore not will in the sense of volition,
but will in the sense of the whole movement of his active being.
With Müller’s view Thomasius and Delitzsch are agreed. For
refutation of it, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:63.
God’s essence is not his act, not only because this would imply
that he could destroy himself, but also because before willing
there must be being. Those who hold God’s essence to be simple
activity are impelled to this view by the fear of postulating some
dead thing in God which precedes all exercise of faculty. So
Miller, Evolution of Love, 43—“Perfect action, conscious and
volitional, is the highest generalization, the ultimate unit, the
unconditioned nature, of infinite Being”; _i. e._, God’s nature is
subjective action, while external nature is his objective action.
A better statement, however, is that of Bowne, Philos. of Theism,
170—“While there is a necessity in the soul, it becomes
controlling only through freedom; and we may say that everyone
must constitute himself a rational soul.... This is absolutely
true of God.”
2. Immutability.
By this we mean that the nature, attributes, and will of God are exempt
from all change. Reason teaches us that no change is possible in God,
whether of increase or decrease, progress or deterioration, contraction or
development. All change must be to better or to worse. But God is absolute
perfection, and no change to better is possible. Change to worse would be
equally inconsistent with perfection. No cause for such change exists,
either outside of God or in God himself.
_Psalm 102:27—_“thou art the same”; _Mal. 3:6—_“I, Jehovah, change
not”; _James 1:17—_“with whom can be no variation, neither shadow
that is cast by turning.” Spenser, Faerie Queen, Cantos of
Mutability, 8:2—“Then ’gin I think on that which nature sayde, Of
that same time when no more change shall be, But steadfast rest of
all things, firmly stayed Upon the pillours of eternity; For all
that moveth doth in change delight, But henceforth all shall rest
eternally With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight; Oh thou great
Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath’s sight!” Bowne, Philos. of
Theism, 146, defines immutability as “the constancy and continuity
of the divine nature which exists through all the divine acts as
their law and source.”
The passages of Scripture which seem at first sight to ascribe change to
God are to be explained in one of three ways:
(_a_) As illustrations of the varied methods in which God manifests his
immutable truth and wisdom in creation.
Mathematical principles receive new application with each
successive stage of creation. The law of cohesion gives place to
chemical law, and chemistry yields to vital forces, but through
all these changes there is a divine truth and wisdom which is
unchanging, and which reduces all to rational order. John Caird,
Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:140—“Immutability is not
stereotyped sameness, but impossibility of deviation by one hair’s
breadth from the course which is best. A man of great force of
character is continually finding new occasions for the
manifestation and application of moral principle. In God infinite
consistency is united with infinite flexibility. There is no
iron-bound impassibility, but rather an infinite originality in
him.”
(_b_) As anthropomorphic representations of the revelation of God’s
unchanging attributes in the changing circumstances and varying moral
conditions of creatures.
_Gen. 6:6—_“it repented Jehovah that he had made man”—is to be
interpreted in the light of _Num. 23:19—_“God is not a man, that
he should lie: neither the son of man, that he should repent.” So
_cf._ _1 Sam. 15:11_ with _15:29_. God’s unchanging holiness
requires him to treat the wicked differently from the righteous.
When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must
change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax
but hardens the clay,—the change is not in the sun but in the
objects it shines upon. The change in God’s treatment of men is
described anthropomorphically, as if it were a change in God
himself,—other passages in close conjunction with the first being
given to correct any possible misapprehension. Threats not
fulfilled, as in _Jonah 3:4, 10_, are to be explained by their
conditional nature. Hence God’s immutability itself renders it
certain that his love will adapt itself to every varying mood and
condition of his children, so as to guide their steps, sympathize
with their sorrows, answer their prayers. God responds to us more
quickly than the mother’s face to the changing moods of her babe.
Godet, in The Atonement, 338—“God is of all beings the most
delicately and infinitely sensitive.”
God’s immutability is not that of the stone, that has no internal
experience, but rather that of the column of mercury, that rises
and falls with every change in the temperature of the surrounding
atmosphere. When a man bicycling against the wind turns about and
goes with the wind instead of going against it, the wind seems to
change, though it is blowing just as it was before. The sinner
struggles against the wind of prevenient grace until he seems to
strike against a stone wall. Regeneration is God’s conquest of our
wills by his power, and conversion is our beginning to turn round
and to work with God rather than against God. Now we move without
effort, because we have God at our back; _Phil. 2:12, 13—_“work
out your own salvation ... for it is God who worketh in you.” God
has not changed, but we have changed; _John 3:8—_“The wind bloweth
where it will ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Jacob’s first wrestling with the Angel was the picture of his
lifelong self-will, opposing God; his subsequent wrestling in
prayer was the picture of a consecrated will, working with God
(_Gen. 32:24-28_). We seem to conquer God, but he really conquers
us. He seems to change, but it is we who change after all.
(_c_) As describing executions, in time, of purposes eternally existing in
the mind of God. Immutability must not be confounded with immobility. This
would deny all those imperative volitions of God by which he enters into
history. The Scriptures assure us that creation, miracles, incarnation,
regeneration, are immediate acts of God. Immutability is consistent with
constant activity and perfect freedom.
