GOD AS PERFECT PERSONALITY

We have considered God as the Absolute in the sense of the ground of all reality, and as the Infinite in the sense of efficiency; it remains now for us to consider God as Perfect Personality, first, in the sense of a completion or perfecting of the two previous aspects; and second, as furnishing the reason or purpose of all things. The Christian conception of God must therefore include the idea of Absolute Reality as the ground of existence, His Infinite Efficiency as its cause, and His Perfect Personality as the reason or end of all things.

We have seen that false conceptions of the Absolute and the Infinite have led to grievous errors respecting the true nature of God, so also a false conception of personality has led many to maintain that there is an inconsistency in ascribing personality and personal attributes to the Absolute and the Infinite. One of the outstanding problems of modern philosophy and theology, therefore, is this question of personality. At no point perhaps have philosophy and theology had such a direct contact, nor has philosophy done more to shape the theological conceptions of God, than in these conflicts which have arisen over the being and nature of God.

Origin and Meaning of the Term. The idea of personality has been dominant in thought from the earliest times, but by a strange coincidence the word itself came into use only in modern times. The earliest Greek conceptions of the Deity were personal even if polytheistic, but the attributes of goodness and truth were not applied to them. Far earlier than this was the Hebrew conception of a personal God, with all the attributes which we ascribe to human personality. It was Boethius, however, in the earlier part of the sixth century who gave the current in the church until modern times. This definition is, Persona est naturce rationalis imdividua substantia, or a "person is the individual subsistence of a rational nature." A person, then, was characterized in a twofold way-an individual as being separate and distinct from others; and a common rational nature of which each individual was a partaker.

Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica defines a person as "that which is mast perfect in all nature, as subsisting in rational nature." He argues then, "that the term person may be applied to God, since His essence contains in itself all perfection, but not in the same way it is given to His creatures, but in a more excellent way, as other names that are given to creatures are ascribed via eminentice to God." It is evident that St. Thomas is thinking more of personality as being in God than as applied to God. The Trinitarian controversies had been carried on under the prevailing influence of Platonic Realism, and the tendency was to subordinate the individual to the universal. This was noticeable in the earlier Greek concepts of religion. The gods of the polytheistic pantheon were too personal, in the sense that their finiteness was subversive of their universality. The word "person," therefore, was thought of in the sense in which we commonly use it in its application to the Trinity, while the unity of God was expressed by the word "substance" or "essence." Thus we have the Greek word hypostasis and the Latin word substantia which as the equivalent of hypostasis should, to be more exact, have been translated subsistence, instead of substance, the former denoting a distinction within the ultimate substance, rather than the substance itself. Thus God was personal in the sense of the Trinitarian distinctions, but to the ultimate and unitary being of God the more abstract term of essence or substance was applied. This failure to apply the term "person" to the whole being of God gave rise to the modern controversies between philosophy and theology concerning the nature of personality; and further, to controversies within theology itself respecting the nature of the Trinity. Out of these has come a firmer and wider grasp of the meaning of personality. It is seen to apply now, not only to the hypostatic distinctions of the Trinity, but to the whole conception of God as both Unity and Trinity. It has proved to be the ultimate reality, through which alone the Absolute can be understood. The world-ground is therefore personal, and the infinite efficiency of the first cause is likewise personal. Reserving the trinal nature of God for a later discussion, we shall trace the development of this wider concept of personality, presenting first, the Psychological Argument from the nature of self-consciousness, and second, the Metaphysical Argument from the nature of personality itself. The first argument is stated in the most able manner by Dr. William G. Shedd in his Dogmatic Theology; the second is best represented by Lotze in his discussion of the nature of personality.

