_Christian Theology by Milton Valentine, D.D., LL.D Copyright 1906, Lutheran Publication Society Printed Philadelphia, PA. by The United Lutheran Publication House_ Pages 203-289. ----------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER II. THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. We are confronted here on the threshold by the ques- tion, pushed into prominence by recent and current agnosticism: "Can God be really known?" Admitting that He exists, can we in any reliable degree know _what_ He is, or understand His nature and attributes? The speculative philosophies which denied the possibility of the proof of the divine existence have been followed by a "synthetic" philosophy, which contends that while, by inexorable logic, a Power back of the evolved uni- verse must be conceded as its First Cause, the Absolute or Infinite, the Power is utterly "inscrutable," and that we cannot predicate anything whatever of it.[1] How- ever, the analysis of the essential conceptions of "First Cause," "The Absolute," and "The Infinite," by equally exexorable logic, shows it to be synonymous with the idea of God.[2] In essential thought and practically, God is the First Cause, Absolute and Infinite. We are at this point, therefore, not at all concerned with the ques- tion whether we may know that God exists. The whole theistic evidence, as well as the agnostic tacit admission,[3] ----------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Herbert Spencer, "First Principles," ch. ii. [2] For a showing of Spencer's self-contradiction, see Caird's "Phi- losophy of Religion," Vol. I., pp. 10-18. [3] Herbert Spencer concedes: "Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant rid it ---------------End of Page 203----------------------------------------- assures this knowledge. But must God, conceded to exist, be still held to be, with respect to His nature and attributes, utterly "inscrutable," the "unknown" and "unknowable"? Is He, the great Object of religious thought, so absolutely transcendent that we can form no true conceptions of His being and character, answering to the divine reality? Is the necessary Object of our homage and dependence to stand forever blank in our intelligence, so that we must worship we know not what? Are we excluded from reaching any definite idea of Him? For the sake of clearness we must definitely distinguish this question from another with which it is easily con- founded. It is not whether we can know all about God, know Him fully, comprehend Him completely. Theol- ogy does not need or pretend to do this. In this sense the finite cannot understand the Infinite. But it does assert the possibility of a true and adequate knowledge of God--that He is neither the unrevealed nor the "utterly inscrutable." For its rejection of the agnostic claim, theology has a ------------------------------------------------------- of this datum; and thus the belief which this datum constitutes, has a higher warrant than any other whatever."--"First Principles," p. 98. This admission is valuable. In fact, in any true science of the mind and its real action, it amounts to an overthrow of the very contention of Spencer against the possibility of knowing God "in the strict sense of knowing." For if he had not neglected or falsified the real rela- tion between "belief" and "knowing," which he unjustly proceeds to contrast, he would have had to acknowledge that, since "belief" or faith only _attends_ or follows the knowing action of the human faculties (see pp. 71-72), the high and immovable "datum of con- sciousness" is itself a datum of knowledge, the "belief" in the Abso- lute being the state of mind which he had already acknowledged to be given by "inexorable logic," a conviction or consciousness which is an outcome of the "knowing" faculty. He has no psychological warrant for so violently contrasting knowlege and belief, _substituting_ belief for knowledge and placing it in independence. -----------------End of Page 204--------------------------------------- clear warrant in the method or reasoning of the very philosophy which has put forth the agnostic conclusion. For, as its premises it adopts the position inexorably demanded by the necessities of thought and of being, that the Power revealed in the universe must be the "First Cause," "the Absolute," and "the Infinite." Though it proceeds to deny our right to affirm "person- ality" of the First Cause, it has already, in the very terms of designation, affired the predicates of _power_, _causality_, _absoluteness_, _infinitude_, and elsewhere, of the _capability of becoming manifest_. If it, reasoning in obedience to the call of logical necessity from the sole fact of the _existence_ of the world, has felt constrained to mark these great predicates in order to assert _truth_, what hinders us, in view of _other_ facts that are about as deeply pervasive and certain in nature as is the single point of finite _existence_, from legitimately adding _further_ pre- dicates demanded by equal logic for the truth of things? The marks of _intelligence_, _purpose_, and consequent _Will- power_ in the order of the intelligible universe, may as imperatively require the predicate of _personality_, as sim- ple, finite, changing existence requires that of absolute- ness. The manifested "power" _making for righteousness_, in the conscience and in history, may just as truly call for _moral_ predicates, under the same obedience to logic.[1] In truth, the entire theological agnosticism of this nescience philosophy is due to the arbirary and false limitations it fixes for itself with respect to the use to be made of the realities of cosmic nature in finding the --------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Herbert Spencer has reached his agnoticism simply by arbitrai- ness in fixing for himself the limits under which he would em- ply the realities of cosmic nature to find the Power disclosed in the universe. -----------End of Page 205----------------------------------------- nature of the Power disclosed in the universe. It will- fully refuses to _advance_ upon its own premises and be- ginnings. If it is correct, as it surely is, in saying that the "universe manifests this Power to us" by its simple existence, and on this fact predicates four or five distinct attributes, certainly we are entitled to claim that the _entire manifestaion_, in all its essential _characteristic parts_, as well as in its unity, must be read, and all the attributes of the manifested Reality be included in the predicates of the Power. When this is carefully and justly done, something of the nature and many of the attributes of God must become rationally and legiti- mately certain, as many natural theologies have clearly shown. We are sustained in this view by what must be re- garded as the actual facts of history and human belief. Whatever gross crudities and intolerable absurdities are exhibited among pagan peoples, it is yet historically cer- tain that when, on the basis of their common recognition of the existence of a divine Being, they come to describe Him, some great features of His nature and character have been at least dimly discerned in their best thought, among their philosphers and sages. Though popular mythologies failed even to recognize their gods as crea- tors, or to distinguish between nature and the Power re- vealed in it, nevetheless a _Plato_ could and did discern in the primal Source of all being a perfect "Mind,"[1] ever ex- istent or without beginning of being, uncaused, with in- telligence, goodness, and will, who formed the world ac- cording to ideals of His own reason, an "eternal Deity," "Creator and Father of this universe."[2] Similar results -------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Timaeus, ch. ix.; Philebus, sec. 50. [2] Timaeus, ch. ix., x., xii. ------------End of Page 206-------------------------------------- of thought comes from other parts of the ethnic horizon, bringing to view collectively a fair list of divine attri- butes which the best intellect of the world has agreed must stand for essential truth. As a matter of fact, human thought has penetrated in some degree the nature of the Power which the universe reveals. In this affir- mation the voice of science is at one with the claims of religion. The possibility of this knowledge is provided for in the truth, maintained alike by Christian and by scientific postulates, that the mould of human nature has been cast into that of the divine, and can think God's thoughts after Him, within certain finite reaches. Science as- sumes nature's intelligibility, and in finding the truth of things comes into contact with the divine mind every- where. In the application of this sure principle, as in science so in theology, our knowing faculties find avenue up to God. The realities of thought within, when reached through our mind's necessary and normal cog- nitive action, reflect realities that are true for universal mind. All our conceptions of being which enter into our necessary notion of God, and together make up what we call our "knowledge" of His nature, come to us as un- questionably genuine concepts which stand for true knowl- edge or actuality. For instance, take the idea of _real being_, which we affirm for God; we know what this reality is from the depths of our own consciousness of real exist- ence. Or take the idea of _intelligence_; what "intelli- gence" is we know directly and surely through our own conscious sharing of it. Or, still further, take _person- ality_; in our own personality we have an immediate knowledge of the essentials of this reality as we predicate it of the Supreme Being. If other properties or charac- ---------------End Of Page 207--------------------------------- teristics, such as _wisdom_, _power_, _righteousness_, and _good- ness_, are revealed as divine attributes, these words all stand for concepts of qualities which we know by the necessary action of our minds, to be justly predicable of intelligent personal existences. From first to last in these instances, these concepts are not _pseud_ products, but are formed directly from the most indubitable reali- ties recognized in human knowledge. It is not at all of fictions that theology constructs its portraiture of the nature and attributes of God. If it be objected that this process simply makes an _anthropomorphic_ God, a being fashioned in the mould of our own minds, it is sufficient to reply that our knowl- edge does not cease to be _knowledge_, when we know, as we must, according to the laws and measures of our own faculties. Our faculties are not proved false by their being human. Our knowlege on _every_ subject must be human or anthropomorphic. The firm basis on which, nevertheless, we may still assert the competency of our faculties to reach all the way up to God, is in the great truth of our being made in His image--in the likeness of His personality. The real process in the case is just the opposite of that implied in the objection--that of making a fictitious anthropomorphic God. In the crea- tion of a theomorphic humanity, the human knowing was adjusted, in its finite measure, to the divine, the human capacities becoming an open window for reception of the revealings of Deity. Accordingly the Scriptures distinctly maintain that we may "_know God_." It is assumed and placed as the basis of their offered guidance. It is distinctly affirmed (Job xxxii. 8; Ps. xix. 1-3; xc. 2; Matt. xi. 27; v. 8; Rom. i. 19-22; ii. 15; 1 Cor. xiii. 12; John xvii. 3; ---------------End of Page 208----------------------------- Phil. iii. 10). This capacity is fundamental to the idea of our being created to be children of God and to live in fellowship with Him. But the Scriptures, with equal plainness and emphasis, assure us that we _cannot know Him fully_ (Job xi. 7; Rom. xi. 34; 1 Tim. vi. 16). When our cognitive powers have done their completed work of thought and comprehension, they know Him only in part, in limited measure. While this knowledge supplies us with real truth, and may suffice for the religious direction of life and the attainment of its true destiny, there are in God realities of being and altitudes of perfection which are beyond human conception. It is a suggestive statement of the Roman Catholic theo- logian: "As the Infinite, God is seen and not seen by us, as we see and do not see the ocean and the heavens." The two one-sided or extreme notions on this subject are carefully to be guarded against. On the one hand, a failure to keep in mind the impossibility of _fully_ knowing God has always tended to a worship of Him under a false anthropomorphism, in which some of the supreme attributes of Deity either fall away or are low- ered into the finite types and measures found in men. The partial, and often faulty, conception is treated as if it were the whole and full reality. Allowed full sway, it opens the way to the worship of false gods and into multiform idolatry. On the other hand, through failure to recognize the true knowableness of God in the meas- ure of our need, men hold Him as out of all relation both to our finite faculties and to the practical ordering of life. This is the "unknown God" of deism and irreligion, which put Him so far off from the world and interest in our race that practically He is as if He were not. The interests of religion are met only when -----------End of Page 209--------------------------------- God, in His nature and relations with which we, in our freedom, are required to adjust ourselves, is revealed and understood. At the same time, we can render homage and adoration, bowing in true awe, only as we also realize that in Him, so revealed and known, there are yet heights of perfection, realities of existence, beyond all the elevations and circumferences measurable in human thought. The warrant of theology to take this position has never been shaken, unless it be only the shaking which settles it upon its immovable right. THE NATURE OF GOD. How are we to think of this? By the _nature_ of any- thing, we mean the thing in itself as _substance and attri- butes_. In this sense we apply the term nature, although derived from _nascor_, to be born, or arise, to God. Irre- spective of all questions of origin, it is applied simply as a designation of the essence and qualities of an exist- ing being. A distinction is legitimately made in the schools between _natura naturata_, meaning originated entities of both matter and mind, and _natura naturans_, applied to the Author of originated nature. Though this distinction comes to us from pantheistic Spinozism, it serves a good use, severed from monism. The effort to state the nature of God, therefore, seeks to state _what He is_. Theology has often put the statement in the form of a definition.[1] A definition, to be complete, would have to both name His substance and include all His attributes. But, because even now, with revelation given, we see only in part, every defini- tion must come short, showing only a partial conception -------------------------------------------------------- [1] _E. g., Melanchthon_: "God is a spiritual essence, intelligent, eternal, true, good, pure, just, merciful, most free, of vast power and ----------------End of Page 210----------------------------- of God. It is necessary, therefore, to note how far such definitions, and even all the most lengthened explana- tions, are to be considered as expressing Him to our apprehension, viz.: only so far as, in His self-revelation in His works and word, He has declared Himself, and taught us how He wishes Himself to be recognized, thought of, and worshiped. The representations theology gives of His nature are valid only as they express the divine self-declaration. They must suffice not only to distinguish Him from all other beings in the universe, but to exhibit Him in all the essential realities of His nature and character in which He claims human recog- nition, homage, faith, and love. The fundamental truth to be affirmed concerning the nature of God expresses the _essence_ or _substance_ of His being--that to which all His attributes belong. As to this, the Christian revelation is direct and une- quivocal: "_God is a Spirit_" (John iv. 24). This affir- mation is by Christ Himself. In it He made clearly explicit the implications of the Old Testament teach- ing, which had already involved this truth in its repre- sentations of God as the _self-existent_ (xxxx Ex. iii. 13-16; Isa. xliv. 6), and as the _living_ God (Deut. v. 24; Isa. xxxvii. 4, 17; Jer. xxiii. 36), acting, as always repre- sented, as a _personal_ Creator and Ruler. These Old Testament representations unquestionably contained the elements of the conception of God as a Spirit, a ----------------------------------------------------------- wisdom, the eternal Father who begat the Son, His own image from eternity, and the Son, the co-eternal image of the Father, and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son."--"Loci Theol." I. 13. _Westminster Shorter Catechism_: "God is a spirit, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." ----------------End of Page 211---------------------------------------- purposive Intelligence and free Power. The explicit assurance of this truth of the spirit-essence of God opens to full view the essential condition for genuine worship. The Object of worship must necessarily be, not matter, but Mind, the Spirit-Being to whom belong supreme knowledge, goodness, and dominion. Other- wise there would be no point of devotional contact. Religion would be a link uniting to inanity--_a caput mortuum_--to nothing that could understand or help, answer our prayers, be pleased with our homage, or afford any fellowship. It has been much the custom of theology to state the essence of God under the term "spirituality," using the word attributively and placing it among the attributes. But the use of this method and placing is discrepant and hardly just. It takes the Essence, which is the subject of all the divine properties and predicates, and classifies it among the attributive predicates. It is better, since the reality concerned is not an attribute, but the substance of God--pure Spirit--that it should have its own fundamental position, undisturbed by a confus- ing classification. THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. How are we to think of these? We are compelled, under the laws of mind, divinely given, to think of every being or entity under the category of substance and attribute. The term thus expresses the qualities, powers, or properties which mark and define any sub- stance or essence. Substances are distinguished from each other by the complex or total of their attributes. No substance is known _directly_ in its interior essence or reality, but only through the qualities or properties, ---------------End of Page 212--------------------------- open to perception or scientific determination, which belong to it and manifest it. Apart from its attributes manifesting it, it would be unknown and unknowable. The relation between substance and attribute needs to be clearly borne in mind. A substance is not made or constituted of attributes--not a mere aggregation of them. Nor do the attributes exist, save conceptually or in notion, apart from the substance. But the substance is the _subject_ of attributes or properties which _inhere_ in it. A substance without attributes is a mere figment of fancy--is, in fact, unthinkable. Attributes likewise do not exist apart from substance, save as mental products by abstraction and generalization. The attributes of God are, therefore, the real qualities of the divine essence and mark its being and character. They belong to the essence and reveal its intrinsic nature. God's attri- butes are the immutable perfections of His being. The old nominalistic notion of the "absolute sim- plicity" of God, denying to His nature all internal dis- tinction between essence and attribute, between attri- bute and act, or between one property and another, or between knowing and willing, and affirming all such distinctions to be only our subjective modes of represent- ing Him to ourselves, is not only in contradiction to the necessary laws of thought, but is without warrant of the Scriptures, and amounts to a denial that we can know God at all.