The abolition of the Mosaic dispensation indicates no change in
God’s plan; it is rather the execution of his plan. Christ’s
coming and work were no sudden makeshift, to remedy unforeseen
defects in the Old Testament scheme: Christ came rather in “the
fulness of the time”_ (Gal. 4:4)_, to fulfill the “counsel” of God
(_Acts 2:23_). _Gen. 8:1—_“God remembered Noah” = interposed by
special act for Noah’s deliverance, showed that he remembered
Noah. While we change, God does not. There is no fickleness or
inconstancy in him. Where we once found him, there we may find him
still, as Jacob did at Bethel (_Gen. 35:1, 6, 9_). Immutability is
a consolation to the faithful, but a terror to God’s enemies
(_Mal. 3:6—_“I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of
Jacob, are not consumed”; _Ps. 7:11—_“a God that hath indignation
every day”). It is consistent with constant activity in nature and
in grace (_John 5:17—_“My Father worketh even until now, and I
work”; _Job 23:13, 14—_“he is in one mind, and who can turn
him?... For he performeth that which is appointed for me: and many
such things are with him”). If God’s immutability were immobility,
we could not worship him, any more than the ancient Greeks were
able to worship Fate. Arthur Hugh Clough: “It fortifies my soul to
know, That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe’er I stray
and range, Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step
when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.” On this
attribute see Charnock, Attributes, 1:310-362; Dorner, Gesammelte
Schriften, 188-377; translated in Bib. Sac., 1879:28-59, 209-223.
3. Unity.
By this we mean (_a_) that the divine nature is undivided and indivisible
(_unus_); and (_b_) that there is but one infinite and perfect Spirit
(_unicus_).
_Deut. 6:4—_“Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”; _Is.
44:6—_“besides me there is no God”; _John 5:44—_“the only God”;
_17:3—_“the only true God”; _1 Cor. 8:4—_“no God but one”; _1 Tim.
1:17—_“the only God”; _6:15—_“the blessed and only Potentate”;
_Eph. 4:5, 6—_“one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” When
we read in Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 25—“The unity of God is not
numerical, denying the existence of a second; it is integral,
denying the possibility of division,” we reply that the unity of
God is both,—it includes both the numerical and the integral
elements.
Humboldt, in his Cosmos, has pointed out that the unity and
creative agency of the heavenly Father have given unity to the
order of nature, and so have furnished the impulse to modern
physical science. Our faith in a “universe” rests historically
upon the demonstration of God’s unity which has been given by the
incarnation and death of Christ. Tennyson, In Memoriam: “That God
who ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one
far off divine event To which the whole creation moves.” See A. H.
Strong, Christ in Creation, 184-187. Alexander McLaren: “The
heathen have many gods because they have no one that satisfies
hungry hearts or corresponds to their unconscious ideals.
Completeness is not reached by piecing together many fragments.
The wise merchantman will gladly barter a sack full of ‘goodly
pearls’ for the one of great price. Happy they who turn away from
the many to embrace the One!”
Against polytheism, tritheism, or dualism, we may urge that the notion of
two or more Gods is self-contradictory; since each limits the other and
destroys his godhood. In the nature of things, infinity and absolute
perfection are possible only to one. It is unphilosophical, moreover, to
assume the existence of two or more Gods, when one will explain all the
facts. The unity of God is, however, in no way inconsistent with the
doctrine of the Trinity; for, while this doctrine holds to the existence
of hypostatical, or personal, distinctions in the divine nature, it also
holds that this divine nature is numerically and eternally one.
Polytheism is man’s attempt to rid himself of the notion of
responsibility to one moral Lawgiver and Judge by dividing up his
manifestations, and attributing them to separate wills. So Force,
in the terminology of some modern theorizers, is only God with his
moral attributes left out. “Henotheism” (says Max Müller, Origin
and Growth of Religion, 285) “conceives of each individual god as
unlimited by the power of other gods. Each is felt, at the time,
as supreme and absolute, notwithstanding the limitations which to
our minds must arise from his power being conditioned by the power
of all the gods.”
Even polytheism cannot rest in the doctrine of many gods, as an
exclusive and all-comprehending explanation of the universe. The
Greeks believed in one supreme Fate that ruled both gods and men.
Aristotle: “God, though he is one, has many names, because he is
called according to states into which he is ever entering anew.”
The doctrine of God’s unity should teach men to give up hope of
any other God, to reveal himself to them or to save them. They are
in the hands of the one and only God, and therefore there is but
one law, one gospel, one salvation; one doctrine, one duty, one
destiny. We cannot rid ourselves of responsibility by calling
ourselves mere congeries of impressions or mere victims of
circumstance. As God is one, so the soul made in God’s image is
one also. On the origin of polytheism, see articles by Tholuck, in
Bib. Repos., 2:84, 246, 441, and Max Müller, Science of Religion,
124.
Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 83—“The Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and end and sum and meaning of Being, is but One. We who
believe in a personal God do not believe in a limited God. We do
not mean one more, a bigger specimen of existences, amongst
existences. Rather, we mean that the reality of existence itself
is personal: that Power, that Law, that Life, that Thought, that
Love, are ultimately, in their very reality, identified in one
supreme, and that necessarily a personal Existence. Now such
supreme Being cannot be multiplied: it is incapable of a plural:
it cannot be a generic term. There cannot be more than one
all-inclusive, more than one ultimate, more than one God. Nor has
Christian thought, at any point, for any moment, dared or endured
the least approach to such a thought or phrase as ‘two Gods.’ If
the Father is God, and the Son God, they are both the same God
wholly, unreservedly. God is a particular, an unique, not a
general, term. Each is not only God, but is the very same
‘singularis unicus et totus Deus.’ They are not both _generically_
God, as though ‘God’ could be an attribute or predicate; but both
_identically_ God, the God, the one all-inclusive, indivisible,
God.... If the thought that wishes to be orthodox had less
tendency to become tritheistic, the thought that claims to be free
would be less Unitarian.”
Third Division.—Perfection, and attributes therein involved.