The Psychological Argument for Personality. Personality is marked by self-consciousness and self-decision. Dr. Olin A. Curtis in his Christian Faith defines it as "the power of self-grasp, self-estimate, and self-decision," or more concisely "the power of self-conscious decision." Consciousness implies the duality of subject and object-a subject to know and an object to be known. Without this, consciousness is impossible. Self-consciousness is a higher form of consciousness, in which the subject and object are identified. The duality remains but the human spirit, in the act of self-cognition furnishes both subject and object in one being or substance. It has the power of setting itself over against itself, and thereby duplicating its own unity as subject and object. Man, therefore, not only thinks, feels and wills, but he knows that he thinks, feels and wills. It is this power of self-consciousness and determination that constitutes him a personal being. Dr. Shedd states the position as follows: Self-consciousness is (1) the power which a rational spirit or mind has of making itself its own object; and (2) of knowing that it has done so. If the first step is taken, and not the second, there is consciousness but not self-consciousness; because the subject would not, in this case, know that the object is the self. And the second step cannot be taken, if the first has not been. These two acts of a rational spirit, or mind, involve three distinctions in it, or modes of it. The whole mind as a subject contemplates the very same whole mind as an object. Here are two distinctions or modes of mind. And the very same whole mind also perceives that the contemplating subject and the contemplating object are one and the same essence or being. Here are three modes of one mind, each distinct from the others, yet all three going to make up the one self-conscious spirit. Unless there were these two acts and the three resulting distinctions, there would be no self-knowledge. Mere singleness, a mere subject without an object, is incompatible with self-consciousness. And mere duality would yield only consciousness, not self-consciousness. Consciousness is dual; self-consciousness is trinal (Cf. SHEDD, Dogmatic Theology, I, p. 183ff). Self-consciousness, being the most perfect form of consciousness, is applicable to God as the Supreme Being or Perfect Personality. But we must make a distinction here. Man has both consciousness and self-consciousness. By consciousness he is related to the objective world through sentiency. There is in him the sensuous consciousness of the animal and the blind agencies of physical appetite. The animal is impressed by external objects which are no part of itself, but apparently is never impressed by itself. It experiences heat and cold, pleasure and pain, but cannot duplicate its own unity and thus become aware of the subject which experiences them. An animal is not a person and cannot have self-consciousness. Man has this sentient consciousness also, but it differs in this respect, that it is capable of being scrutinized and converted into self-consciousness. On this lower plane, man may think, but he does not think of what he thinks; or he may feel, and not direct his attention to the character and quality of those feelings. It is one of the effects of conviction by the Holy Spirit," says Dr. Shedd, "to convert consciousness into self-consciousness. Conviction of sin is the consciousness of self as the guilty author of sin. It is forcing the man to say, 'I know that I have thus felt, and thus thought, and thus acted.' The truth and the Spirit of God bring sinners to self-knowledge and self-consciousness, from out of a state of mere consciousness" (SHEDD, Christian Dogmatics, I, p. 180). Dr. Olin A. Curtis emphasizes this same fact but gives more attention to the volitional than to the intellectual and affectional aspects of personality. He regards self-decision as the most important feature of the entire personal process because it is the culmination. "Whenever we will anything, supremely conscious of self, that volition is self-decision." "Whenever a man sees himself out there," he says, "as an existing, isolated, peculiar individual, and then in the flash of that vision of self, wills anything, that volition is self-decision. The person first makes himself the clear, full objective of his own thought, and then makes that definite point of his person the original initiative of his choice. And so the significance of self-decision becomes tremendous because the decision is charged with the conception, with the entire valuation, which the man has of himself" (CURTIS, Christian Faith, pp. 23, 24).

Self-consciousness belongs to God. It is evident, however, that God, like man, cannot have consciousness apart from self-consciousness. First, sentiency cannot be attributed to God. God is Spirit (John 4: 24 ). According to the creedal statement He is "without body, parts, or passions." Here a sharp distinction is made between spirit and matter. Matter has bodily form, and must have parts and passions. A body is divisible and therefore capable of being destroyed. A body is capable of passions in the etymological sense of the term, that is, it can be wrought upon from without by material substances. Spirit being a unity can have no parts and is therefore indestructible. God as the Absolute Spirit is a unity and therefore can stand in no passive and organic relations to that which is not Himself. When the creed states that He is without "passions" it means that He is not operated upon or moved from the outside, but that all His activity is self-determined. The divine movement is all from within, that is, ab intra as over against ab extra. His personal decisions are always self-decisions of the highest possible type. His knowledge and affections are always the expression of His infinite and eternal worth. Second, there can be no growth or development of consciousness in God. Man comes to self-consciousness gradually through the increasing complexity of the relationships existing between the self and the objective world. As he develops physically from infancy to manhood, so he must develop in his mental and moral life. Like the Word incarnate, he increases in wisdom and stature, and like Him he should increase in favor with God and man. We cannot think of God as having blind and unreflecting mental processes. His reason is not discursive but intuitive. His is ever "self-conscious, self-contemplating, self-knowing and self-communing." He is indeed cognizant of the universe which He created, but this knowledge is not mediated through the senses as in man, and consequently is never partial or imperfect. Here we hear the breaking of the great deep on the infinite and eternal shores of God's omnipresence, His omniscience and His omnipotence.