[1] The correct conception of his "simplicity" ------------------------------------------------------------ [1] This false notion of the nature of God as absolutely _simple_ began with _Augustine_ on "The Trinity," Book XV., ch. vi. 8; Book VI., ch. vii. _Occam_ taught: "The divine attributes are distinguished neither substantially nor logically from each other or from the divine Essence; the only distinction is that of names." We find the same idea in Gerhard's "Loci," Loc. III., ch. vii. Also in Questedt. Now and then in later and recent writers, as Charnock, Schleier- ------------------End of Page 213-------------------------------- is merely exclusion of all composition and inconsistency. It must be compatible with the fullness of divne attri- butes.[1] The true conception of His attributes must hold them, not as mere forms of our subjective thought under which we naturally seek to represent Him to our- selves, and which we, therefore, attribute to Him, but as intrinsic properties and characteristics of the divine nature, which are disclosed to us in God's self-revelation in order that we may know Him as He truly is. It is advantageous to make some classification of the attributes. Sometimes they have been divided into _negative_ and _positive_, the negative being those by which certain limitations have been denied, the positive those by which perfections are affirmed. Sometimes they have been classed as _immanent_ and _transitive_, the former relating to God as He is in Himself, internal and quies- cent; the latter having respect to His activities in which His nature passes over into manifestation in the contsti- tution and administration of the world. A third dividsion clases them as _communicable_ and _incommunicable_, those which can be imparted and those which cannot.[2] The best division, the one most generally followed, groups them under the terms _natural_ and _moral_, the natural being such as pertain to Him as pure essence or being, the moral, such as belong to Him in His ethical perfections, expressing what we specifically speak of as character. ------------------------------------------------------------- macher, Rothe, etc. This obliteration of a real distinction between the attributes, making them only names and human notions, besides being unscriptural, works confusion and error when applied in formu- lating the doctrine of redemption and providence. The simple asser- tion that the divine justice or righteousness is only another name for the divine love, has often opened the way to rejection of the atonement. [1] See Dorner, "System of Christian Doctrine," ch. i., pp. 235-237. [2] H. B. Smith, "System of Christian Theology," p. 15. ---------------End of Page 214----------------------------------- The advantage of this division is that it is based upon a very clear distinction with respect to God; it also throws the theological treatment and view in closest, most constant, practical relations with the way of salva- tion and the duties of the Christian life. NATURAL ATTRIBUTES. These mark the divine nature considered simply as pure being. They express its properties viewed only with respect to God's essence and altogether apart from any thought of His moral character as good or evil. They designate the properties that, taken together, dis- tinguish the substance of God from all other essence in the universe of existent being. They include the fol- lowing: 1. LIFE. This connects itself directly with the truth that, as to essence, God is a _Spirit_. For it seems to be of the very nature of spirit to be _living_ being, in contrast with matter which may be void of life. All through the Scriptures God is revealed as "the living God," Jer. x. 10; 1 Thes. i. 9; John v. 26. The finite life in nature implies life in its divine Source, as other- wise its origin remains inexplicable. The contingent life of the world cannot be the product of dead or non- living existence. Though, despite all our science, life remains mysterious and beyond analytic explanation, our consciousness brings us face to face with it as a high unique reality, marking a grade of being different from all without it. The very conferring of this quality of being reveals God as the everliving God. In Him life is perfect--infinite, absolute, original, and endless: "Who alone hath immortality" (1 Tim. vi. 16), death- less, "from everlasting to everlasting." All the life ex- -----------End of Page 215--------------------------------- istent in the universe reflects this truth of "the living God." 2. UNITY--in the absolute sense of being _indivisibly One and alone_. God is not one of a class of beings. There is no class. There is but One being possessing the attributes of Godhead. He is an indivisible unit, and there can be no duplicate. In this light and with this claim God has revealed Himself in the Christian reve- lation, from the beginning to its close (Deut. iv. 35, 39; vi. 4; Isa. xliv. 6, 8; xlv. 6; John v. 44; xvii. 3-5; Mark xii. 29; Rom. iii. 29-30; 1 Cor. viii. 4; Eph. iv. 6). The affirmations are unequivocal, and there are no op- posing statements or implications. The frequent alle- gations that the Jewish faith made Jehovah but a national God, only greater than the gods of other nations, is un- fair to the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, which dis- tinctly repudiate divine reality for the objects of idol- atrous worship. There is no Scripture allowance or toleration of polytheistic notions. An apppeal to reason and nature fully sustains this teaching. THe necessities of ontological and cosmo- logical thought make the first cause One--the "first" being the unit of energy back of which the entire mul- tiplicity of cosmic causation is traced, and in which it is satisfied. If the first cause stands for God at all, _i.e._, for the Being who has the full attributes of Creator of the universe, it is manifestly irrational to think of a duplicate or a plural of Cause. And this is further sus- tained by the scientific fact of the harmonic unity of the cosmos, its order, adjustment, purposive adaptation, and a rhythmic movement, that show it to be a unitary plan, an actualized _thought_, from atoms to worlds, from worlds to systems, all circling and advancing in the beauty and -------------End of Page 216------------------------------- music of the spheres. The unity of the creation testifies to the unity of the Creator. 3. SELF-EXISTENCE. This is suggested in the name under which God early revealed Himself, _Jehovah_ (XXXX from XXX, to be or exist, Ex. iii. 14; vi. 3), signifying the One who in the supreme sense _exists_ and _manifests_ existence, the One whose existence is in Himself. "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, `I AM hath sent me to you. ... This is my name forever, this my memorial to all generations.'" The statement of Jesus, "He hath life in Himself" (John v. 26), asserts the same truth. The meaning of it is that the being of God is not originated, is due to no cause back of itself, is not conditioned on any other being, is _without_ beginning, absolute and in- dependent in selfhood as deity. It is the nature of God _to be_. His existence is grounded, not in His volitons, but in His nature. The frequent use of the terms "the Absolute" and "the Unconditioned" as designations for God cannot, as we have seen, be righly accepted as im- plying, as often claimed, that He is necessarily wholly "without relations" to other being; for that would be inconsistent with His being the Creator of all things. For He necessarily relates Himself to what He creates. But it means only that He is absolutely free from all relation of _dependence_ for His own being, which is the eternally existent Ground of all the finite universe. The Latin term _aseitas_, from _a se_, with its English, aseity, the coinage of the theologians, is of doubtful ser- vice. So, also, is the Latin designation _causa sui_, in which the word _causa_ does not stand for a cause at all in the sense of productive energy, the phrase being simply a form of denial of any cause or origination of ---------------End of Page 217--------------------------- God whatever, and an assertion of His abolutely primal existence. This attribute, like those of life and unity, taught by revelation, stands accredited by the best intuitions of reason and warrant of logic. Ontologically the neces- sary thought of perfect Being requires self-existence, as needed to fulfill the idea. Cosmologically, as, from actual being now we are compelled to believe that there has always been real being, since the arising of existence from non-existence by no cause is unthinkable, the de- mand for a First Cause of the universe must mean an unoriginated, self-existent Cause. 4. PERSONALITY. That God is a personal Being is fundamental in the view given of Him in the Scriptures. He is not blind, unconscious energy or force. Every- where He is represented under personal characteristics-- conscious intelligence, purpose, and self-determination. In every disclosure of His power and activity He is seen acting in knowledge, plan, aim, and holy freedom. All pantehistic negations of personality, or resolutions of God into impersonal, unconscious energy, are utterly foreign to true Christian theology. Personality, like life and unity, rests in the spirit- essence of the Divine Being. For only a living spirit can be a self-conscious, intelligent, and free being. Human personality inheres in the human spirit, not in the physical organism. Those who deny rational spirit and freedom in man show little hesitation in denying personality in God. The difficulties alleged against the truth of the per- sonality of God, when carefully examined, are found to be based on the unwarranted assumption that personality is in contradiction to His infinitude and absoluteness. It ---------------End of Page 218------------------------------ is contended that the ascription of personal attributes to Him is to _define_ His being, and that all definition or specific determination is _limitation_. Such ascription is supposed to be inconsistent with the necessity of hold- ing Him to be "the Absolute" and "the Infinite." The error is akin to the ancient and mediaeval representation of the "absolute simplicity" of God, in which all dis- tinction between essence and attribute, and between one attribute and another, disappeared, except as mere notions of human making. But the seeming contradiction is wholly due to an ambiguity inherent in the use of the _abstract_ terms, "the Absolute" and "the Infinite," as designations of concrete being, and to false conclusions from imaginary implications. When we eliminate the ele- ments not necessarily or rightly included, the conception of "Absolute" being does not necessarily mean a being void of _all_ internal and external "relations," but simply One so subsisting in selfhood as to be independent of all other being for His own existence and power. Thus, "the Absolute" excludes only such relations as are inconsist- ent with complete independence and self-sufficiency. Also, the designation "the Infinite," when, as required by both Biblical teaching and just metaphysics, it is held apart from pantheistic confusion, expresses not simply in negative, but positive way, the full perfection of the divine nature and attributes. God is "infinite" in all His perfections--is the Perfect Being. These considerations open the way to a correct answer to the question whether personality is in contradiction of the divine absoluteness and infiniteness. It is evident, _first_, that _personal_ being is of higher rank than imper- sonal existence. In the grade of the impersonal we have only _things_--an order of existence, whether ianmimate ------------End of Page 219--------------------------------- or physically animate, unquestionably inferior and teleo- logically subordinate. In truth, personality stands for the loftiest ascent in the constitution of being that we know of. We know of no rank of being above this. We can _conceive_ of none. To see in this loftiest form of being of which we know or can conceive, the form real in our own existence, a finite reflection of the reality in God, is not to reduce or diminish the conception of the divine nature, but to give it the highest conceivable rank. It is evident, _secondly_, that the ascription of the predicates of personality to God is not in the direction of imposing limitations on His nature, but of recognizing the supreme fullness and completeness of His life. Indeed, the ascrip- tion adds, beyond the content of impersonal existence, all the attributes of which we may in the fullest sense affirm "absoluteness" of being and "infiniteness" of per- fection. It thus becomes clear, _thirdly_, that personality, instead of being in derogation from the absolutenesss and infinitude of God, is that which is essential to the true affirmation of them. God, to be thought truly, must be a _pleroma_--a fullness, in Himself, of self-existent, living, intelligent, self-determining, self-sufficing being and powers, or unlimited perfection of all attributes. He _is_ this only by being the abolute and perfect Personality. It has been well written, "Instead of losing His abso- luteness by possessing and exercising self-consciousness and self-determination without passing beyond Himself, it is just in this that God vindicates the reality of His absoluteness. He would not be the absolute One were he not the absolute Personality";[1] and "Though you might deny His infinity without prejudice to His person- ality, you cannot deny His personality without sacri- -------------------------------------------------------- [1] Rev. John McPherson, "Christian Dogmatics," p. 118. --------------End of Page 220---------------------------- ficing His infinitude."[1] We add, further, that He is the absolute Personality, because there are in Himself the intelligence and free-power that have conferred or created all the external forces and influences by which He is then affected. "Everything that the world means for Him is at bottom an expression of His own self-activity; and whatever of the movement reacts upon Him He recognizes as the recurrent sweep of that reality which is possible through Himself alone."[2] It but exhibits the free self-activity in which He goes forth for the creation only of what He has before and eternally taken up in His own personal purposes and plan. The predicates of personality, in truth, necessarily belong to `The Absolute' and `the Infinite' in the highest and fullest sense, and are applicable to finite beings only in an inferior or limited sense. The necessity of keeping the divine personality distinct and clear is seen in the fact that a denial of it means atheism. For an impersonal, unconscious _thing_, without knowledge or free-power, is not God--cannot be God. Not a single relation, work, or office from that involved in creation, on through preservation, providence, redemp- tion, fellowship. love or help to creatures, could be pos- sible or conceivable if a personal Supreme Being did not exist. In vain would mankind direct worship up to an unconscious sky or make appeal to a pantheistic, impersonal universe. In no particular, however, does the supreme importance of this attribute come into view more impressively than in the fact that a denial ------------------------------------------------------------ [1] James Martineau, "A Study of Religion," Vol. I., p. 192, quoted from McPherson. [2] Ritschl, "The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconcilia- tion," T. and T. Clark, p. 236. --------------End of Page 221---------------------------------- of its negatives the whole possibility of the ethical character of God. For ethical character is unthinkable apart from conscious intelligence and freedom. It is one of the mysteries in confusion of thought when Matthew Arnold is satisfied to leave the idea of God simply in the sphere of impersonality: `a tendency,' `a stream of tendency,' `a powr not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.'[1] 5. ETERNITY. Being self-existent, God must be eternal--without beginning or end. He is superior to the limitations of time. he is "from everlasting to everlasting" (Ps. xc. 2)--without commencement, with- out termination. He never began to be and never can cease to be. He is the Absolute Eternal Life. This is the essential import of this wonderful attribute; and it is probably about all that ought to be unequivocally affirmed concerning it. The many curious assertions about its involving, for God, `a successionless conscious- ness,' and `eternal now' of view, `an absolute simul- taneity of knowledge, without distinction of past, present, and future,' are probably but futile attempts to establish definitions beyond not only the revelations of the Scriptures, but the reach of the humam faculties. At best they are mystical and uncertain. In some respects they are confusing and misleading.[2] We will notice some of their bearings when we come to consider ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] "Literature and Dogma," pp. 8-45. [2] For instance, if God's eternity were made to exclude consciousness of "succession" or "timelessness," the word eternity would mean absolutely nothing to us, an empty blank, for the very form of our conception of "eternity" as reality, without "beginning or ending," involves a "time" interval between the terms. We cannot abstract the distinction between purpose and fulfillment, with its time idea, from the divine consciousness without making it motionless and dead. ----------------------End of Page 222------------------------ the divine omniscience. At this point it seems best to let the eternity of God stand in its own single, specific divine reality, unconfused by doubtful feats of meta- physical speculation. 6. IMMUTABILITY. This must be understood as excluding all change, either in the divine essence or the divine perfections and purposes. In the essence of His being and in all His character God is eternally equal and self-identical (Ps. cii. 25-27; Mal. iii. 6; Heb. xiii. 8; Jas. i. 17; Eph. iii. 11). This truth rests in the absolute and infinite perfections of His nature and character. There is in Him no imperfection to overcome; there are no errors to correct. That the Scriptures sometimes, especially in their earlier records, represent God as `repenting' (Gen. vi. 6; Ex. xxxii. 14, etc), or dealing in altered way with men is not legitimately taken to mean any change in His nature or purposes. The expressions are simply anthropo- morphic, adapted, after a common manner of human speech, to declare the immutable divine aversion to sin or wrong-doing, when men depart from righteousness. They reflect the changed relations made by transgression in which the divine dealing with men necessarily becomes different. It is just because God changes not, that men corrupting themselves in wickedness experi- ence the change--_as if_ God had repented of all His earlier love and favor.[1] The difficulties sometimes suggested in connection with the work of creation and with the Christological truth of the incarnation, seem to be more real and per- plexing. As to the latter, it has often seemed to involve some change in the interior life of God, through the ------------------------------------------------------------ [1] See. Dr. R. S. Foster's "Studies in Theology--God," p. 55. ----------------------End of Page 223----------------------- assumption of human nature into union with the God- head. Peter Lombard's perplexity with the question, bringing on the _nihilian_ controversy, is well known.[1] The difficulty seems fairly to disappear under the light of the two certain truths: _first_, that the seeming change was no real change in the divine nature or essence. The divine "nature" in the incarnate union maintained its own pure self-identity, without alteration or confu- sion. The assumption in the act and state of the union was, and is, rather the taking of a new `relation,' a new `manifestation,' than any change of being--a _redeeming_ manifestation and relation, instead of the relation and manifestation of divine displeasure brought in by human sin. And this, as it made the `nature' of God neither more nor less than before, was _secondly_, no alteration of His "purpose"; for the incarnation was part of His "eternal purpose" (Eph. iii. 11), "without variableness or shadow of turning." The difficulty with respect to the act of _creation_, as involving a pass- ing of God from an inactive, quiescent existence into one of activity, if not satisfed by Origen's offered solu- tion of an "eternal creation,"[2] can easily be explained along the same lines of distinguishing, as above, between what God is immutably in Himself and as realizing, in time, the order of His eternally self-consistent purposes. His _acts_ are not identical with His essence or attributes. 