By perfection we mean, not mere quantitative completeness, but qualitative
excellence. The attributes involved in perfection are moral attributes.
Right action among men presupposes a perfect moral organization, a normal
state of intellect, affection and will. So God’s activity presupposes a
principle of intelligence, of affection, of volition, in his inmost being,
and the existence of a worthy object for each of these powers of his
nature. But in eternity past there is nothing existing outside or apart
from God. He must find, and he does find, the sufficient object of
intellect, affection, and will, in himself. There is a self-knowing, a
self-loving, a self-willing, which constitute his absolute perfection. The
consideration of the immanent attributes is, therefore, properly concluded
with an account of that truth, love, and holiness, which render God
entirely sufficient to himself.
_Mat. 5:48—_“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect”; _Rom. 12:2—_“perfect will of God”; _Col.
1:28—_“perfect in Christ”; _cf._ _Deut. 32:4—_“The Rock, his work
is perfect”; _Ps. 18:30—_“As for God, his way is perfect.”
1. Truth.
By truth we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which
God’s being and God’s knowledge eternally conform to each other.
In further explanation we remark:
A. Negatively:
(_a_) The immanent truth of God is not to be confounded with that veracity
and faithfulness which partially manifest it to creatures. These are
transitive truth, and they presuppose the absolute and immanent attribute.
_Deut 32:4—_“A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and
right is he”; _John 17:3—_“the only true God” (ἀληθινόν); _1 John
5:20—_“we know him that is true” (τὸν ἀληθινόν). In both these
passages ἀληθινός describes God as the genuine, the real, as
distinguished from ἀληθής, the veracious (compare _John 6:32—_“the
true bread”; _Heb. 8:2—_“the true tabernacle”). _John 14:6—_“I am
... the truth.” As “I am ... the life” signifies, not “I am the
living one,” but rather “I am he who is life and the source of
life,” so “_I am ... the truth_” signifies, not “I am the truthful
one,” but “I am he who is truth and the source of truth”—in other
words, truth of being, not merely truth of expression. So _1 John
5:7—_“the Spirit is the truth.” _Cf._ 1 Esdras 1:38—“The truth
abideth and is forever strong, and it liveth and ruleth forever” =
personal truth? See Godet on _John 1:18_; Shedd, Dogm. Theol.,
1:181.
Truth is God perfectly revealed and known. It may be likened to
the electric current which manifests and measures the power of the
dynamo. There is no realm of truth apart from the world-ground,
just as there is no law of nature that is independent of the
Author of nature. While we know ourselves only partially, God
knows himself fully. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity,
1:192—“In the life of God there are no unrealized possibilities.
The presupposition of all our knowledge and activity is that
absolute and eternal unity of knowing and being which is only
another expression for the nature of God. In one sense, he is all
reality, and the only reality, whilst all finite existence is but
a _becoming_, which never _is_.” Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John,
57-63—“Truth is reality revealed. Jesus is the Truth, because in
him the sum of the qualities hidden in God is presented and
revealed to the world, God’s nature in terms of an active force
and in relation to his rational creation.” This definition however
ignores the fact that God is truth, apart from and before all
creation. As an immanent attribute, truth implies a conformity of
God’s knowledge to God’s being, which antedates the universe; see
B. (_b_) below.
(_b_) Truth in God is not a merely active attribute of the divine nature.
God is truth, not only in the sense that he is the being who truly knows,
but also in the sense that he is the truth that is known. The passive
precedes the active; truth of being precedes truth of knowing.
Plato: “Truth is his (God’s) body, and light his shadow.” Hollaz
(quoted in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137) says that
“truth is the conformity of the divine essence with the divine
intellect.” See Gerhard, loc. ii:152; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2:272,
279; 3:193—“Distinguish in God the personal self-consciousness
[spirituality, personality—see pages 252, 253] from the unfolding
of this in the divine knowledge, which can have no other object
but God himself. So far, now, as self-knowing in God is absolutely
identical with his being is he the absolutely true. For truth is
the knowledge which answers to the being, and the being which
answers to the knowledge.”
Royce, World and Individual, 1:270—“Truth either may mean that
about which we judge, _or_ it may mean the correspondence between
our ideas and their objects.” God’s truth is both object of his
knowledge and knowledge of his object. Miss Clara French, The
Dramatic Action and Motive of King John: “You spell Truth with a
capital, and make it an independent existence to be sought for and
absorbed; but, unless truth is God, what can it do for man? It is
only a personality that can touch a personality.” So we assent to
the poet’s declaration that “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise
again,” only because Truth is personal. Christ, the Revealer of
God, is the Truth. He is not simply the medium but also the object
of all knowledge; _Eph. 4:20—_“ye did not so learn Christ” = ye
knew more than the doctrine about Christ,—ye knew Christ himself;
_John 17:3—_“this is life eternal that they should know thee the
only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.”
B. Positively:
(_a_) All truth among men, whether mathematical, logical, moral, or
religious, is to be regarded as having its foundation in this immanent
truth of the divine nature and as disclosing facts in the being of God.