7. OMNIPOTENCE marks a feature of God's nature, both as to what He is in Himself and in relation to the universe. While expressing a reality in His inner being, it stands for transitive energy, which moves forth and appears in the forces of creative existence. We are assured of it in the Scriptural revelation (Gen. xvii. 1; ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] "Sent.," III., 6, 7. [2] "De Prin.," I., 2, 10; III., 3, 5. --------------End of Page 224-------------------------------- Job xxvi. 7-14; Matt. xix. 26; Rom. iv. 17). It is witnessed to in nature. It is that attribute by which God is the absolute and supreme causality, the Cause of all causes and effects within the range of His acting, or by which He can do, and does, whatever He pleases. We cannot have a correct view of this attribute with- out bearing in mind that it, with all the rest, belongs to God only as He is the self-existent, eternal _Spirit_, _Mind_, the absolute _Personality_. Apart from this, as will become apparent, He could not be omnipotent. For the very conception of omnipotence, as required both by Christian revelation and the demands of reason, be- comes a possibility only under the ideas which mark and define personal being. An _impersonal_ power stands infinitely apart from God's self-portraiture in His word. In the theories of reason, such impersonal power gets apotheosis only in the irrationalities of materialism or the pantheism which dissolves into atheism. The divine omnipotence, therefore, stands for the divine _Will as Power_, and must be viewed under this double conception. Under the conception of it _as Will_, careful definition is necessary for clearness. Will being Mind as causal for choice and executive action, the Divine Will may justly be defined to be the Divine Mind, in the light of perfect knowledge, as causal for whatever God does. It is, thus, that capacity of God by which He chooses and works for ends. As Will, it must involve these four distinct notions: (_a_) _Intelligence_. The causality knows why and for what it acts. Will, being a rational power, is inconceivable apart from this. (_b_) _Freedom_. There is nothing outside of Him to take away His absolute self-direction. His choices are abso- lutely in and of Himself. In the highest and perfect -------------------End of Page 225------------------------ sense, He is the Author of them. This, however, must not be supposed to imply anything of what we under- stand by "arbitrariness"; because in His freedom He is also the supreme and absolute _Reason_. (_c_) _Power_. Choosing is always an exercise of power, an act of self- direction. In the primal Being it must be _originative_ of movement. _Absolutely_ orginative power is inconceiv- able, except as rational free Will. (_d_)_Immanent moral Preference_, _i.e._, God, being eternally holy, always freely chooses the right and good. It is in this that His ethical character holds the life of omnipotence in harmony with righteousness. The various distinctions usually indicated by theology as marking special modes or relations in the activities of the divine will, must be maintained for the sake of the light they throw upon the divine administration. These are between God's will as (_a_) _secret_ and _revealed_, will not made known and will disclosed; (_b_) _decretive_ and _preceptive_, such as pertains to decrees fixing issues of administration, and such as furnishes precepts of duty; (_c_) _efficient_ and _permissive_, marking its relation to events as absolutely wrought by God, through forces of His own, and events allowed to take place by and through creature free-agency--the latter illustrated when He permits the evil done by men, the former when He effectively works the good; (_d_) _absolute_ and _conditional_: absolute when He wills something unconditionally, as, for instance, the work of creation or the great scheme of redemption; conditional when He subjects certain results to terms to be met by free agents; (_e_) _antecedent_ and _consequent_, meaning almost the same as the last, as, for instance, antecedent, in the providing of salvation for the free acceptance of mankind, consequent, in the actual -----------------------End Page 226------------------------- salvation conferred on compliance with the terms of the provision. We can rightly understand the divine gov- ernment and its administrative dealings with men only as we keep in mind these leading distinctions in the action and bearings of the omnipotent Will. But it must be viewed also under the conception of _power_. This expresses an _efficiency that is all-mighty_. "I am God Almighty" (Gen. xvii.I), is the key-note of the teaching of revelation (Job xxvi. 7-14; Matt. xix. 26; Rom. iv. 17). And the universe of creation, as opened to view through modern astronomy, world on world, system on system, countless and vast, bounding each other in the immensities of space, in every direction of outlook from our globe, extending in distances beyond telescopic penetration, circling in the rhythm of structural harmony and unity, utters everywhere and forever its amen to the Biblical assurance that God is, indeed, omnipotent. The power to create and sustain such a universe as the actual one is found to be, can be nothing short of infinite. For, within the bounds of this uni- verse, wherever these bounds may be imagined to be, there exists such an inconceivable grandeur of estab- lished, yet dependent and co-ordinated forces and efficiency, as to assure us that the _Will-power_ which has originated and sustains all this, could, in freedom and at choice, transcend all present bounds of creative manifes- tation in infinite fullness of resources. And yet we must not fail to qualify this predicate of power under real and vital limitations. The para- dox of this limiting of omnipotence disappears when we understand that the limitation does not mean a de- ficiency of energy or might, but expresses only a relation which God's working power bears to the objects of the -------------End of Page 227------------------------------ divine choice, in the light of which the so-called limita- tions are seen in basal truth to be forms or features of the divine perfection. The attributes of God must not be thought of as if they stood or acted each alone, but as constituting, so to speak, an infinite perfection of being in their unity. Because of the total completeness of the divine nature, in all the attributes existing together, and because of the consequent established nature of things in the universe, some objects are immutably out- side of God's choice, and hence cannot be _objects_ of His _power_. His power cannot effect them because they can never come within its range. It is not derogatory to God to say, as an apostle does, that He "cannot lie" (Tit. i. 2), or do anything contrary to His moral excel- lence. He cannot make right wrong or wrong right, or obliterate their eternal distinctions. He cannot act irrationally or effect things that in themselves are self-contradictory, as that a thing should be and not be at the same time, or make an event already past not to have occurred, or so overthrow the mathematical relations as to have a shorter than straight line between two points, or cause two and two to make five. But the whole limitation thus asserted manifestly means simply that God's power cannot be exercised except in harmony with His perfect nature and self-consistent will. He is unlimited by anything outside of Himself. The limita- tion comes from the very perfection of His being and His free self-harmony with the expression of Himself in creation. The omnipotence of God, being in free-will power, does not exclude, but implies the power of self- limitation. His freedom gives Him power over the _exercise_ of His power. He is not shut up, either from without or within, to a necessary use of it all. His self- -----------------End of Page 228------------------------- limitation is an exercise of His freedom. It was not an abnegation of omnipotence, but the use of it, when the divine nature humbled itself into the form of human flesh. 8. OMNIPRESENCE--often designated ubiquity or im- mensity. The Scriptures represent God as being every- where. (I Kings viii. 27; Ps. cxxxix. 7-12; Acts xvii. 27,28.) Reason concurs in this view, as the divine work- ing in cosmic creation and preservation implies it. The attribute means His superiority to space limitations as His eternity does to those of time. As He endures for- ever, without beginning or ending, so He is present everywhere in the universe. A precise definition of it must cover two aspects of the whole conception, as in- volved in the distinction between a _potential_ or _operative_, and an _essential_ or _substantive_ presence. The distinc- tion is legitimate, but both kinds of presence must be embraced in the divine omnipresence. The omnipres- ence by efficient power of dominion, finitely illustrated in the efficiency of an earthly sovereign with respect to his dominion, God's power extending or acting every- where in the universe, must enter into a true notion of the divine reality. But we must include also the truth that it is a _personal presence_, a presence of God in His essential personal being, not at all, indeed, in the way of material expansion or diffusion, or by necessity, as if bound to the universe, but in His freedom and by His will filling all things with Himself. In the reality of His personal essence, He who reveals God says: "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them;" "Lo, I am with you always." That this personal omnipresence must stand in the divine freedom, and not in compulsion, is evident ------------End of Page 229----------------------------- from the truth that God may diminish or enlarge the universe to which He gives His presence. 9. OMNISCIENCE, or infinite knowledge. This also, as truly as _life_ and _unity_, rests in, and coheres with, the divine _personality_. Knowledge belongs only to a per- sonal existence, and the reality of this attribute stands, in the harmony of Christian theism, in holding God to be the absolute, everliving personal Spirit. It is well to note, as we mark the attributes, how vital is their union, as well with each other as in the divine Essence. As righly defined, omniscience means God's abolute and perfect knowledge of all things which are objects of knowledge, whether past, present, or future. Nothing is beyond His view and full understanding. The mys- teries of this reality, while checking the temerity of dog- matism, nevertheless allow, under the teachings of the Scripture, a large determination of assured theological truth. In few relations is the Scripture revelation more explicit and comprehensive than in this--showing all things, from starry worlds to the secrets of human souls, eternally naked and open before the divine eye. (Ps. cxlvii. 4; Matt. x. 29; Ps. xxxiii. 13-15; 1 Kings viii. 39; Acts xv. 8; 1 John iii. 20; Heb. iv. 13; Ps. cxxxix. 1-6; Matt. vi. 8; x. 30; Mal. iii. 16; Isa. xlvi. 9, 10; Isa. xliv. 28; Acts ii. 23; 1 Sam. xxiii. 12; Matt. xi. 21; Acts xv. 18; Rom. xi. 33.) We are warranted in marking some characteristics of the divine knowledge. As the human intelligence is an image of the divine, we may understand, in a measure, God's knowing as reflected in the modes of our own minds. Only His is free from all the limitations of ours and infinite in its vision. We are entitled to say that He knows in two ways, viz.: by self-inspection and objective --------------End of Page 230----------------------------- vision. The oft-debated question whether God's cogni- tion embraces the world-existence objective to Him, cog- nizing it as an external object, which, by its objective ex- istence, becomes knowable, is no longer disputable. The notion that an object-object is inconsistent with the abso- luteness of God's cognitive activity, is necessarily aban- doned.[1] We may affirm the divine knowing to be (_a_) _Intuitive and immediate_. God knows by direct view-- unembarrased by roundabout logical processes of infer- ence and deduction. (_b_) _Simultaneous_. It embraces all things at once and always, eternity in all its range and fullness ever-present to His view, not needing to wait on the historical development of the world to know what will be, nor dropping out of knowledge what has been. (_c_) _Full and exact_. It is not deficient, is short in nothing, but infinitely inclusive and clear to atomic minuteness. God knows things as they are, the past as past, the present as present, the future as future, the free as free. Hence, (_d_) _Infallible_. Its perfection excludes mistake. (_e_) It is _absolute_. It is not conditioned on any unknown con- tingencies. Knowing the futuritions of contingent events, He is dependent for His knowledge neither on any predetermination of events nor on the volition of free agents. _What_ He knows may be conditioned on the free will of men, but not _that He knows it_. In con- nection with this last point we will have more to say presently. In immediate and inseparable relation with these char- acteristics of the divine knowing action stand the _objects_ of God's knowledge. It is in defining these objects that the mysteries of it impress us. For the most part no perplexities hinder a distinct construing of the Scripture ------------------------------------------------------------ [1] See Julius Mueller, "The Christian Doctrine of Sin," II., p. 242 ---------------End of Page 231-------------------------------- teaching. The difficulties that sometimes embarrass appear only in the more complex relations. This be- comes evident when we seek completeness of view. (_a_) God knows _Himself_, in all the fullness of His nature, the perfections of His being, and the range of His pur- poses. There seems to be no propriety in excluding His self-knowledge from place under this attribute, on the basis of a definition which makes omniscience essentially a trasitive attribute, as having relation only to the objective universe.[1] God is subject-object to Himself. The infinitude of His personal perfections requires this. He would not be God if he did not comprehend Himself, in His intelligence as well as other attributes. The Christian revelation and Christian theology place Him absolutely apart from the pantheistic god of modern phi- losophy, in which "the absolute" becomes self-knowing only in human intelligence. God's omniscience reaches, first of all, into the depths and fullness of His own being. Origen thought that since God is "infinite" He cannot be fully known, even by Himself, but he failed to recog- nize that the "infinite" is not the indefinite, and that the definitely infinite is equaled by the Infinite Himself. God _is_ defined, is contradistinguished from everything which is not Himself, and because He is defined He is also comprehensible by His own thought.[2] (_b_) He knows all objective _reality_, reality in the cosmos and history, that either is, has been, or shall be. This, of course, at once involves a knowledge of the future, though that future contains not only the ongoing of the physical universe, but the free conduct of personal life and the ------------------------------------------------------------ [1] So Dr. A. H. Strong, "System of Theology," p. 133; also, John McPherson, "Christian Dogmatics," p. 13. [2] See Dorner, "System of Christian Doctrine," I., p. 324. ------------------End of Page 232------------------------------ course of history. Whatever perplexities may be en- countered in effort to explain this, the Scripture state- ments seem to require recognition of it. It is involved in the facts of prophecy, and in distinct affirmations in connection with prophetic fore-announcements. (Isa. xlvi. 9-II; xliv. 28; xlv. I-5; liii. I-I5; Acts ii. 23, and elsewhere in almost numberless passages in the Old and New Testaments.) (_c_) He knows all the _relations_ of things, or all things _in_ their relations--throughout the universe of physical and moral order. In this, mani- festly, is based the possibility of his prescient knowledge, and of righteous moral requirements and administration. (_d_) He knows the _essence_ of things, the very substance of their being, with all their inherent properties. For He is the Creator of all created being, and has formed their constituent existence. (_e_) He knows _the possible_, in His own will and power, and in respect to the universe. (_f_) His knowledge, according to widely accepted interpre- tation, embraces also _conditionate contingencies_--or what men would be or do in certain conditions which are never actualized--designated in theological metaphysics as _scientia media_. It means that the event, the occur- rence known, is dependent both on human free-will and on circumstantial conditions which never become actual, and yet God knows what would take place in such sup- posed conditions. Calvinistic theology has usually de- clined to accept this representation in the interest of its contention that the divine foreknowledge is based in the divine _fore-ordination_, leaving no place for such con- ditionate contingencies. But this _scientia media_ means to preserve genuine freedom for man, and assumes that such future events are open to God's view, not because of any predestination of them, but through God's abso- -----------------End of Page 233------------------------- lute foreknowledge as capable of foreseeing the truly free acts of men in all possible circumstances, even what would have been had the circumstances and conditions been different. It is a foreseeing of the ideally possible as of certain futurition in the supposed circumstances. Several illustrative incidents appear in the Scriptures in connection with the Keilahites (I Sam. xxiii. 3-13), and the Tyreans and Sidonians (Matt. xi. 2I-23). But this problem rests on two others upon which speculative theology has offered different answers, viz.: the oft- asserted timeless and successionless consciousness of God, and the divine foresight of the free acts of personal beings. These require consideration. First, with respect to the alleged timelessness of the divine consciousness, as being void of succession, so as to merge past, present, and future into an _eternal now_, sup- posed to be involved in God's "eternity," the affirmation of it stands only as a philosophical notion.[1] The Scrip- tures, as giving God's self-revelation, represent The Eter- nal as active in successional creation and providential government, dealing with men and nations according to progressive time relations and changing character. The speculative determination that, in truth, God does not _foresee_ at all, but only "knows" timelessly, that "Nothing to Him is future, nothing past, But an eternal now doth ever last," must be regarded as an unwarranted statement of God's relation to time, and is more and more regarded by modern theology as a mistaken philosopheme in conflict -------------------------------------------------------- [1] Appearing in Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, often repeated, and adopted by Gerhard and Quenstedt. ---------------End of Page 234----------------------------- with Biblical representation.