There is a higher Mind than our mind. No apostle can say “I am the
truth,” though each of them can say “I speak the truth.” Truth is
not a scientific or moral, but a substantial, thing—“nicht
Schulsache, sondern Lebenssache.” Here is the dignity of
education, that knowledge of truth is knowledge of God. The laws
of mathematics are disclosures to us, not of the divine reason
merely, for this would imply truth outside of and before God, but
of the divine nature. J. W. A. Stewart: “Science is possible
because God is scientific.” Plato: “God geometrizes.” Bowne: “The
heavens are crystalized mathematics.” The statement that two and
two make four, or that virtue is commendable and vice condemnable,
expresses an everlasting principle in the being of God. Separate
statements of truth are inexplicable apart from the total
revelation of truth, and this total revelation is inexplicable
apart from One who is truth and who is thus revealed. The separate
electric lights in our streets are inexplicable apart from the
electric current which throbs through the wires, and this electric
current is itself inexplicable apart from the hidden dynamo whose
power it exactly expresses and measures. The separate lights of
truth are due to the realizing agency of the Holy Spirit; the one
unifying current which they partially reveal is the outgoing work
of Christ, the divine Logos; Christ is the one and only Revealer
of him who dwells “in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen,
nor can see”_ (1 Tim. 6:16)_.
Prof. H. E. Webster began his lectures “by assuming the Lord Jesus
Christ _and_ the multiplication-table.” But this was tautology,
because the Lord Jesus Christ, the Truth, the only revealer of
God, includes the multiplication-table. So Wendt, Teaching of
Jesus, 1:257; 2:202, unduly narrows the scope of Christ’s
revelation when he maintains that with Jesus truth is not the
truth which corresponds to reality but rather the right conduct
which corresponds to the duty prescribed by God. “Grace and
truth”_ (John 1:17)_ then means the favor of God and the
righteousness which God approves. To understand Jesus is
impossible without being ethically like him. He is king of truth,
in that he reveals this righteousness, and finds obedience for it
among men. This ethical aspect of the truth, we would reply,
important as it is, does not exclude but rather requires for its
complement and presupposition that other aspect of the truth as
the reality to which all being must conform and the conformity of
all being to that reality. Since Christ is the truth of God, we
are successful in our search for truth only as we recognize him.
Whether all roads lead to Rome depends upon which way your face is
turned. Follow a point of land out into the sea, and you find only
ocean. With the back turned upon Jesus Christ all following after
truth leads only into mist and darkness. Aristotle’s ideal man was
“a hunter after truth.” But truth can never be found disjoined
from love, nor can the loveless seeker discern it. “For the loving
worm within its clod Were diviner than a loveless God” (Robert
Browning). Hence Christ can say: _John 18:37—_“Every one that is
of the truth heareth my voice.”
(_b_) This attribute therefore constitutes the principle and guarantee of
all revelation, while it shows the possibility of an eternal divine
self-contemplation apart from and before all creation. It is to be
understood only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity.
To all this doctrine, however, a great school of philosophers have
opposed themselves. Duns Scotus held that God’s will made truth as
well as right. Descartes said that God could have made it untrue
that the radii of a circle are all equal. Lord Bacon said that
Adam’s sin consisted in seeking a good in itself, instead of being
content with the merely empirical good. Whedon, On the Will,
316—“Infinite wisdom and infinite holiness consist in, and result
from, God’s volitions eternally.” We reply that, to make truth and
good matters of mere will, instead of regarding them as
characteristics of God’s being, is to deny that anything is true
or good in itself. If God can make truth to be falsehood, and
injustice to be justice, then God is indifferent to truth or
falsehood, to good or evil, and he ceases thereby to be God. Truth
is not arbitrary,—it is matter of being—the being of God. There
are no regulative principles of knowledge which are not
transcendental also. God knows and wills truth, because he is
truth. Robert Browning, A Soul’s Tragedy, 214—“Were’t not for God,
I mean, what hope of truth—Speaking truth, hearing truth—would
stay with Man?” God’s will does not make truth, but truth rather
makes God’s will. God’s perfect knowledge in eternity past has an
object. That object must be himself. He is the truth Known, as
well as the truthful Knower. But a perfect objective must be
personal. The doctrine of the Trinity is the necessary complement
to the doctrine of the Attributes. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:183—“The
pillar of cloud becomes a pillar of fire.” See A. H. Strong,
Christ in Creation, 102-112.
On the question whether it is ever right to deceive, see Paine,
Ethnic Trinities, 300-339. Plato said that the use of such
medicines should be restricted to physicians. The rulers of the
state may lie for the public good, but private people not:
“officiosum mendacium.” It is better to say that deception is
justifiable only where the person deceived has, like a wild beast
or a criminal or an enemy in war, put himself out of human society
and deprived himself of the right to truth. Even then deception is
a sad necessity which witnesses to an abnormal condition of human
affairs. With James Martineau, when asked what answer he would
give to an intending murderer when truth would mean death, we may
say: “I suppose I should tell an untruth, and then should be sorry
for it forever after.” On truth as an attribute of God, see Bib.
Sac., Oct. 1877:735; Finney, Syst. Theol., 661; Janet, Final
Causes, 416.
2. Love.
By love we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God
is eternally moved to self-communication.
_1 John 4:8—_“God is love”; _3:16—_“hereby know we love, because he laid
down his life for us”; _John 17:24—_“thou lovedst me before the foundation
of the world”; _Rom. 15:30—_“the love of the Spirit.”
In further explanation we remark:
A. Negatively:
(_a_) The immanent love of God is not to be confounded with mercy and
goodness toward creatures. These are its manifestations, and are to be
denominated transitive love.
Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:138, 139—“God’s regard for
the happiness of his creatures flows from this self-communicating
attribute of his nature. Love, in the true sense of the word, is
living good-will, with impulses to impartation and union;
self-communication (bonum communicativum sui); devotion, merging
of the _ego_ in another, in order to penetrate, fill, bless this
other with itself, and in this other, as in another self, to
possess itself, without giving up itself or losing itself. Love is
therefore possible only between persons, and always presupposes
personality. Only as Trinity has God love, absolute love; because
as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost he stands in perfect
self-impartation, self-devotion, and communion with himself.”
Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:136—“God has in himself the eternal
and wholly adequate object of his love, independently of his
relation to the world.”
In the Greek mythology, Eros was one of the oldest and yet one of
the youngest of the gods. So Dante makes the oldest angel to be
the youngest, because nearest to God the fountain of life. In _1
John 2:7, 8, _“the old commandment” of love is evermore “_a new
commandment_,” because it reflects this eternal attribute of God.
“There is a love unstained by selfishness, Th’ outpouring tide of
self-abandonment, That loves to love, and deems its preciousness
Repaid in loving, though no sentiment Of love returned reward its
sacrament; Nor stays to question what the loved one will, But
hymns its overture with blessings immanent; Rapt and sublimed by
love’s exalting thrill, Loves on, through frown or smile, divine,
immortal still.” Clara Elizabeth Ward: “If I could gather every
look of love, That ever any human creature wore, And all the looks
that joy is mother of, All looks of grief that mortals ever bore,
And mingle all with God-begotten grace, Methinks that I should see
the Savior’s face.”
(_b_) Love is not the all-inclusive ethical attribute of God. It does not
include truth, nor does it include holiness.
Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, 352, very properly denies that
benevolence is the all-inclusive virtue. Justness and Truth, he
remarks, are not reducible to benevolence. In a review of Ladd’s
work in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1903:185, C. M. Mead adds: “He comes to
the conclusion that it is impossible to resolve all the virtues
into the generic one of love or benevolence without either giving
a definition of benevolence which is unwarranted and virtually
nullifies the end aimed at, or failing to recognize certain
virtues which are as genuinely virtues as benevolence itself.
Particularly is it argued that the virtues of the will (courage,
constancy, temperance), and the virtues of judgment (wisdom,
justness, trueness), get no recognition in this attempt to subsume
all virtues under the one virtue of love. ’The unity of the
virtues is due to the unity of a personality, in active and varied
relations with other persons’ (361). If benevolence means wishing
_happiness_ to all men, then happiness is made the ultimate good,
and eudæmonism is accepted as the true ethical philosophy. But if,
on the other hand, in order to avoid this conclusion, benevolence
is made to mean wishing the highest _welfare_ to all men, and the
highest welfare is conceived as a life of virtue, then we come to
the rather inane conclusion that the essence of virtue is to wish
that men may be virtuous.” See also art. by Vos, in Presb. and
Ref. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-37.
(_c_) Nor is God’s love a mere regard for being in general, irrespective
of its moral quality.
Jonathan Edwards, in his treatise On the Nature of Virtue, defines
virtue as regard for being in general. He considers that God’s
love is first of all directed toward himself as having the
greatest quantity of being, and only secondarily directed toward
his creatures whose quantity of being is infinitesimal as compared
with his. But we reply that being in general is far too abstract a
thing to elicit or justify love. Charles Hodge said truly that, if
obligation is primarily due to being in general, then there is no
more virtue in loving God than there is in loving Satan. Virtue,
we hold, must consist, not in love for being in general, but in
love for good being, that is, in love for God as holy. Love has no
moral value except as it is placed upon a right object and is
proportioned to the worth of that object. “Love of being in
general” makes virtue an irrational thing, because it has no
standard of conduct. Virtue is rather the love of God as right and
as the source of right.
G. S. Lee, The Shadow-cross, 38—“God is love, and law is the way
he loves us. But it is also true that God is law, and love is the
way he rules us.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 88—“Love is God’s
desire to impart himself, and so all good, to other persons, and
to possess them for his own spiritual fellowship.” The intent to
communicate himself is the intent to communicate holiness, and
this is the “terminus ad quem” of God’s administration. Drummond,
in his Ascent of Man, shows that Love began with the first cell of
life. Evolution is not a tale of battle, but a love-story. We
gradually pass from selfism to otherism. Evolution is the object
of nature, and altruism is the object of evolution. Man =
nutrition, looking to his own things; Woman = reproduction,
looking to the things of others. But the greatest of these is
love. The mammalia = the mothers, last and highest, care for
others. As the mother gives love, so the father gives
righteousness. Law, once a latent thing, now becomes active. The
father makes a sort of conscience for those beneath him. Nature,
like Raphael, is producing a Holy Family.
Jacob Boehme: “Throw open and throw out thy heart. For unless thou
dost exercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man
in the world, thy self-love, thy pride, thy envy, thy distaste,
thy dislike, will still have dominion over thee.... In the name
and in the strength of God, love all men. Love thy neighbor as
thyself, and do to thy neighbor as thou doest to thyself. And do
it now. For now is the accepted time, and now is the day of
salvation.” These expressions are scriptural and valuable, if they
are interpreted ethically, and are understood to inculcate the
supreme duty of loving the Holy One, of being holy as he is holy,
and of seeking to bring all intelligent beings into conformity
with his holiness.
(_d_) God’s love is not a merely emotional affection, proceeding from
sense or impulse, nor is it prompted by utilitarian considerations.
Of the two words for love in the N. T., φιλέω designates an
emotional affection, which is not and cannot be commanded (_John
11:36—_“Behold how he loved him!”), while ἀγαπάω expresses a
rational and benevolent affection which springs from deliberate
choice (_John 3:16—_“God so loved the world”; _Mat. 19:19—_“Thou
shall love thy neighbor as thyself”; _5:44—_“Love your enemies”).