[1] For the absoluteness of God's `eternity' is complete in His being, without beginning or ending, and in His being Himself inde- pendent of all the time-limitations which He has established in the world-order. God's knowledge of temporal successions, taking place objectively in world- events, must necessarily belong also to His subjective consciousness, if, indeed, He knows things as they truly are. This subjecting of His consciousness, so to speak, to the knowing of temporal successions is not in deroga- tion of the absoluteness of His knowledge, but the per- fection of it. It marks the infiniteness of it, in including the perfect truth and order of the universe of created existence. Instead of the postulate of a simul- taneity of knowledge in which time relations and suc- cessions do not come, through intelligence, into the divine consciousness, this knowing of things as they really occur in cosmic progress and in human life is required as absolutely essential if we would hold our view in harmony with the representations of the Christian revelation. And it involves all the interests of morality and religion. For every human life is set in time rela- tions and movement, in which, under the eye of God, it is to receive His approval or condemnation, according as it relates itself to the obligations, opportunities, and responsibilities of the passing days and years. If God did not observe the distinctions of time, if to His view the past, present, and future stood before Him eternally alike, the differences between what has already been actualized, what is being done, and what is yet only a possibility of the future, would not appear. The wrong- doer of to-day would not be distinguished in his guilt ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] See Dorner's "System of Christian Doctrine," IV., p. 33. ---------------End of Page 236----------------------------- from the innocent man he was yesterday, nor from the reformed man he may be to-morrow. The moral progress of men and the race would not enter into the divine discernment, and the moral rulership could not ethically correspond to the actual attitude of the moral subject. In like manner, in the sphere of religion, the "eternally similar" view would not mark the transition from the unbelief and condemnation of yesterday to the faith and adoption of to-morrow, in the return of the sinner. In the interests of both morality and religion, we must refuse the suggestion that the divine transcendence of time limitations involves a successionless omniscience. There must be, rather, a perpetual mutation in the divine omniscience, as in the world of history the real- ities of the present become the realities of the past, and the possibilities of the future become the reality of the living present. But, at the same time, we must remem- ber that "with this change in His knowledge _there is no mutation in God Himself_ given."[1] It is because He is immutable that He knows the changes in what is not Himself. If it should be said that this asserted timeless consciousness of God should be affirmed only--which it is not--of His existence in the solitude of His eternity before His creation of beings other than Himself, in which time and time-measurements are said to begin, we are still in serious doubt whether the affirmation wiould be fully tenable. The suggestion by Origen, of "eternal creation," creeative activity being co-eternal with the very being of God, without any acosmic soli- tariness before it, though not at all assured to be true, has yet enough in it to justify extreme caution in assum- ing that there ever was such precosmic divine conscious- ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] Dorner, "System of Christian Doctrine," I., p. 332. -------------End of Page 236-------------------------------- ness. But even if the assumption is conceded, may it not be beyond warrant to declare the consciousness to have been successionless or destitute of distinction of before and after, of the ideas of past, present, and future? For then, as after creation, God was the living God, in the fullness of absolute Personality, embracing perfect intelligence, love, will, or self-determination, a Triunity in life, thought, and fellowship, independent, self-suffic- ing in resources and happiness--one in essence, but with an infinite fullness of attributes.[1] We cannot con- tend for the doctrine held by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas,[2] reducing the divine unity into a "simplicity," in which the distinctions between substance and attri- bute, and between the attributes themselves, fall away from the immanent existence of God, all lost in an indefinite motionless identity. For when all these dis- tinctions in God are thus obliterated by being counted as only our own subjective conceptions, the divine Essence proper is left as, in itself, destitute of all determin- ation, intrinsically void of definite perfections of person- ality and activity, and approaches the immobility and senselessness of the Hindu Brahm, the indeterminate "being," the "no-thing," or "no-thought," of the Hegel- ian philosophy, rather than the Jehovah of revelation with infinite fullness of positive personal perfections and activity. But if God is thus truly the ever-living personal God, with intelligence, love, and purpose, He, before all worlds, when only Himself existed to be known, must have known His own _possibilities_ of will and power, and must, even from eternity, have thought and purposed ---------------------------------------------------- [1] See Charles Hodge, "Systematic Theology," Vol. I., pp. 388,389. [2] Repeated by J. Gerhard, "Loci," sec. 108, and Quenstedt, "Sys- tema," ch. viii., sec. 2. ---------------------End of Page 237---------------------------- the universe-creation before creating it, and, thus, seem- ingly at least, have included in His consciousness the succesion-principle of before and after. The world- idea, with its order of time, was surely in the divine mind and counsel before God created the world, so that time in world-reality is now actual only because the time- idea was real in the divine mind and will before creation.[1] For though His omniscience, from eternity, then already embraced a knowledge of the world, it embraced it, not as eternally actually existing, but as possible and to be; and through what was then present as purpose in God, and its actualization in creation, He certainly appears as holding His own activities to an order of succession. The same result appears when we trace the significance and bear- ing of the essential divine attributes. If the attributes of knowing and doing (intelligence and will) are really divine attributes, He foreknew the sin of mankind, and, according to His "eternal counsel," or will of love, deter- mined redemption. But the actualizing of its complete provisions waited for "the fullness of time," the omni- science of God thus embracing the sequences of before and after, implying necessarily, if He is truly conscious of His own knowledge, a consciousness also of the time relations which it embraces and covers. Julius Mueller well says: If this world, moving itself in time and place, exists as such by the creative Will of God, it is also as such present to God in an objective manner.[2] And this, after all, is all that this disputed question has ever legiti- mately involved. For whether we think of the divine consciousness, either antecedently to creative existence or since the beginning of the world and its unfolding ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] See Julius Mueller, "The Christian Doctrine of Sin," Vol. I., p 23. [2] "The Christian Doctrine of Sin," Vol. I., p. 232. -------------End of Page 238--------------------------------- history, the point really in dispute is not whether _God in His own being and omniscience is independent_ of temporal succession, but only whether to that omniscience the past, present, and future are so present as to be only "eternally similar," an "eternal now," so that His con- sciousness does not embrace the relations of before and after and the temporal mutations as they develop. If God has included in His own counsel or plan from eternity and its accomplishment in time, a relation of sequence--the profoundest reality in the meaning of time--it is certainly unjustifiable to deny that He is con- scious of it, or to go on repeating the rash assertion that "Nothing to Him is future, nothing past, But an eternal now doth ever last."[1] The second problem has equally vital bearings and naturally has engaged theological thought: the question of _the divine prescience of the free acts of creatures_. Assured that God knows all things _actual_ in the present and past, and in the future also, so far as their futurition is not left to human free-will, or the _result_ of such will- force upon nature, and that, further, He knows these in their order and relations of time; assured, moreover, ------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Dr. Hodge is surely correct when he affirms: "God is a person, and all that personality implies must be true of Him." "As constant thought and activity are involved in the very nature of a spirit, these must belong to God; and so far as thinking and acting involve suc- cession, succession must belong to God." "We know that God is con- stantly producing new effects, effects which succeed each other in time."..."We utter words to which we can attach no meaning when we say that these effects (Christ's miracles) were due, not to a con- temporaneous act or volition of the divine mind, but to an eternal act, if such a phrase be not a solecism."--"Systematic Theology," Vol. I., pp. 388-389. -------------------End of Page 239--------------------------------- that He knows all the _possibilities_ of being and occur- rence in Himself and the creation, the great remaining question is whether God does, or can, know beforehand what human beings, acting in really free choice, will do, or whether He first knows it when they make their actual decision. The answer involves the reach of the divine foreknowledge on the one side, and on the other the question of human freedom and moral life. While from the early Church down through the scholastic period, and generally also in Protestant theology, the full divine prescience of the acts of human free-will has been maintained, modern thought, both philosophical and theological, has been showing an increasing tendency to question it. The incentive to this is, in part, to escape the paradox of a prescience of the decisions of free- agency before the decision is reached; but much more, to safeguard the principle of moral responsibility from encroachment of determinism. In ancient times Cicero said: "If the acts of man are foreseen, then there is a certain order in them, an order of causation; and if there is an order of causation, then fate is the result."[1] Similarly, Arisotle expressed doubt of the possibility of such foreknowledge.[2] And recently various thologians in different branches of the Church, whose prominence and ability add weight to their views, have strongly argued against including the strictly free acts of men in the divine foreknowledge. Martensen, Rothe, Dorner, in Europe, and McCabe and Whedon in America, are types of the modified conceptions which are thought to be required. All of the, except Dr. Dorner, are positive in holding that God does not embrace contingent acts of human ------------------------------------------------------ [1] See Augustine, "City of God," Book V., ch. ix. [2] See Strong's "Systematic Theology," p. 134. ---------------End of Page 240----------------------------- freedom individually in His foreknowledge, while the latter, negatively, hesitates to assert dogmatically their real inclusion.[1] The problem is one of immense impor- tance and embarrassed with varied speculative difficulties. The solution of it, if at all possible, can be reached only through the most careful comprehension of all the elements involved and the elimination of suppositions utterly inadmissible. We must certainly exclude the supposition of the divine prescience of all human choices and acts _on the basis of the divine fore-ordination of whatsoever comes to pass_. For such fore-ordination inevitably reduces human freedom to mere semblance, and involves a substitution of divine determination in the place of human self-de- termination or the liberty of alternative choice. Such fore-ordination is in unqualified contradiction of the very foundation of moral life and responsibility. That human personality includes the normal capacity for the exercise of diverse choice, and that the entire reality of just responsi- bility arises therefrom, is one of the most indubitably certi- fied realities revealed by God through the psychology of the soul, the constitution of life, and the sacred Scrip- tures. The whole Christian revelation, from beginning to end, presents and treats man as possessing this personal freedom and as truly amenable for its use. Despite metaphysically alledged difficulties concerning this free- dom, all human life and its responsibilities are so organ- ized into it and built upon it, that neither personal nor social life can be lived or achieved in practical repu- diation or neglect of it. No solution of foreknowledge, therefore, can be accepted as true which conflicts with the reality of this freedom. But the difficulty with this ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] "System of Christian Doctrine," I., pp. 329-337; II., pp. 59-62. ----------------End of Page 241--------------------------- fore-ordination as a proposed explanation of the divine prescience reaches also to a point beyond its strife with man's freedom. For it involves utterly incredible consequences with respect to God Himself. For if these human volitions are all infallibly known because predestinated, known simply through God's self-con- sciousness as mirroring the world-life fixed in His de- crees, then, they all, the evil as well as the good, fall into the category of _divine_ volitions, predetermining and necessitating all human sin. It would trace the author- ship of sin back to direct volition of the Holy One. If, therefore, we are to believe that God foreknows the free volitions of men, created with the potency of alternative choice, and all the temporary bends and curves they cause in history, we must have some better reasons for the belief than this evasive theory of abso- lute predestination, which is thus doubly self-confuting, in menacing at once the fundamental grounds of all human morality and responsibility, and the ethical char- acter and self-consistency of God. We must also exclude the notion that such prescience is explicable by the theory that the future acts of human free- dom _are not future to God_. The explanation is sought in such a metaphysical conception of the divine `eter- nity' and `immutability' as implies not only that the being of God is without beginning or end, and un- changeably perfect in essence and attributes, but also ex- cludes the reality of divine _duration_,[1] the basis of the _time_-idea, which distinguishes the past from the present and the present from the future. It is a remnant of the gratuitous and confusing philosphemes of the school- --------------------------------------------------------- [1] Quenstedt rightly recognizes the divine _duration_, though he makes it successionless.--"Theologica," I., VIII., secs. i. and vii. --------------End of Page 242----------------------------- men, who, while defining the various attributes of God as human thought must view them, yet, at the same time, strenuously cautioned against supposing that they really belonged to Him as He is in Himself, and made them all stand for one and the same thing, merging all dis- tinctions of essence and attribute, knowledge and will, power and act into an indivisible identity and simul- taneity, so that in the divine consciousness there is simply an eternal and immutable "_now_," _a tota simul_, and God is eternally doing and knowing the same things.[1] It is only a part, a fragment, of this general view, detached from the rest, that this theory uses in the effort to ex- plain this divine foreknowledge--its spurious idea of the relation of God to time. It begins in a false conception of _time itself_, as time is at all involved in this question. It is hard to follow the kaleidoscopic diversities of mean- ings in which the word "time" appears among theolo- gians and metaphysicians. Sometimes it approaches the appearance of a concrete entity--a creature of God. Sometimes it is a `relation' between events, some- times an `attribute' of finite existences, sometimes an equivalent for `duration,' sometimes the reality of `suc- cession,' or events covered by experience in conscious- ness. In the easy and rapid shifting of use in these and other different senses, writers inflict upon themselves ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] Erigena says, "Voluntas illius et visio et essentia unum est."-- "De Divisione Natura," III., 17 and 29. Thomas Aquinas, "Deus per intellectum suum causat res, cum suum esse sit suum intelligere. Unde necesse est, quod scientia sit causa rerum," "Summa," I., xiv.8. Ger- hard, "Essentia, bonitas, potentia, sapientia, justitia, et reliqua attri- buta omnia sunt in Deo realiter unum," "Tom.," cap. vii., sec. 47. Heidegger, "Voluntas ab intellectu non differt, quia intelligende vult et volendo intelligit. Intelligere et velle ejus idemque perpetuus indi- visus actus."--"Corpus Theologiae Christianae." -------------------End of Page 243--------------------------- and others a magic verbal legerdemain in which the truth is lost or an incredibility substituted. So we need to safeguard our thinking from the perversion of these spurious ideas of time. Beyond all question the idea arises in the human mind out of its conscious experiences --not as an immediate gift of experienece, but on occasion of experience. Our conscious mental acts and states are known to _continue_ or _endure_ to some degree. This gives us the reality of _duration_, known in consciousness as be- longing to the human personality and its mental states and acts, just as also our sense-experience gives the reality of _extension_, for material bodies. Still, _dura- tion_ is not "time," as _extension_ is not "space." But consciousness shows one step more in our knowing. After experience gives us knowledge of "duration" and "extension," the mind by an inevitable necessity of mental intuition, discerns the reality of TIME, as required for this empirical reality of _duration_, as _space_ also is for _extension_; _i.e._, both "space" and "time" are directly seen to be the necessary and fundamental conditions or presuppositions for the material world and for personal beings with consciousness of _duration_, change, events, movement, and progress. _Time_ is, therefore, simply the absolutely necessary presupposition or condition for a continuously existent world with consciously active living beings. It is only a _correlate_ to duration and events in succession. It is not a _substance_, either matter or spirit; for it has not a single attribute or property of either. It is not an _attribute_[1] or property; for attributes belong only to substances. It is not simply a _relation_;[2] for relations can exist only between things that are or -------------------------------------------------------- [1] So Samuel Clarke, James Mill, etc. [2] So Leibnitz, Calderwood. ---------End of Page 244----------------------------------- occur _in_ space and time. But so far as we can know and define it, it is simply the pre-condition to the possibility of finite, enduring existences and succcessive events. "Events" are not time, but they require and take place _in_ time. "Succession" _is_ not time, but takes place _in_ it. The moving heavenly bodies, the recurrence of day and night, months and years are not time, but imply it, and form a kind of clock-work by which it may be meas- ured. Even our _consciousness of duration_, of the rela- tion of _before_ and _after_, the distinction between _then_ and and _now_, _is_ not time, but a _revealing_ of time as the pre- requisite for the very existence and life of self-conscious, personal beings, with their progressive activities--con- ditional for this, just as _space_ is conditional for the ex- istence of the material universe. But now, when we re- call the conceded truth that before God _created_ finite existence there _was nothing_ but Himself, in His own fullness of life, intelligence, power, and the inner activi- ties of His personal and triune life--only non-entity, _nothingness, blank void and vacancy_, in which God set the universe--we begin to see what our conception of time should be. If "time" was anything _then_ other than the _nothingness_ in which God placed the moving, advancing order of the world, it must have been the "_then_" within the self-conscious life, thought, will, and action of God Himself, when "He spake and it was done, commanded and it stood fast." The world-time, in and of which we have our experience and intuition of time, and knowledge of it, must of course, be due to God's _creating_ and establishing a time-ordered world, with its continued existence, changes, and progress. And in this view, we perceive, too, the truth that for all this _word- time, no other creating by God was necessary_, nor, so far ------------End of Page 245---------------------------- as we can know, exercised, _than that which originated finite existences, material and personal, under the law of beginning, continuance, and change_--a _world_-life, instead of the _nothingness_ that was before; a world-life that in conscious intelligence recognizes its own continuance and advance, and measures the "time" in which the ad- vance takes place. In view of these indubitably evident truths, "time" becomes simply the ideally, yet truly known pre-requisite to the life of intelligent, self-con- scious, active beings--the _whenness_, the _beforeness_, the _presentness_, the _afterness_ recognized as real in the _dura- tion_ of such self-conscious, active, intelligent beings. Be- yond all doubt, Kant was right when he asserted time to be an "_a priori_ form of thought or knowledge," the ab- solutely necessary setting in which the mind must recog- nize all duration or succession, the pre-condition of the possibility and reality of all phenomena. But his error was in his intimation that time might be _only a subject- ive idea_, without standing for an objective reality. For as the _consciousness of duration_, or duration itself, is real, so must be the time which is its pre-condition. But his truth--recognized as truth wholly apart from the pecu- liar Kantian philosophy--that time is a necessary form of all knowledge in self-conscious intelligence, thought, and purpose, carries us on toward the conclusion, already mentioned, that the _divine_ knowledge, even from eternity, embraced not only "duration," but the idea of "time" as the involved reality. God's `idea' of the world and His "purpose" to create it, before His actual creation of it, it would seem, must have required this, unless we are ready to admit that He did not know what was going to be so essential and fundamental a feature of the universe He proposed to create. The possiblity of all being ----------------End of Page 246-------------------------- other than God, lay in the potentialities of God, as able to create. The finite universe, which His power created, instead of the non-existence outside of Himself, shows the eternal time-idea in the mind of God, and that He incorporated it into the finite movements and measure- ments of the world and humanity; and this warrants a re- affirmation of the view which makes our whole cosmic time only a "portion of eternity." For, as confirmatory of this view, stand the fact that all philosophy is compelled to speak of both space and time, considered in totality, as "infinite"--because the notion of limitation is not applicable, and is as unthinkable as is bringing eternity itself under limitation. Whatever bounds we may set to the reaches of space or time, we must confess to the truth that space and time lie beyond, and no bounds are applicable. God and time, _i.e._, the possibility of "dura- tion," are, after all, not so far apart as many oft-repeated theological statements have represented. But on the basis of the exclusion of time from the divine consciousness, the notion that future acts of human freedom are _not_ "future" to God, is made to rest on an untenable conception of God's "eternity," or of His "inhabiting eternity." In connection with the representation that He is without time-consciusness, the reality of His _duration_ is thrown under confusion. It is subsumed and subverted under what would be expressed by an _extension of His substance through eternity_--rather than His personal living existence and activity, without beginning or end. The perversion of view is connected with the statement that He exists _sub specie eternitatis_. As put recently by Dr. R. S. Foster (italics mine):[1] "He inhabits eternity; not that existing in one time He ------------------------------------------------------- [1] "Studies in Theology--God," pp. 148-149. -----------------End of Page 247------------------------ looks forward through all time, but that He exists in all time. As to the events themselves, there was a time when they did not exist, and in that time He knew them as non-existent, but as to be; but as He was _at that very time also existing in all coming time_, He knew them in that coming time _as existing_. If the mode of eternal existence is permanent existence in eternity, and not a passing from one time into another, which we have seen it must be, the position here taken is irresistible.... If we could conceive ourselves to be existing _to-day_ in a day a million years hence as well as to-day, we should then see what now is, for it would be under our present gaze; but we should also _to-day_ see what will be non- existent for a million of years, for by supposition we are _also to-day_ existing millions of years hence, and are seeing as _real and present to us_ the events of that day. ... Things that will be _are_ to Him who _now_ lives in the time they will be.... If at some future time they will exist, and if the infinite Knower has a mode of existence which makes that future time present with Him, then the event now non-existent will be known to Him as then actually existent. Non-existent in itself, it is not non-existent to a knowledge which covers the time when it will be existent. To God it is a knowledge of what _is_, because His mode of being includes the future.... To Him, as objects of knowledge, because of His eternity, they are _real and actual before they exist_." This expedient to avoid fore-ordination and yet believe in foreknowledge in the acts of human freedom, in avoiding Scylla runs upon Charybdis: (_a_) Because it has recourse to the questionable repre- sentation that denies "_duration_" to God's being and "succession" to His consciousness. It supersedes the ---------------End of Page 248------------------------------ Scripture representation that He is each moment wholly Himself as absolute self-centered Personality--with "counsel" for things to be and "remembrance" of things past, the _Ever-Enduring_ One, while generations and worlds pass and cease to be--by the notion that He _is_ God and has His vision of things only by an _extension of His essence_, fixed and immobile, parallel all _at once_ to all the world-ages. It confounds His "eternal" essence with "eternity" itself, and forms it into a stationary background, in which the cosmic progress reflects itself-- "_total simul_" "an unchangeable now"--contrary to the Biblical idea of a personal Being who lives on forever, and takes note of all change (Gen. xxi. 33; Deut. xxxiii. 27; Ps. xc. 1-4; Rom. i. 20; Rev. i. 8), but who only has absolute "immortality" (Rom. i. 23; I Tim. vi. 16). The representation, if not unthinkable, is so difficult and remote, and so alien to the conception mirrored in the Scriptures, that it looks like a manu- factured expedient to make a theological conclusion. We may be told that to take the Scripture language in its humanly linguistic sense is to hold an anthropomor- phic image of God. Perhaps so. But as God has given the revelation of Himself, it may reasonably be assumed that it discloses Him as He wishes to be understood, and a worse anthropomorphism may be reached in such human explanations. (_b_) It diregards the distinction between the divine essence, or attributes, and the divine _acts_. The essence is eternal, the attributes are eternal, but the _acts_ are in _time_. (_c_) Because, instead of explaining the possibility of foreknowledge, this theory ends in a _denial_ of it. For the knowledge is resolved into simple vision of the -----------End of Page 249-------------------------------- present--despite its use of some phraseology about the futurity of the "events" themselves. The account involves a more exaggerated form of the _tota simul_ than even Augustine's now discredited explanation. For that left room for a recognition of a divine glance into futurity by basing the foreknowledge of events on God's fore-ordination of them--that they _should_ so come to pass. Yet Augustine admitted that even his theory left only "_scientia_" instead of _pre-scientia_. But the explanation now offered drops the notion of a devine look into the future, through a fixed predestination, and has nothing left but a present vision--"knowledge" only because the thing "_is present_." There is no _fore_- knowlege in the case. (_d_) But the fatal feature in the theory is that it involves the _absolutely contradictory_, in double sense, viz.: that God may, in actual, _present_ vision, see con- tingent acts really already _done_ when they are not yet to take place for ages to come, and the actors are not yet in existence; and, further, that to His infallible knowledge things may be and not be at the same time. By leger- demain of phrase it is made to seem that centuries before a thing comes to pass God knows it as both some- thing already "existing," and also as something "to be." To His knowledge events are "existent" "and non- existent" at the same time! From the point of His essence, as present, they are seen as yet non-existent; from the point of His essence, as already living in the future, they are seen as already existent. "To Him they are _real_ and _actual_ before they exist." "To God it is knowledge of what _is_." This makes God's present Self and His future Self not only _the same_ as _endur- ing_ through time, but as annihilating all time into a -----------End of Page 250------------------------------- timeless "now." An explanation involving such abso- lute contradictions--as absolute as that the eternal Truth should lie--cannot be satisfactory.[1] The failure of these efforts to explain how God can foreknow the doings of human freedom leaves the pos- sibility of such knowledge still in question. The proper answer to it must be sought just where theology rests its whole warrant for religious faith--in the authority and correct interpretation of the Scripture teaching. It is to be conceded, too, that the denial of it among theologians has found place, not from want of respect for the author- ity of revelation, but from the fact that the doctrine, in its specifically defined particularity, is not seen to be there declared in direct and categorical affirmations. It is not found in fully explicit statement. On the other hand, it is unquestionable that in an immense number of passages and in connection with various fundamental truths it is necessarily suggested and seems to be essen- tially involved. This is the case in all prophecy, whether it foretells great aggregate futuritions of human condition or the general course of history, or specific con- tingent events and individual acts. Not only is the Old Testament a distinct foreshowing of the New Testament setting up of a kingdom of heaven, with the manifold human features of its establishment, but is itself thick- set with instances of prediction of the acts of nations and persons, both good and evil. God foreknew Abra- ham's continued obedience and commanding of his house (Gen. xviii. 19), and foretold the bondage of his posterity in Egypt and their return (Gen. xv. 13-16). -------------------------------------------------------- [1] On the conflict of this asserted timelessness of God's consciousness with the doctrine of the atonement, see Dorner's "System of Christian Doctrine," Vol. IV., p. 33. --------------End of Page 251---------------------------- He foretold to Moses the persistent later covenant break- ing of the Hebrews (Deut. xxxi. 16). He foretold to Hazael his horrible future crimes (2 Kings viii. 10-13). In Isa. liii. He fore-announced in clear specifications the suffering experience of Jesus Christ at the hands of men and the redemptive results. In the New Testa- ment Christ told beforehand of the treatment which the chief priests, elders, and scribes, in their free self- determination, would inflict on Him, specifying the betrayal, mocking, scourging, spitting, surrender to the Romans, and death by crucifixion, as well as His own rising again on the third day (Matt. xvi. 21; xx. 18-19; Luke xviii. 31-33). He declared in advance the sweeping destruction in which Roman power would overwhelm Jerusalem and blot out forever the Jewish nationality, scattering the chosen people through all lands (Mark xiii. 2; Luke xix. 43-44). He foresaw Judas' treachery (Matt. xxvi. 20-25; Luke xxii. 21-23). He foretold of the man bearing a pitcher of water, of the disposition in the owner of the colt to be secured for the palm-entry (Luke xxii. 10; Mark xi. 2-4). It was no conjecture when Jesus, in the face of Peter's protesting affection and self-confidence in his unfaltering fidelity, assured him: "Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice (Matt. xxvi. 34, 75). In conncection with the great truth of election to salva- tion, St. Paul rests the divine action in prescience: "For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. viii. 29), and St. Peter bases it in the same way: "Elect accord- ing to foreknowledge" (I Peter i. 2). These and similar Scriptures, taken in connection with the general Biblical affirmation of the divine omni- -------------End of Page 252--------------------------- science, manifestly seem to teach a foreknowledge of men's use of their freedom. Nothing short of a clear showing that this conclusion is not necessarily required as the correct interpretaion of revelation can justify refusal to accept it. Though the foundation principles of both morals and religion, as unequivocally taught in both Scripture and reason, forbid acceptance of expla- nations of the mysteries of this prescience by theory of absolute fore-ordination or any device of imagination destructive of the divine self-consistency, yet we would be rash to deny the possibility of it. That we cannot penetrate the mystery of the method is no disproof of the reality. We ought to be easily able to believe--should the belief harmonize with the revealed conception of the perfect divine administration--that God's ways and reaches of knowing are so transcendent to our limited modes and means as to be fully and infallibly competent for such knowledge. And since it is clear that fore- knowledge is not in itself _causal_ for its object, but is simply and only _prescient_ of it, it involves no strife with genuine freedom or the foundations of moral responsi- bility. When the truth is clearly understood that the foresight is not based on fore-ordination or made identi- cal with it--when the notion under which God becomes at once the Author of sin and the Avenger of the sin on its helpless victims is dropped--the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge is relieved of its moral self-contradictori- ness, and, indeed, throws a cheering illumination over the order, certainty, safety, righteousness, love, and ultimate triumph of the divine administration. Inevitably, of course, this non-dependence of prescience of free huamn acts upon fore-ordination as their ground, must hold the divine mode of it to be other than that which belongs to --------------End of Page 253--------------------------- God's knowledge of Himself, _i.e._, of His own possibili- ties and purposes, and must belong to His _objective_ view and His perfect understanding of men and the condi- tions encompassing every human life. The question of its possibility and reality must, therefore, necessarily be narrowed into the possibilities of His _outlook_ through the future life of humanity. Yet, when we rememvber that God is infinite in His perfections, and His infinite omniscience has resources and modes far beyond our finite possibilities of conception, it would seem to be presumption to declare that His intelligence may not penetrate through the to-us-boundless complexities of the movement of human freedom to an understanding of what men will do in every particular condition. Some hint of this possibility comes to us in what the- ology has been wont to term the divine _scientia media_. The term is used to express a knowledge of what _would_ take place, or would _have_ taken place in certain idealized conditions which never are or have been actualized. The idea of it is illustrated in Jehovah's assurance to David at Keilah that the Keilahites would deliver him up to Saul, who was about to descend on the town-- whereupon David hastily escaped (I Sam. xxiii. 5-13); also in our Lord's declaration to Chorzin and Bethsaida, "If the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes" (Matt. xi. 21). The divine glance revealed what human freedom would have done in the never actualized conditions. It must be conceded, at the same time, that while this doctrine of perfect foreknowledge rests on warrant of the most obvious interpretaion of the language of revelation (and positive disproof of its correctness has not been ---------------End of Page 254--------------------------- shown), nevertheless, the progress of theological discus- sion has shown that the Scriptural integrity of the doc- trine of the divine perfections, and the supremacy and completeness of God's moral and redemptive adminis- tration over the world may be consistently and fully maintained, without asserting this particular inclusion of free volitions of men in the divine _fore_-knowledge. While omniscience is an essential attribute of God, _i.e._, absolute omniscience of all knowable objects, _fore_-knowl- edge in the relation in question may not be an attribute in the same absolute sense. For, since in creation God included an order of rational moral beings, endowed with the lofty powers of free choice and self-direction under re- sponsibility, it was by His own free act, in conferring such endowment, that, if at all, the choices they shall make are placed outside of His foreknowlege. It was by _self_-relation that the relation obtains--perhaps some- what after the reality presented when the eternal Son for a while related Himself to the world-history, so that He could say, `Of that hour the Son does not know.' It was in God's own freedom that He established whatever relation hold in the case. If, then, in the very status so established, truly free human acts are _undetermined_ until the human decision determines them, by very con- ception they seem to belong only to the _possibilities_ of the future. May we not justly conclude that the divine attribute of omniscience is completely realized in _fore_-knowing them as _possibilities_ while they _are_ such, and as _actual_ when they become actual? In thus recog- nizing "knowledge" as indeed an essential attribute of God, and saying that _fore_-knowledge may not be, we are simply following the admission of the Augustinian theology all through the centuries. For, generally, it ------------End of Page 255----------------------------- has asserted that the foreknowledge in this relation re- spects things which can be made certain "_only by God's decrees_." So they are no more contingent on human determination. And even when the foreknowledge has not been conditioned on fore-ordination, but has assumed that the things which are future to us are _not_ future to God, but _present_, by the device of an eternal now, fore- knowledge has really been dissolved into simple knowl- edge. Augustine wrote: "But what is future to God, who transcends all time? For if God's foreknowledge contains the things themselves, they are not future to Him, but present, and hence cannot be called foreknowledge (pre- scientia), but only knowledgte (scientia)."[1] In neither representation has prescience of free action been main- tained, but obliterated. In the one explanation it is _not free_; in the other it is not _future_. Thus, the traditional teaching has largely prepared the way for the modern difficulty about real foreknowledge in this relation, and for the suggestion that it may not be essential to our correct conception of the divine omniscience. If, then, such prescience may not be a necessary attri- bute of God, the inquiry arises whether, on the suppo- sition of His creational work having placed free human acts beyond His foreknowledge, it is yet possible to con- struct a theological view that will be at once consistent with the teaching of revelation and the fundamental re- quirements for God's sovereignty, and His moral and redemptive administration? Our Lutheran theology has refused to accept the Calvinistic scheme of absolute pre- destination, but has retained the doctrine of foreknowl- edge, in basing individual election on divine foresight of faith. This modifies that scheme throughout. God does -------------------------------------------------------- [1] "De Diversis Quaestionible ad Simplicianum."