Thayer, N. T. Lex., 653—Ἀγαπᾶν “properly denotes a love founded in
admiration, veneration, esteem, like the Lat. _diligere_, to be
kindly disposed to one, to wish one well; but φιλεîν denotes an
inclination prompted by sense and emotion, Lat. _amare_.... Hence
men are said ἀγαπᾶν God, not φιλεîν.” In this word ἀγάπη, when
used of God, it is already implied that God loves, not for what he
can get, but for what he can give. The rationality of his love
involves moreover a subordination of the emotional element to a
higher law than itself, namely, that of holiness. Even God’s
self-love must have a reason and norm in the perfections of his
own being.
B. Positively:
(_a_) The immanent love of God is a rational and voluntary affection,
grounded in perfect reason and deliberate choice.
Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 3:277—“Love is will,
aiming either at the appropriation of an object, or at the
enrichment of its existence, because moved by a feeling of its
worth.... Love is to persons; it is a constant will; it aims at
the promotion of the other’s personal end, whether known or
conjectured; it takes up the other’s personal end and makes it
part of his own. Will, as love, does not give itself up for the
other’s sake; it aims at closest fellowship with the other for a
common end.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 388-405—“Love is
not rightfully independent of the other faculties, but is subject
to regulation and control.... We sometimes say that religion
consists in love.... It would be more strictly true to say that
religion consists in a new direction of our love, a turning of the
current toward God which once flowed toward self.... Christianity
rectifies the affections, before excessive, impulsive,
lawless,—gives them worthy and immortal objects, regulates their
intensity in some due proportion to the value of the things they
rest upon, and teaches the true methods of their manifestation. In
true religion love forms a copartnership with reason.... God’s
love is no arbitrary, wild, passionate torrent of emotion ... and
we become like God by bringing our emotions, sympathies,
affections, under the dominion of reason and conscience.”
(_b_) Since God’s love is rational, it involves a subordination of the
_emotional_ element to a higher law than itself, namely, that of truth and
holiness.
_Phil. 1:9—_“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and all discernment.” True love among men illustrates God’s
love. It merges self in another instead of making that other an appendage
to self. It seeks the other’s true good, not merely his present enjoyment
or advantage. Its aim is to realize the divine idea in that other, and
therefore it is exercised for God’s sake and in the strength which God
supplies. Hence it is a love for holiness, and is under law to holiness.
So God’s love takes into account the highest interests, and makes infinite
sacrifice to secure them. For the sake of saving a world of sinners, God
“spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all”_ (Rom. 8:32)_,
and “Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”_ (Is. 53:6)_. Love
requires a rule or standard for its regulation. This rule or standard is
the holiness of God. So once more we see that love cannot include
holiness, because it is subject to the law of holiness. Love desires only
the best for its object, and the best is _God_. The golden rule does not
bid us give what others desire, but what they need: _Rom. 15:2—_“Let each
one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying.”
(_c_) The immanent love of God therefore requires and finds a perfect
standard in his own holiness, and a personal object in the image of his
own infinite perfections. It is to be understood only in the light of the
doctrine of the Trinity.
As there is a higher Mind than our mind, so there is a greater
Heart than our heart. God is not simply the loving One—he is also
the Love that is loved. There is an infinite life of sensibility
and affection in God. God has feeling, and in an infinite degree.
But feeling alone is not love. Love implies not merely receiving
but giving, not merely emotion but impartation. So the love of God
is shown in his eternal giving. _James 1:5—_“God, who giveth,” or
“the giving God” (τοῦ διδόντος Θεοῦ) = giving is not an episode in
his being—it is his nature to give. And not only to _give_, but to
give _himself_. This he does eternally in the self-communications
of the Trinity; this he does transitively and temporally in his
giving of himself for us in Christ, and to us in the Holy Spirit.
Jonathan Edwards, Essay on Trinity (ed. G. P. Fisher), 79—“That in
John God is love shows that there are more persons than one in the
Deity, for it shows love to be essential and necessary to the
Deity, so that his nature consists in it, and this supposes that
there is an eternal and necessary object, because all love
respects another that is the beloved. By love here the apostle
certainly means something beside that which is commonly called
self-love: that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of
an exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love
the apostle is speaking of.” When Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics,
226-239, makes the first characteristic of love to be
self-affirmation, and when Dorner, Christian Ethics, 73, makes
self-assertion an essential part of love, they violate linguistic
usage by including under love what properly belongs to holiness.
(_d_) The immanent love of God constitutes a ground of the divine
blessedness. Since there is an infinite and perfect object of love, as
well as of knowledge and will, in God’s own nature, the existence of the
universe is not necessary to his serenity and joy.
Blessedness is not itself a divine attribute; it is rather a
result of the exercise of the divine attributes. It is a
subjective result of this exercise, as glory is an objective
result. Perfect faculties, with perfect objects for their
exercise, ensure God’s blessedness. But love is especially its
source. _Acts 20:35—_“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Happiness (hap, happen) is grounded in circumstances; blessedness,
in character. Love precedes creation and is the ground of
creation. Its object therefore cannot be the universe, for that
does not exist, and, if it did exist, could not be a proper object
of love for the infinite God. The only sufficient object of his
love is the image of his own perfections, for that alone is equal
to himself. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 264—“Man most truly realizes
his own nature, when he is ruled by rational, self-forgetful love.
He cannot help inferring that the highest thing in the individual
consciousness is the dominant thing in the universe at large.”
Here we may assent, if we remember that not the love itself but
that which is loved must be the dominant thing, and we shall see
that to be not love but holiness.