--II., ii. 2. ---------------End of Page 256--------------------------- not draw His foreknowledge from His own _self-inspection_, in which He knows the future through the all-decisive de- crees as to what is to come to pass, but from His view and understanding of men in the use of their given free- dom in their life conditions. In recognizing, thus, these two kinds of knowledge in God, one unconditional, stand- ing purely in His own absolute causation, the other con- ditioning itself through the free causalities of endowed human agency, we see that He has related Himself closely, in His providential and redemptive administra- tion, to the time-life of men and of history. He knows the future as future, the past as past, and the present as present; and thus the divine knowledge of what shall be- come actual out of the possibilities of human self-determi- nation, is the basis of His "election"--according to "fore- knowledge." His eternal fore-ordination, that "he that believeth shall have eternal life," finds the ground for realizing itself in His foresight of the individual's sub- mission to the call of the Gospel. The acts of justifi- cation and gift of the new life wait on, while seeking, the actual human condition of faith; for the human con- dition is a time-reality, without which the forgiveness and life cannot really exist--but can only stand to the divine view as something that _will_ be. However, this prescience of the right use men make of the approach of grace expresses the reality of an actual relation between God and the world of free beings, in which the divine aim of human salvation actually weaves its own working into the woof of creature freedom, moving forward with the moving procession of human life. But may not this representation of theology, which has stood in large measure as the faith of the Church in its earlier period and modern history, be preserved sub- --------------End of Page 257---------------------------- stantially should the divine omniscience be regarded as meeting this "faith" and all the life of human freedom only as the possibilities emerge into the actualities? Already under the accepted doctrine of _foreknowledge_, since things at first future, and known as such, move into the present, and thence into the past, the contingent possibilities ever passing into actualities, not only must the divine knowledge attend this in its course but also the divine working in grace and administration. Already there is presupposed, say in connection with the temporal transition from a possible faith into an actual faith, an alteration in the form of the divine _cognition_, and also in the divine _activities_ of regenerating and saving power. Already God's knowledge and administration are a knowledge and administration conditioned, accord- ing to His own plan, by temporal history, intertwining and progressing with it. But the chief difficulty arises in connection with the larger view of the divine sovereignty and its supremacy for the maintenance of the ordained progress of history and the triumph of the kingdom. The question presses, unless God fully and certainly foreknows all that men, personally and jointly, will do, how can He assure, as He does, the world's redemptive and administrational movement and hold it to its destined goal? How can He know the resultant _totality_ of free action without a knowledge of the almost infinite constituent parts-- especially if the truth of predictive prophecy be included, since thousands of contingencies may intervene between the prophecy and its fulfillment, while yet the fulfill- ment depends on the certainty of every one of them? The real _crux_ appears at this point. The only attempt offered to solve the problem has been through the fullest ---------------End of Page 258---------------------------- and strongest emphasis on God's perfect omniscience of all things, _except_ these future free acts alone. With His complete knowledge of all things actual, and especi- ally of all things _possible_, possible to the freedom of men and possible to His own resources, it is suggested that, matching His own infinite possible resources to the activities of human freedom, He may always hold the Providential course of history to the accomplishment of the essentials of His plan, without annulling that freedom. His relation is conceived of as not that of a mere spectator of unfolding events, but as the supreme ruler in the drama of freedom, carrying it forward in receiprocal conflict and work with human free activities. A statement from Martensen best defines the theoretical view: "If we would preserve this reciprocal relation between God and His creatures, we must not make the whole actual course of the world the subject of His foreknowledge, but only its eternal import, the essential truth it involves. The final goal of this world's development, together with the entire series of its necessary stages, must be regarded as fixed in the eternal counsel of God; but the practical carrying out of this eternal counsel, the entire fullness of actual limi- tations on the part of this world's progress, in so far as these are conditioned by the freedom, can only be the subject of a conditional foreknowledge, _i.e._, they can only be foreknown as possibilities, as _futurabilia_, but not as realities, because other possibilities may actually take place. In thus asserting that God does not actually fore- know all that actually occurs, we by no means imply that every event is not the subject of His all-penetrating cognizance. God is not only _before_ His creatures-- before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the ---------------End of Page 259-------------------------- earth was made--He is also _in_ and _with_ His creatures, in every moment of their development. While God neither foreknows, nor will foreknow, what He leaves undecided, in order to be decided in time, He is no less _cognizant_ of and _privy_ to all that occurs. Every move- ment of His creatures, even in their secret thoughts, is within the range of His all-embracing knowledge. `Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Whither shall I go from Thy Sprit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there' (Ps. cxxxix.). His knowledge penetrates the entanglements of this world's progress at every point; the unerring eye of His wisdom discerns in every moment the relation subsisting between free beings and His eternal plan; and His almighty hand, His power, pregnant of great designs, guides and influences the movements of the world, as His counsels require."[1] Dr. Dorner says: "For the di- vine Providence the question is of little importance, since it will at all times act most comforably with ethical laws, and since nothing can befall it unexpect- edly or unawares, if it still surveys all possibilities eternally."[2] An analogy recently offered illustrates how this supreme control and final triumph of Providence may be possible under this view--in the relation of a perfect expert and a novice before a chessboard. The expert is not, indeed, able to forsee exactly what _actual_ moves may be made, but only the _possible_ moves, and yet he knows in advance how to meet them by moves of his own, so as to ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] "Christian Dogmatics," sec. 116. [2] "System of Christian Doctrine," I., p. 334. --------------------End of Page 260-------------------------- lead infallibly towards victory.[1] The infinite Creator's plan may supposedly be left contingent as to many of its paths of advance, but with all possibilities marked down and provided for. The contingent ways of men would wait on human determination, but the actualities be safe- guarded by the infinite resources of Providence from resulting in defeat of the final triumph of all the possibili- ties of wisdom and love. The only remaining difficulty that suggests itself at this point is that this overruling guidance seems to involve either an incessant intervention of miraculous correction, or, since the movement lies still in the sphere of human life, such a handling of human wills as would, at least in part, infringe their real free- dom. But to remove this difficulty, it is enough to remember that such corrective divine overruling does not mean physical miracles, as in founding Christianity, but only the established action of supernatural grace and power through spiritual forces; And that, without at all involving for a single soul a limitation of its freedom by an absolute predestination of destiny, God may inten- sify, through His truth and Spirit, the working energies and activities of the obedient subjects of that grace. God may not abridge, but _use_ the freedom of His people to lift up standards against unrighteousness. This view, however, is not to be preferred to the tra- ditional faith in the divine foreknowledge in the realm of freedom. For the possibility of the traditional view has not been disproved, and, indeed, cannot be. And until the more obvious and natural interpretaion of the Scrip- tures on the subject is shown to be mistaken, there is no occasion for falling back upon the theory of nescience, with its large difficulties of harmonization with the --------------------------------------------------------- [1] Prof. William James, "The Will to Believe," pp. 181-182. ---------------End of Page 261--------------------------- facts of prophecy and the truth of election according to foreknowledge. 10. WISDOM. Though closley allied to knowledge and resting in it, this attribute marks a distinct and special feature of the divine nature. It is more than mere cognition. It is, specifically, that attribute by which God _chooses the best ends_ and _perfectly adapts the means_ for their accomplishment. It expresses the _elective_ quality of God's intelligence. With His infinite knowledge and omnipotent power, He under- stands and wills what is best, directing all things to the highest aims under the most perfect adaptations. Human life presents perpetual illustrations of the proper definiteness of the term. The world abounds with men of immense knowledge, but of small or doubtful wis- dom. All the attributes of God, so far as revealed to us--real, positive, and distinct--are yet so united in their totality as to act not separately, but together. Power would not mean blessedness without love; knowledge would not suffice without wisdom. But God acts in the fullness of _all_ His perfections. And in His _wisdom_, all the resources of omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness receive what seems a crowning guaranty of the excellence of His creative work and providen- tial care. "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all" (Ps. civ. 24). "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowl- edge of God!" (Rom. xi. 33). MORAL ATTRIBUTES. These express, comprehensively, the ethical character of God. They are His moral perfections, in the chief forms in which they have been revealed to us. Like the ------------------End of Page 262------------------------ natural attributes they belong to the very being of God as the absolute Personality. They describe Him both as to intrinsic character and the form of His activities. It is difficult to define them in clear and sharp lines of dis- tinction, on account of their blending and coming into complete harmony in the divine life. In contemplating any one or all, each is seen as implying the presence and action of the rest. Theology can mark out only the prominent and essential forms of these ethical quali- ties. I. HOLINESS, in which the whole character of God coheres, is that attribute by which everything evil, sinful, or impure is eternally excluded from the divine nature and action. It means a positive, self-affirming purity that both is and maintains an immaculate ethical per- fection. God is pure in all that He _is_ and in all that He _does_ or _can_ do. (Lev. xi. 44; Isa. vi. 3; I Pet. i. 15-16.) It may be viewed under three aspects: (_a_) As expressing His _interior_ or _immanent_ character, "I am holy." (_b_) As _transitive_, or moving over into an established order in the moral constitution of the world--this constitution being made after His own nature and organized in re- lations and laws that are holy and good. (_c_) As _precep- tive_, for the free action of moral agents, "Be ye holy." Holiness must be regarded as at once the _fundamental_ and the _supreme_ attribute. More than any other it is that in which the entire moral excellence of God rests, which unites all, and crowns all. It is basal for perfect good- ness, it guides and guards justice or righteousness, it con- ditions love, and reigns in truth. It separates itself from no attribute; it blends its light with all. As theology has rid itself of the false notion of the divine simplicity, in which all the distinctions between substance and attri- ----------------End of Page 263------------------------------- butes were obliterated, it is free to recognize their _mutual relations_ more in accordance with Biblical representation and the redemptory implications. And in these relations the attributes do not appear as merely co-ordinate. Be- yond doubt the Old Testament gives fundamental sig- nificance to holiness, and the New represents soterio- logical grace as possible only in a way consistent with its unsullied maintenance. The idea of a mutual rela- tion and harmony of the attributes is revealed from the very heart of the Gospel. And the positive conception of the unity of God does not appear so long as we think of a mere co-ordination of predicates, without a disposing and governing principle which most deeply and in the highest sense expresses the absolute character of Deity.[1] While none of the attributres are contingent in God, yet in their inter-relations the moral attributes appear to have their ethical unity in the eternal holiness. Even that of love, which is the working of grace is so sublimely glorified in the sight of men and angels, achieves its wonders of salvation only in consistence with the infinite purity. It is a mistake to take the New Testament declaration, "_God is love_," as speaking _comparatively_. But the em- phasis thus put upon love is the fitting and necessary one in the Gospel message. For this message is the voice of invitation to sinners. In the very nature of the case it fastens human view upon the divine goodness and grace as the great appeal to the heart for faith, gratitude, and obedience. But the love that, through the great redemption, seeks to save, is still immutably "_holy_ love," working _for_ holiness through a movement of grace that pays its own homage to the inviolability of holiness. "The Christian mind knows nothing of a --------------------------------------------------------- [1] See Dorner's "System of Christian Doctrine," I., pp. 201-202. ------------End of Page 264------------------------------ love without holiness."[1] With the truth thus reached, accords the moral constitution of man, in which con- science asserts the supremacy of the ethically right and pure over all other elements of character. And the characteristic result with the theologies which abate from this supremacy has ever been a virtual denial of the attribute itself as an essential ethical principle in the divine will, and a consequent discarding of the Scripture teaching concerning the atonement. The relation of this attribute to the divine Will has already been, in part, noted.[2] We are yet, if possible, to discriminate its relation to the divine _freedom_ of will, and to the ultimate standard of righteousness. Without doubt we must think of God as the Absolute Personality, and so, absolutely and perfectly free. The idea of fate is utterly inapplicable to His being. Fate, as such, is an annullment of all free aims or purposes, and means fixa- tion, irrespective of the claims of worth or excellence. Ethical goodness is inconceivable apart from self-deter- mined preference for right and holiness. The holiness of God is not in contradiction of His freedom. He is holy _in_ and _with_ His freedom. The perfect ideal of the ethically good dwells forever and immutably in the divine intelligence, and the divine freedom eternally de- termines itself with respect to it. But the question, often raised, whether, since holiness is thus involved in free choice, God might not have chosen other than He has, and so have become unholy, is not pertinent, because it forgets that He is Himself holy, as well as free, and thus immutably wills the good. Because He is holy, He, through the eternal preference of self-consistency of ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] Martensen, "Christian Dogmatics," p. 100. [2] P. 228. -------------End of Page 265------------------------------- His own nature, chooses the ethically pure and right. The notion of the old Scotist teaching that the _absolute_ will of God might, by _mere arbitrary volition, make_ right, or determine what shall _be_ right, as, for instance, command deceit or theft, instead of truth and jus- tice, can have no place in Christian theism. And in order to bring into view this relation in its fullness between His holiness and His free will, we must maintain, further, that He does not choose the morally good simply as it is in Himself, or because it _is in_ Himself, as a Self-choice, but that He loves and chooses goodness also _as_ such, or goodness as it _is in itself_. For it would not be an ethical choice that did not determine itself in view of the excellence of its object.[1] The possibility of ethical character in God involves the love and choice of goodness itself as an end. It is only the harmony of self-consistency of the essential holiness of His nature when He thus freely and immutably chooses essential goodness. God is not good _simply_ because He wills goodness, but He is good also in His own eternal nature, and wills in harmony with that nature, forever immutably maintaining holiness in the free choice of that which is holy both in itself and in Himself. The further relation of the divine Will to the _ultimate standard of right_ comes into view under the light of the truths thus clearly assured. For if holiness is a real and fundamental attribute of the divine _nature_, and God's omniscience holds immutably a perfect knowledge ------------------------------------------------------- [1] Ritschl's statement ("Justification and Reconciliation," T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, p.283), that the view which says: "God wills the good because it is the good, _a priori_, for Him" is a `false supposi- tion,' as well as the Scotist view, cannot be accepted. His reasoning is valid for the overthrow of the Scotist idea. But what he offers against the divine choice of the good "because it is the good, _a priori_," has its ----------------End of Page 266--------------------------------- of what is the ethically good or right, it follows that both His immutable nature and His knowledge preclude the notion that goodness may be a mere effect of change- able divine volition. There is a standard of right in both the absolute nature and absolute knowledge of the absolute Being. It is thus something fixed, to which God's freedom infallibly conforms itself--not something which may be altered by that freedom. The doctrine of an immutable morality thus establishes itself. The logical _prius_ of the divine willing is the divine existence. He must _be_, in order that He may will. Because He _is_ holy, and, in a perfect knowledge of what holiness or ethical goodness is, eternally loves it as of highest worth, the standard of right exists in His unchanging nature, and its authority is absolute. In the application of this truth to the question of the ground of right in the constitution of the world and the human consciousness, a few distinctions are properly amde. (_a_) The ground of right may be viewed under two aspects, according to differing relations, viz.: as _proximate_ and _ultimate_. In respect to the moral consti- tution of things and the organization of human life, with ethical imperative in the conscience, inasmuch as crea- tion was not a necessary, but free work of God, and the whole world-order a product of that freedom, His Will may be regarded as the immediate or _proximate_ ground of this moral constitution. Yet as His will but expressed ----------------------------------------------------------- only and inadequate force from an unjustifiable use of "before" in con- nection with the divine volition, as involving an "advance within itself to self-determination," inconsistent with immutability. And when Ritschl's definition is reached, that "not before," but "_in_ His self-determination," God determines Himself in His own will, the definition leaves fully open the conclusion that _in_ choosing He chooses the good _as such_, as well as because it is _in_ Himself. --------------End of Page 267------------------------------- His eternal nature, that nature, as holy before it creates, must be regarded the _ultimate_ ground. (_b_) In like view, in His perceptive administration, the moral law, given to men through revelation, comes in its immediate relation as a direct expression of His _will_, while ulti- mately grounded in the divine nature itself. (_c_) The ethically right or holy can never be thought of as changeable at mere divine volition, or as resting on Will alone. Since with God the right exists in His nature, as the _prius_ of His willing, embodied in the absolute ground of all things, all mutation by God of the standard of the good becomes impossible. To think otherwise would be a denial of the divine holiness itself, for it would not be a holy choice if God did not choose the good as good, and because it is good. In God the ethical order is eternally conceived and eternally realized.