Jones, Robert Browning, 219—“Love is for Browning the highest,
richest conception man can form. It is our idea of that which is
perfect; we cannot even imagine anything better. And the idea of
evolution necessarily explains the world as the return of the
highest to itself. The universe is homeward bound.... All things
are potentially spirit, and all the phenomena of the world are
manifestations of love.... Man’s reason is not, but man’s love is,
a direct emanation from the inmost being of God” (345). Browning
should have applied to truth and holiness the same principle which
he recognized with regard to love. But we gratefully accept his
dicta: “He that created love, shall not he love?... God! thou art
Love! I build my faith on that.”
(_e_) The love of God involves also the possibility of divine suffering,
and the suffering on account of sin which holiness necessitates on the
part of God is itself the atonement.
Christ is “the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of
the world”_ (Rev. 13:8);_ _1 Pet. 1:19, 20—_“precious blood, as of
a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ:
who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world.”
While holiness requires atonement, love provides it. The
blessedness of God is consistent with sorrow for human misery and
sin. God is passible, or capable of suffering. The permission of
moral evil in the decree of creation was at cost to God. Scripture
attributes to him emotions of grief and anger at human sin (_Gen.
6:6—_“it grieved him at his heart”; _Rom. 1:18—_“wrath of God”;
_Eph. 4:30—_“grieve not the Holy Spirit of God”); painful
sacrifice in the gift of Christ (_Rom. 8:32—_“spared not his own
son”; _cf._ _Gen. 22:16—_“hast not withheld thy son”) and
participation in the suffering of his people (_Is. 63:9—_“in all
their affliction he was afflicted”); Jesus Christ in his sorrow
and sympathy, his tears and agony, is the revealer of God’s
feelings toward the race, and we are urged to follow in his steps,
that we may be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. We
cannot, indeed, conceive of love without self-sacrifice, nor of
self-sacrifice without suffering. It would seem, then, that as
immutability is consistent with imperative volitions in human
history, so the blessedness of God may be consistent with emotions
of sorrow.
But does God feel in proportion to his greatness, as the mother
suffers more than the sick child whom she tends? Does God suffer
infinitely in every suffering of his creatures? We must remember
that God is infinitely greater than his creation, and that he sees
all human sin and woe as part of his great plan. We are entitled
to attribute to him only such passibleness as is consistent with
infinite perfection. In combining passibleness with blessedness,
then, we must allow blessedness to be the controlling element, for
our fundamental idea of God is that of absolute perfection.
Martensen, Dogmatics, 101—“This limitation is swallowed up in the
inner life of perfection which God lives, in total independence of
his creation, and in triumphant prospect of the fulfilment of his
great designs. We may therefore say with the old theosophic
writers: ‘In the outer chambers is sadness, but in the inner ones
is unmixed joy.’ ” Christ was “_anointed ... with the oil of
gladness above his fellows,_” and “for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross”_ (Heb. 1:9; 12:2)_. Love rejoices even in
pain, when this brings good to those beloved. “Though round its
base the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on
its head.”
In George Adam Smith’s Life of Henry Drummond, 11, Drummond cries
out after hearing the confessions of men who came to him: “I am
sick of the sins of these men! How can God bear it?” Simon,
Reconciliation, 338-343, shows that before the incarnation, the
Logos was a sufferer from the sins of men. This suffering however
was kept in check and counterbalanced by his consciousness as a
factor in the Godhead, and by the clear knowledge that men were
themselves the causes of this suffering. After he became incarnate
he suffered without knowing whence all the suffering came. He had
a subconscious life into which were interwoven elements due to the
sinful conduct of the race whose energy was drawn from himself and
with which in addition he had organically united himself. If this
is limitation, it is also self-limitation which Christ could have
avoided by not creating, preserving, and redeeming mankind. We
rejoice in giving away a daughter in marriage, even though it
costs pain. The highest blessedness in the Christian is coincident
with agony for the souls of others. We partake of Christ’s joy
only when we know the fellowship of his sufferings. Joy and sorrow
can coëxist, like Greek fire, that burns under water.
Abbé Gratry, La Morale et la Loi de l’Histoire, 165, 166—“What! Do
you really suppose that the personal God, free and intelligent,
loving and good, who knows every detail of human torture, and
hears every sigh—this God who sees, who loves as we do, and more
than we do—do you believe that he is present and looks pitilessly
on what breaks your heart, and what to him must be the spectacle
of Satan reveling in the blood of humanity? History teaches us
that men so feel for sufferers that they have been drawn to die
with them, so that their own executioners have become the next
martyrs. And yet you represent God, the absolute goodness, as
alone impassible? It is here that our evangelical faith comes in.
Our God was made man to suffer and to die! Yes, here is the true
God. He has suffered from the beginning in all who have suffered.
He has been hungry in all who have hungered. He has been immolated
in all and with all who have offered up their lives. He is the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Similarly Alexander
Vinet, Vital Christianity, 240, remarks that “The suffering God is
not simply the teaching of modern divines. It is a New Testament
thought, and it is one that answers all the doubts that arise at
the sight of human suffering. To know that God is suffering with
it makes that suffering more awful, but it gives strength and life
and hope, for we know that, if God is in it, suffering is the road
to victory. If he shares our suffering we shall share his crown,”
and we can say with the _Psalmist, 68:19—_“Blessed be God, who
daily beareth our burden, even the God who is our salvation,” and
with _Isaiah 63:9—_“In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved them.”
Borden P. Bowne, Atonement: “Something like this work of grace was
a moral necessity with God. It was an awful responsibility that
was taken when our human race was launched with its fearful
possibilities of good and evil. God thereby put himself under
infinite obligation to care for his human family; and reflections
on his position as Creator and Ruler, instead of removing, only
make more manifest this obligation. So long as we conceive God as
sitting apart in supreme ease and self-satisfaction, he is not
_love_ at all, but only a reflection of our selfishness and
vulgarity. So long as we conceive him as bestowing blessing upon
us out of his infinite fulness, but at no real cost to himself, he
sinks below the moral heroes of our race. There is ever a higher
thought possible, until we see God taking the world upon his
heart, entering into the fellowship of our sorrow, and becoming
the supreme burden bearer and leader in self-sacrifice. Then only
are the possibilities of grace and condescension and love and
moral heroism filled up, so that nothing higher remains. And the
work of Christ, so far as it was a historical event, must be
viewed not merely as a piece of history, but also as a
manifestation of that cross which was hidden in the divine love
from the foundation of the world, and which is involved in the
existence of the human world at all.”
Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 264—“The eternal resolution
that, if the world _will_ be tragic, it _shall_ still, in Satan’s
despite, be spiritual, is the very essence of the eternal joy of
that World-Spirit of whose wisdom ours is but a fragmentary
reflection.... When you suffer, your sufferings are God’s
sufferings,—not his external work nor his external penalty, nor
the fruit of his neglect, but identically his own personal woe. In
you God himself suffers, precisely as you do, and has all your
reason for overcoming this grief.” Henry N. Dodge, Christus
Victor: “O Thou, that from eternity Upon thy wounded heart hast
borne Each pang and cry of misery Wherewith our human hearts are
torn, Thy love upon the grievous cross Doth glow, the beacon-light
of time, Forever sharing pain and loss With every man in every
clime. How vast, how vast Thy sacrifice, As ages come and ages go,
Still waiting till it shall suffice To draw the last cold heart
and slow!”
On the question, Is God passible? see Bennett Tyler, Sufferings of
Christ; A Layman, Sufferings of Christ; Woods, Works, 1:299-317;
Bib. Sac., 11:744; 17:422-424; Emmons, Works, 4:201-208;
Fairbairn, Place of Christ, 483-487; Bushnell, Vic. Sacrifice,
59-93; Kedney, Christ. Doctrine Harmonized, 1:185-245; Edward
Beecher, Concord of Ages, 81-204; Young, Life and Light of Men,
20-43, 147-150; Schaff, Hist. Christ. Church, 2:191; Crawford,
Fatherhood of God, 43, 44; Anselm, Proslogion, cap. 8; Upton,
Hibbert Lectures, 268; John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity,
2:117, 118, 137-142. _Per __ contra_, see Shedd, Essays and
Addresses, 277, 279 note; Woods, in Lit. and Theol. Rev.,
1834:43-61; Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, 1:201. On the
Biblical conception of Love in general, see article by James Orr,
in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.
3. Holiness.
Holiness is self-affirming purity. In virtue of this attribute of his
nature, God eternally wills and maintains his own moral excellence. In
this definition are contained three elements: first, purity; secondly,
purity willing; thirdly, purity willing itself.
_Ex. 15:11—_“glorious in holiness”; _19:10-16_—the people of
Israel must purify themselves before they come into the presence
of God; _Is. 6:3—_“Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”—notice
the contrast with the unclean lips, that must be purged with a
coal from the altar (_verses 5-7_); _2 Cor, 7:1—_“cleanse
ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God”; _1 Thess. 3:13—_“unblamable in
holiness”; _4:7—_“God called us not for uncleanness, but in
sanctification”; _Heb. 12:29—_“our God is a consuming fire”—to all
iniquity. These passages show that holiness is the opposite to
impurity, that it is itself purity. The development of the
conception of holiness in Hebrew history was doubtless a gradual
one. At first it may have included little more than the idea of
separation from all that is common, small and mean. Physical
cleanliness and hatred of moral evil were additional elements
which in time became dominant. We must remember however that the
proper meaning of a term is to be determined not by the earliest
but by the latest usage. Human nature is ethical from the start,
and seeks to express the thought of a rule or standard of
obligation, and of a righteous Being who imposes that rule or
standard. With the very first conceptions of majesty and
separation which attach to the apprehension of divinity in the
childhood of the race there mingles at least some sense of the
contrast between God’s purity and human sin. The least developed
man has a conscience which condemns some forms of wrong doing, and
causes a feeling of separation from the power or powers above.
Physical defilement becomes the natural symbol of moral evil.
Places and vessels and rites are invested with dignity as
associated with or consecrated to the Deity.
That the conception of holiness clears itself of extraneous and
unessential elements only gradually, and receives its full
expression only in the New Testament revelation and especially in
the life and work of Christ, should not blind us to the fact that
the germs of the idea lie far back in the very beginnings of man’s
existence upon earth. Even then the sense of wrong within had for
its correlate a dimly recognized righteousness without. So soon as
man knows himself as a sinner he knows something of the holiness
of that God whom he has offended. We must take exception therefore
to the remark of Schurman, Belief in God, 231—“The first gods were
probably non-moral beings,” for Schurman himself had just said: “A
God without moral character is no God at all.” Dillmann, in his O.
T. Theology, very properly makes the fundamental thought of O. T.
religion, not the unity or the majesty of God, but his holiness.
This alone forms the ethical basis for freedom and law. E. G.
Robinson, Christian Theology—“The one aim of Christianity is
personal holiness. But personal holiness will be the one absorbing
and attainable aim of man, only as he recognizes it to be the one
preëminent attribute of God. Hence everything divine is holy—the
temple, the Scriptures, the Spirit.” See articles on Holiness in
O. T., by J. Skinner, and on Holiness in N. T., by G. B. Stevens,
in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.