[1] (_d_) There is a sphere or relation, however, in which God can impose or withdraw duty, establish or repeal obligation at or by His will alone--in the sphere of things otherwise morally indifferent. In this sphere the simple command of God makes or changes human duty. It is thus we have positive statues, ordinances, require- ments for local or temporary use, as in the ritual rules and rites of the Old Testament, and Baptism and the Lord's Supper in the New. 2. JUSTICE, or RIGHTEOUSNESS is that attribute by which God, according to His innermost nature, estab- lishes right relations among His creatures and treats them in equity, dealing with them according to their deserts. Though this attribute is grounded in the immanent life of God, it is to be conceived as having specially a creatureward look and administrational ------------------------------------------------------ [1] W. S. Lilly, "On Right and Wrong," p. 115. -------------End of Page 268----------------------------- activity. In its immanent reality it appears scarcely dis- tinguishable from holiness, and so it is sometimes repre- sented as simply expressing the transitive side of holi- ness. But because of the _fundamental_ relation of holiness, we are not entitled to view them as identical. If we discriminate, as we may, between "justice" and "rightousness," the latter applies to the divine order- ing of right relations and requirements, giving holy laws with proper sanctions; the former to the rewarding of conduct with the recompense or punishment due to it. No more than holiness can this attribute be regarded as proceeding in an arbitrary way in either of these ranges of its manifestation. Punitive visitation cannot be in excess of real demerit, and the manifestation of grace or mercy can take place only as the principle of righteous- ness or justice can be satified and preserved. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii.25). "All His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deut. xxxii. 4). "Who will render to every man according to his deeds" (Rom. ii. 6). "To declare at this time His rightousness; that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (Rom. iii.26). The reason for punitive justice, or why God punishes sin, comes into view in the light of these truths of the divine holiness and righteousness. A correct under- standing of it is vital for a true conception of the divine government and the Christian doctrine of the atonement. It is improtant, too, for a just appreciation of the true relations of human government in the use of penalties. Four leading views have been pre- sented.[1] ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] H. B. Smith, "System of Theology," pp. 46-47. -------------------End of Page 269------------------------ _One_ makes the end of punishment to _reform the wrong- doer_. This means that it is simply an act of benevolence --denying its punitive character altogether. It is only reformatory _correction_. Doubtless punishment may have this effect. But this, as has been shown, cannot be the whole explanation of it. For (_a_) it drops out of view the intrinsic ill-desert of sin. If sin is not intrinsically wrong the disciplinary pain inflicted on it would itself be wrong. (_b_) It is contradicted by the moral convictions of the offender himself, who knows his punishment to be deserved, irrespective of the question of his reformation. (_c_) If reformation be the end, it fails largely to effect it. Few are reformed. Witness the result of the natural and civic punishments which come on prevalent vices or offenses with which our criminal courts are perpetually occupied. (_d_) Unless felt to be due for deeper reason, punishment can have no virtue for reformation. The theory is essentially shallow, assuming that nothing else is to be considered but the person who has forfeited his rights. A _second_ view holds that the end is to _deter_ others. But the deterrent effect is only incidental. For (_a_) unless the deed in itself deserves the punishment, our whole moral sense would revolt against punishing a man for the sake of others or the good of society. (_b_) It is only the actual justice of it that ever renders the effect salutary. Therefore, here also, unless there be some deeper reason for punitive action, the effect itself must be nullified. A _third_ theory makes the object to be the maintenance of the _supremacy of law and government_. This is closely allied to the second, but is special in that it looks to the _law in itself_, irrespective of the divine neces- -------------End of Page 270----------------------------------- sity of the law. Grotius[1] represents God's law as simply the product of His _Will_, that Will in its abolute sovereignty _making_ right or wrong, or determining what shall pass for such. The divine law is made to rest on a contingent action of the divine Will, and punitive action is for the sake of the given law. This is unten- able, because (_a_) It makes the distinction between right and wrong purely _arbitrary_, whereas, according not only to just moral conceptions, but the necessary Biblical view of the divine holiness as immanent in the divine nature and God's choice of the ethically good _as such_, this distinction is absolute and independent of all mere volition, human or divine. (_b_) It removes all absolute necessity for punishment, since, if the law depends only on the divine volition in _that_ sense, the penalty also depends only on it, and can be remitted merely at such will. (_c_) The thing in exercise in such case would not be essential justice, but simply governmental authority, or, rather, _power_, which would be tyranny if there were not a deeper reason back of it. The _fourth_ view--which is unquestionably the true one--is that the _eternal holy nature of God immutably de- termines_ Him against sin as _deserving of penal_ repression. It is only in this view that the half-truths of the preced- ing theories get their right place and significance. The explanation has two parts, and both must be kept in mind. The first part is _God's own eternal and essential justice_, and means (_a_) That the ethical law is not a product of the divine will, simply as will, but a trans- script of the immutable divine nature. All fundamental principles must have changeless ground in God's own being. (_b_) That the reason for punishing sin arises ---------------------------------------------------------- [1] "Defensio Fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione Christi." -------------End of Page 271-------------------------------- from the absolute holiness of His nature. As it is said, "He cannot lie," and "cannot deny Himself," so He cannot but hate sin and all unrighteousness. The second part is the _intrinsic ill-desert of sin_. Evidence of this is found, (_a_) In the primary affirmations of universal con- science. They assert sin's demerit and desert of punish- ment. This is so as to our own sins when we awake to the fact of them: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be jus- tified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judg- est" (Ps. li. 4). Often the sense of ill-desert takes the in- tensity of remorse. As to the sins of others, the moral sense gives the same judgment--justifying the punis- ment of wrong-doers, and awakening to indignation when the guilty go free. (_b_) Revelation sustains this: "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you" (2 Thes. i.6). "Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death" (Rom. i. 32). In the light of this Biblical view, all aspects of allied or cognate truths find their special place and value. When it is seen that the divine holiness is necessarily self-determining against sin as something that deserves repressive penalty, there is clear adaptation to incidental _reformatory_ effect, _deterrent_ service, and the consequent good order of society through the well-maintained _sanctity of the law_. The law carrying God's own holiness is just and good. It is proper to observe, too, how holiness and love may unite in the use of penalties. Holiness punishes as the necessary vindication of righteousness; goodness requires it for the sake of the welfare and happiness which are possible only through the moral order which holiness maintains. ------------------End of Page 272------------------------- It is necessary, however, at this point, to safeguard against misapprehension by adding a further discrimi- nation. This absoluteness of the divine holinesss as the reason for the use of punishment against sin, might be supposed,--but only illogically--to exclude the possi- bility of divine _mercy_, or to be inconsistent with the whole redemptory action of grace. But punitive admin- istration has not the same absoluteness that belongs to the divine holiness itself. Punishment is for _the sake_ of holiness--for its vindication and maintenance. Pen- alty is not a good in itself, its own end, but a means. The final end of the world-system, as involved in both the divine holiness and love, is the ethically good, the suprem- acy and blessedness of righteousness. Punishment is by no means the end of the system. It may, therefore, be remitted in any case, if, in God's wisdom and resources, the end can be gained in some other way, and, per- haps, in more glorious and triumphant measure. If He can provide an _atonement_ in which at once He can furnish a clear expression of the principle of righteous- ness and offer to the world conditional forgiveness of sins, and through love win back to holiness millions on millions of the sinful, the means of mercy may be vastly more efficient than that of penalty for the very ends of holiness. The principle of punitive justice is not the supreme or abolute one, but the principle of holiness. To make the former principle first and absolutely gov- erning would leave no room for _forgiveness_ and reconcili- ation, and form an obstacle to Christian faith.[1] 3. LOVE, or GOODNESS, is that attribute in virtue of which God evermore delights in communicating that ------------------------------------------------------ [1] See Ritschl's, "The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Sanc- tification," p. 262. ----------------End of Page 273------------------------ which is good and blessed, in harmony with holiness and justice. It expresses His nature as eternally desir- ing to create and bestow happiness, acting in kindness. It is not the same as holiness, though it can seek its aims only in harmony with holiness. It denotes, distinct- ively, the divine _altruism_--the divine self-direction and action for the good of created being. We are, there- fore, to see in it the reason of the supreme teleological purpose and plan in the world. Acting in His own im- manent love, He acts for ends of love. Since He is holy, and, therefore, chooses holiness _as_ holiness, _i.e._, the ethically good as the supreme good, _this_ good, as the highest of all, must necessarily be included in _all_ the aims of God's _love_ for His moral creatures. And, thus, that which His love seeks for them through both creation and providence is _holy happiness_. Evidently, it was to bring into full view and unquestionable clearness this glorious attribute--the attribute that ever expresses the heart of God's teleological order and purpose for man-- that He so adjusted His Biblical self-revelation as to make its culminating assurance to the world, "God is love," sustained by the unspeakable fact of _redemption_ for recovery of his self-ruined children to their true life and blessedness. Declarations of His goodness appear, indeed, in increasing measure in that revelation, from the first (Ex. xxxiv. 6; I Chron. xvi. 34; Ps. cxlv. 9). The teleology of nature, too, abounds in evidences of benevolent aim. But the full manifestation of this attribute could come only in the gift and work of the divine Saviour, in which the glory of the divine love, in its "breadth and length and depth and height," "pass- ing knowledge," may savingly impress and inspire the human soul. ------------------End of Page 274---------------------- We properly mark _distinctions_ under which this attri- bute may be conceived, according to the different rela- tions to creature existence and conduct. When viewed in the broadest and most universal relation to created being, it takes the generic form of _benevolence_, a desire for the welfare and happiness of all, and the misery of none. Considered with respect to all that is morally right and good in the spirit, aims, and conduct of men, it as- sumes the form of moral _complacency_, approving love, delight in holy character or in all sincere desire or effort toward it by obedient subjects of divine grace. When it is contemplated in relation to the wretchedness of creatures in error and sin, its manifestation becomes _comapassion, pity,_ or _mercy_--love toward the undeserving --widely different in type from moral complacency, yet akin to it in that it is still love, desiring creat- ure well-being. It is _patience_ or _long-suffering_ when it forbears from just retribution, for the sake of res- cuing from sin and recovering to righteousness. Be- cause God is holy He hates sin, but because He is love He seeks to win the sinner from it. His good- ness, in saving man, is victory for both holiness and love. It is needful here to guard against the ideas of the old scholastic teaching of the absolute _impassibility_ of God, which, while attempting by misguided representa- tion to explain the divine love, explained it away. In its extreme effort to free the conception of God from all ideas of dependence or change, it carefully eliminated from His love all emotion or mutation of feeling from what creatures do or suffer. It cautioned against suppos- ing that He really _feels_ either pity or affection, or suffers any influence from creature conditions. Love is reduced -------------End of Page 275---------------------------- to pure action of _will_, without emotion.[1] Though emotion is the very heart of our human idea of love, this element, it was said, must not be included in the divine love. Neither complacency nor compassion was to be imagined, since any experience of such feelings would be inconsistent with God's absolute independence. The existence of a _feeling_, of either sympathy or delight, in God was supposed to be contrary to His necessary immutability, making Him subject to the changing con- ditions of human life. But if His necessary inde- pendence excludes the possibility or reality of these _feelings_, from sight of human life, must we not then also hold that the entrance of the ever-changing ac- tivity of human freedom into the divine _knowledge_ also destroys God's independence? This notion of the divine impassibility is not only inconsistent with the Scripture portraiture of God and of the way He holds Himself toward men, but, if carried to its logical issues, would forbid all belief in divine concern for human hap- piness, and the possibility of a divine administration of the world measuring itself to the mutations of moral char- acter and conduct, or adjusting a redemptive provision to a self-corrupted race. If the divine independence means that His love is to be reduced to an unfeeling, immobile _will_, holding itself utterly apart from all influence from without, or coming from the needs of the creatures made in the divine image, the voice of prayer or praise may as well be hushed. The idea of love is, in fact, obliterated if reduced to mere knowledge and will, acting in a self-determining sovereignty that is irre- sponsive to and unmoved by the creature needs which creational power has brought under absolute administra- -------------------------------------------------------- [1] So even Gerhard, "Loci," II., cap. viii., sec. 9. --------------End of Page 276------------------------ tion. If love in God is only a name for the attributes of "knowledge" and "will," it disappears as a distinct attribute. But as an immanent attribute, it must of necessity involve feeling; and if God is without feel- ing, impassible to the mutations of His creature's needs and appeals, He is without love. "We must adhere to the truth in its Scriptural form or we lose it alto- gether."[1] While we ought to guard our conception of God from a spurious anthropomorphism, His self-revela- tion in the Scriptures is, without doubt, meant to guide us in the conception in which He wishes us to view Him. And the correct method for the actual truth is, not to empty the concept "love" of its distinctive reality, but to purify and elevate it (_via eminentiae_) to perfection. Like the attributes of knowledge and wisdom, love is not less, but _more_ real in God than in man. It must be regarded as peculiarly unfortunate that theology has so largely, by a mere dictum, resolved the inspiring reality of sympathy and pitying goodness in God, of which the Scriptures seem specially concerned to assure us, into a cold sovereignty that is without feeling and an absolute independence that never suffers itself to be moved by delight in creature happiness nor compassion toward creature wretchedness--a God whose knowlege and will and power are real, but whose love is only a name, an anthropomorphic attribution of our human imagina- tion. Is it this impassibility that the Scriptures teach when they say, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him" (Ps. ciii. 13)? Or, "The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy"? Or when God exclaims, "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How ---------------------------------------------------- [1] Hodge, "Systematic Theology," Vol. I., p. 429. ------------------End of Page 277---------------------- shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together"? Is not affectional emotion implied when Christ says, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son"? Or when the Holy Spirit led an apostle to declare, "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was mani- fested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him"? If God's proper `independence' excludes, as is alleged, both `complacency' and `sym- pathy,' or suffering any impresssion from without, from human conditions, must it not at the same time exclude divine _action_ in view of the same? But this would shut off the possiblity of the whole redemptive divine self-correlation to the need of lapsed humanity and the entire providential and judicial administration, so far as it might be thought to take any account of the moral con- duct of men. It would be difficult to frame a dogma more out of harmony with the Scripture portraiture of God and His loving and active interest in the good of His human children, than the oft-repeated, but now dis- counted, dictum about His abolute impassibility. Note must here be taken of the difficulties often alleged in connection with the divine goodness. They arise from the phenomena of nature and human life, and appear in two relations: _First_, in connection with _natural evil_, such as phys- ical pain, suffering, and death among men and animals. Modern scientific and philosophical activity has shown a strong tendency to bring these into view. It has given occasion to pessimistic theories of nature. The exacting reign of physical law, the struggle for life, -----------------------End of Page 278------------------- nature "red in tooth and talon," the pains of existence, the "groans of creation," have been used to suggest doubt either of the goodness or of the omnipotence of the Author of the world-system. The facts of pain, suffering, and death must, of course, be admitted. But that these facts are not necessarily inconsistent with the goodness of God becomes apparent from various consid- erations. (_a_) The possibility of pain or suffering seems to be inevitably involved in life-organizations made capable of sentient pleasure. The elevation of creature existence to ghe grade of sensativity, capacitating for enjoyment, must, so far as we can see, capacitate also for pain. It opens it to impressions of various kinds and degrees from the environment--a gift adjusted to use and plea- sure, but necessarily thus opening also to abnormal con- tacts and hurt. The possibility of pain in the other half of an orgainzation for sense-enjoyment. (_b_) This pain is a necessary and benevolent monitor against what would otherwise injure or destroy the organism. Without this signal, with its warning and guidance, the organization would soon be wrecked. It is the kindly stationing of videttes upon the outposts of the physical system. So far, at least, as the _pur- pose_ with respect to the organism itself is concerned, everything looks to utility and enjoyment. (_c_) These same pains, thus becoming possible as only incidental to organization positively adapted to pleasure, and in their incidental occurrence set to a benevolent office of safeguarding its life, are, further, stimulants to the exertion by which life is elevated. Life remains low and poor where such exercising forces are wanting. The measure of sensitiveness becomes the measure ----------------End of Page 279-------------------------- of development and exaltation. In man the discipline becomes a force for training in thoughfulness, self-con- trol, and moral character. The teleology and fruits of such incidental pain must be fully considered before it can be declared to be in contradiction of divine love. The loftiest heights of noble and blessed manhood have been reached upon the stairways of suffering, where the life of duty and love has become peculiarly invigorating and enriching. (_d_) Even death itself, which, with its attendant suffer- ing, carries away every animal life, may not be in direct and necessary contradiction to the divine good- ness. The problem here, indeed, is particularly perplex- ing--especially as the system of nature includes an order of feeding one upon another. But various consid- erations relieve the view. By absolute necessity every created system must be finite, and every creature good a finite good. It must be limited. The order of death in the system is simply an order of _temporary life_--an application of the principle of finite existence, giving a natural good, but not in unlimited continuance. That life is made short instead of everlasting, is itself no dis- proof of goodness. Unquestionably the amount of physical enjoyment far surpasses the pain, if any, in its ending. We probably greatly exaggerate the idea of pain in connection with animal death, by importing into it the extreme sensitiveness which belongs to the human organization, as well as, perhaps, also the _fear_ which makes the fact of human death such a shadow on life. But the lower organizations are mostly far less sensitive, and the animal has _no_ preconception of death. We are not warranted in interpreting the seeming fear and instinctive flight in presence of danger in terms of ---------------End of Page 280------------------------ human intelligence and conscious dread. Within its appointed limit animal life seems filled with positive enjoyment; and death may be an almost painless ending, according to an order which provides for the long suc- cession of individual animals, through new generations, multiplying enormously the numbers that share the pleasures of existence, keeping the world astir and vocal with the joy of fresh life. Even the arrangement by which animals become food for one another falls into this order, under which such multiplication of individu- als is incalculably extended. In its perpetual provision of food it is also a provision for life and enjoyment-- death itself becoming an order of transfer of nature's energies into the pleasures of ever-new life. Ordinarily, death is, probably, a painless cessation of living func- tions. And even when, under the system of prey, it is violent, it is an experience of but a moment, and as nothing compared with the whole sensitive enjoyment which it terminates. Most of the colors in recent pessi- mistic portrayal of the cruelties, tortures, and horrors of nature's system are, to say the least, the painting of an exaggerating imagination and intense verbiage, in disre- gard of the indubitable fact that the experiences in ques- tion are but incidental to a system whose characterizing features look to utility, well-being, and enjoyment. Nowhere is there found in nature provision to create or give pain simply for the sake of pain or misery. But, _secondly_, in connection with _moral evil_ the ques- tion of the divine goodness still offers its mystery.[1] The discussion of the centuries leaves a residuum of it for speculative thought. Sin is such an abnormality that reason is tempted to press the problem to its primal ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] H. B. Smith, "System of Theology," pp. 41-42. ------------End of Page 281--------------------------------- roots unmindful, probably of the necessary limitations of the human understanding. But in the growing light of Christianity the difficulties are approaching the vanish- ing point. the question must be viewed in two rela- tions: First, as to the _suffering_, whether physical or mental, which exists as the _fruit_ of sin. Plainly this is not inconsistent with the divine goodness. For such suffering is a direct reflection of the real desert of sin. The highest wefare requires that order and righteous- ness should be sustained by such penal and corrective consequences upon wrong-doing. Love itself, no less than holiness, manifestly calls for this. Moreover, in a state of probation this may become a means of reforma- tion and a way of highest happiness. And, to such as consent, under grace, to true relation to God, it is a means of constant training into the holiest strength, vitality, and riches of character. It is not inconsistent that true love should guide moral agents through the consequences of conduct. But, secondly, the root diffi- culty attaches to _the existence of sin itself_. How could sin come into a world created by a God of perfect wisdom, power, and love? We must pause here to note the main theories that fail to afford the desired solu- tion. (_a_) Without counting Manichaeism, whose roots were the pagan Parseeism of two eternal principles, one of good and another of evil, a realm of light and a realm of darkness or chaos, from whose comminglings evil arose, the theory that sin is not intrinsically and posi- tively an evil, but _only finiteness, limitation_, has had large sway. The definition of sin as something negative, the non-existent, _to ouk on_, as darkness in the absence of light, or sickness the want of health, has had long and -----------------End of Page 282----------------------- large sway.[1] All that exists is declared to be good. Evil has no being. It is only a _deficiency_ in existence. It is an unreality, an appearance, In modern times this negative conception has assumed various forms, under different explantions offered in the name of philosophy and science. It runs through all the theories of cosmic evolutionism, whether of materialistic, pantheistic, or the- istic type. It belongs to Leibnitz (Theodicy). Material- ism, voiding the universe of spirit, either divine or human, by nullifying freedom, leaves no place for either moral good or evil. Hegel's philosophy of the cosmic evo- lution, as the Absolute, self-existent Spirit, self-unfolding, and advancing by opposites in an everlasting becoming, carries both antagonism and incompleteness all through nature and life. In man, the infinite appears in finite- ness. But the finite consciousness, because of its emer- gence from the infinite, holds a sense of this imcomplete- ness, which it interprets in terms of evil and fault. Even the current theistic evolutionism of Darwinian science and the Synthetic Philosophy identifies it with the im- perfections of development, the yet unrevealed in the excellence of humanity. The advancing evolution, as the gospel of hope, is to bring what yet is not. But this negative conception of sin, as being non-existent, in whatever form it appears, is manifestly inadequate, and simply denies the problem instead of explaining it. For, in invincible fact, sin is something _positive_--not a mere limitation of being or attainment. It is a most real and woeful refusal to accept the good and right as ------------------------------------------------------- [1] Origin, "De Prin.," I., 4; "Com. on Joan. Tom.," II., 7. So also Athanasius, "De Incarn.," sec. 4; Basil "Hom. Quod Deus," sec 5, 7; Gregory of Nyssa, "Orat. Catech.," v.-vii.; Augustine, "Enchirid.," xi., and prevalent down through the scholastic age. -------------------End of Page 283---------------------------- provided, an active violation of the moral constitution really given, a willful trampling down of conscious duty, persistent, positive wrong-doing, wickedness, defiance of justice, truth, and good order, an assertive, virulent, and destructive badness. The mystery of sin in the world can neither be set aside nor explained by the euphemism of naming it "that which does not exist," and marking it a synonym of human finitude.[1] (_b_) The theory that is implicit, if not definitely formu- lated, in the supralapsarian predestination theology. The type of doctrine which represents the primal eternal decree of God to be the twofold glorification of His love and His justice (or severity), covering the creation of man in innocence and his ordained fall into sin, with an election of some to salvation and a preterition or repro- bation of the rest, necessarily fixes the origin of sin in the all-embracing, divine fore-ordination and causation. It comes as something required in the divine decree-- constituitive for the world-system.[2] It is unescapable, be- cause predestinated by God. But in this view human freedom, even in primal man, is reduced to a mere sem- blance, being allowed no choice against the omnipotent decree. This would make God Himself the Author of sin. But, since man's sin, then, was an act of conform- ity to the divine plan, it could not be sin in him unless ------------------------------------------------------------- [1] This appears as the outcome of Prof. Josiah Royce's monistic ex- planation of "The World and the Individual," Gifford Lectures before the University of Aberdeen, second series, 1900. See especially Lec- ture VIII. [2] So Zwingli, Calvin ("Articles on Predestination," discovered by the Brunswick editors, about which see "Presbyterian and Reformed Review," January, 1901, p. 64), Beza, Gomar, Maccovius, Voetius, Twisse, Hopkins, Emmons, though this explanation is not adopted in any of the Calvinistic confessions. -----------------End of Page 284---------------------------------- it was sin also in the Author of the plan. This connects moral evil with the Divine Will as the determining principle or source, and represents God as invoking sin --bringing it purposely into the world-system as the de- sired condition for the manifestation of His glorious justice. But how could that be really justice which should punish obedience to the divine plan, an obe- dience to which there was no human alternative? But, besides thus making God the Author of sin, as decreeing and necessitating it, the theory further con- futes itself in the conceded fact that, by very concep- tion, sin is _antagonism_ to the will of God--not a fulfill- ment of it or submission to it. And still more, since a divine decree is an act of will, the explanation intro- duces into God a strive of wills--on the one hand to decree sin and on the other to condemn its existence. The only possible avoidance of these contradictions is suggested in the indefensible claim that the distinc- tion of good and evil is not applicable to the divine choices, but is only for created beings as a mere effect of God's abolute will. But this claim would obliterate the ethichal from the life or character of God. For the divine choices would not be ethical choices, if God did not choose the good and holy _as_ good and holy. This supralapsarian scheme, which implicitly attaches sin to an infallible divine predestination of it, suggesting, at the same time, that God is so above moral law--instead of being its eternal reality--that He does not sin while working in man the very thing that to man is sin, is abhorrent to the whole Biblical conception of His right- eousness, and can never be accepted as the solution of the mystery of sin in the world. That conception for- bids us to subordinate His holiness and righteousness to -------------------End of Page 285----------------------- His omnipotence (will-power), and requires us to hold that He evermore uses His omnipotence for the glorious aims of His holiness and love. (_c_) Akin to this theory, if not a part of it, is that which suggests that sin was chosen by God as the necessary means of the greatest good. It alleges that the morally good can be conceived and developed only in relation to moral evil, and that the presence of this in the neces- sary condition for the highest ethical life. The good can best be reached and established through reaction against the evil. Against this it is enought to remind ourselves of the utter groundlessness of the assumption. Moral law lies in the realm of ideal duty, of rational de- mand and perceived obligations--not simply of experi- enced and generalized consequences. The realization of the ethical life, in rational free agency, implies and re- quires only the _possibility_ of sin, not its actual existence. Nothing but frivolous unreason could so reverse the real order of moral conception as to maintain that actual sin is the foundation of holiness or the necessary condition of its perfection. For, thus, God could not be holy-- unless by a reaction from existing sin. Moreover, as sin is the greatest evil, God's supposed choice of it as the means of the greatest good involves utter self-contra- diction, and violates the fundamental principle of moral life not to "do evil that good may come." (_d_) The various forms of theory which ground it in _sensuousness_, however they may be shaped, are all fatally based in the dualistic notions of the essentially evil nature of matter, and cannot be harmonized with Chris- tian theism or Biblical anthropology. Even that explan- ation which connects it with the necessary order of de- velopment of the human powers, viz.: first, the growth ------------------End of Page 286------------------------- of the physical; secondly, the unfolding of the intellec- ual; and, lastly, the appearance of the moral capacities and principles, an order putting from the start the moral life under mastery and bondage of the sensuous nature, involves the notion of a malign influence in material ex- istence, and is vitiated and unsatisfactory from this cause.[1] The explanation of the mystery of sin and its rec- onciliation with the divine goodness, must be found, if found at all, in connection with the principle of free agency as essential to a moral system. God in His supremem holiness and love created the creature-realm of beings in His own image and likeness. In this the crea- tion was lifted above the grade of impersonal things, into that of personality and moral character, the highest and most blessed life conceivable. This realm of life was established in holiness and for holiness and pure happi- ness, in fellowship with God Himself. But this freedom of personality, designed for obedience, by the very reality of its freedom involved a possibility of misuse, against God's will. Thus, however, only the _possibility_ of sin belongs to a moral system, not at all the _necessity_ of it. And to exclude all possibility of sin would have required the annullment of the real freedom; for freedom means a power of choice between alternatives. To control in- evitably the wills of free, responsible beings can no more be an object of God's power than the working of a con- tradiction--the contradiction of _necessity_ in free-agency. Though God is omnipotent, He could not prevent the possibility of sin in a moral system without violating and destroying the system itself. This goes far toward a solution--finding, according to the Scriptures, the origin -------------------------------------------------------------- [1] As in Schleiermacher, Rothe, etc. -----------------End of Page 287------------------------------- of sin in the abuse of the powers of creature wills, dis- obedience to God, a thing whose very nature is a con- tradiction to His will. The only residuum of mystery thus left is: Why did God, foreseeing the possibility or the reality of this abuse, nevertheless, create a moral world? And with respect to this we are clearly entitled to say: _First_, that the creation of a moral world, in itself considered, is con- sistent with goodness, not only as a forming of creature existence with full adaptation to happiness, but as con- stituting a higher and nobler realm of being, excellence, and happiness than all being and blessedness otherwise possible. God's creative goodness reached the climax of love in forming creatures in the image of His own personal excellence, endowed with the possiblities of life in fellowhship with Himself, and sharing the blessedness of such high position. It desired and provided for the supreme happiness of creature existence. _Secondly_, as- suming that God foresaw the abuse of the moral endow- ment, we may well think that His further "purpose" to add the grace of a redemptive administration for recovery from sin, is no indication that the creational work was lacking in benevolence or goodness. Especially so, since in the redemptory action the goodness rises to the higher grade of kindness to the _guilty_ and ill-deserving, and this, too, through an economy of patience and self-sacri- fice. Man's guilty sin is made the occasion for the dis- play of a divine goodness that becomes the crowning proof of God's love. We are justified in believing that God's foresight of creature sin simply did not annul His purpose to crown this earthly creation with its supreme realm of rational life and freedom, and its fellowship in the divine thought and blessedness, and in thinking also ---------------End of Page 288------------------------------ that, could we see the whole problem with the eye of omniscience, we should find the divine goodness fully vindicated. 4. TRUTH, or VERACITY. This is the divine attribute by which God's action and communication are always in perfect harmony and His own nature and with things as they are in genuine reality. It is, therefore, that principle in which all the attributes maintained their self- consistency and consummate their perfect import. Truth, correctly conceived, is alwyas that which truly _is_, either in reality or in conformity of word or life with reality. God's infinite knowledge is a knowledge of what really is, has been, or is possible. His justice and righteous- ness are true to the perfect standard of His own nature. He is faithful to His words of promise and of threatening. He cannot lie or deny Himself (Num. xxiii. 19; 2 Tim. ii. 13; Deut. xxxii. 4; Ps. c. 5; cxlvi. 6; Rev xv.3). No difficulty need be felt in the exegesis of a few Scripture passages which seeem to imply non-fulfillment of some divine threatenings, as Jonah iii. 4, 10; Jer. xviii. 7, 8. It is enough, in all such cases, to remember that the divine threatenings, like the divine promises, are always conditional, the issue being dependent on the question of heeding or disregarding the divine will on the part of man. ---------------End of Chapter on Page 289------------------- This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg by William Alan Larson and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary. E-mail: smithre@mail.ctsfw.edu Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA Phone: (260) 452-2123 Fax: (260) 452-2126