The Metaphysical Nature of Personality. We have presented some of the psychological aspects of personality as found in the nature of self-consciousness; we must now consider more carefully its metaphysical characteristics. Pantheistic thought asserts that personality cannot be conceived without finite limitations. For this reason it has always objected to the application of the term personality to God. Personality according to the Hegelians and Neo-Hegelians consists in the contraposition of self to another object, a non-ego by which it is limited. This limitation of the self by the cosmical ego is the cause of consciousness reflecting upon itself, thus giving rise to self-consciousness or personality. Infinite personality, then, according to this type of thought would be a contradiction in terms. But does personality depend upon this limitation? Theists reply in the negative. They maintain that this limitation may be the occasion but not the cause of personality. The root of personality lies in its nature before there is any contraposition to other subjects, and consists in the peculiar constitution of the subject as a finite spirit. The contraposition, therefore, is not the essence of personality, but only an inherent consequence of its nature.

The philosophical argument of the Hegelians against the Personality of God has been ably met on philosophical grounds by Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), whose writings have profoundly influenced theology. His chief works bearing upon this are the Microcosmos and his class lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Lotze approaches the subject of personality from the opposite angle, affirming that perfect personality belongs to God only, and that the necessity finite personality has of thinking itself over against a not-self is due to the limitation of finiteness rather than personality. He begins his argument by an analysis of personality which he finds yields two features, first, that the subject possesses an image of cognition or representation of what it is, by which it distinguishes itself from others; and second, that this image is unique, in that it cannot be contrasted with any other image in the same sense, that the other image may be contrasted with a third. The uniqueness and distinctness of this image he holds to be fundamental to personality. While our knowledge of personality may come from experience in the sense of mental development, it is not merely the orderly arrangement of ideas according to some system, but the ego standing in direct opposition to every non-ego. Thus he finds that self-consciousness always implies the existence of a fundamental self-feeling which is its most essential element. Lotze also denies that personality is occasioned by the ego's activity being "reflected" back from a non-ego. This he asserts is a "mere supplement of thought devoid of all basis." Such a process he says, would not distinguish the "I" from "thou" or "he," our own personality from that of others. This distinction, he maintains, is not affected by means of pure ideation, but by the power of the self to combine its experiencing of feeling with its ideas. It is this combination that enables us to distinguish a personal state as our own. "The smallest capability for the experience of feeling," he says, "is sufficient to distinguish the one who experiences it from the external world, but the highest intellectuality apart from this capability, will not be able to apprehend itself as an ego over against a non-ego. This is to say, once again, that personality presupposes feeling or self-feeling and cannot be subsequent intellectual construction only."

Lotze, in denying limitation as the essence of personality, lays a firm foundation for belief in the personality of God. "What justification is there," he asks, "for attributing the term personality to its incomplete form in man, and grudging it to the Deity completely endowed with it?" Finiteness, then, according to Lotze, is the limitation rather than the expression of personality, and only in the infinite is there the truest and highest personality. "So little, therefore, is the idea of God's personality contradicted by His infinite greatness and perfection," says Christlieb, "that, on the contrary, it is precisely by reason of them that He must be personal." (CHRISTLIEB, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 170).

We must draw our argument for the personality of God to a close. We have seen that the infinity of God, instead of placing Him outside the reach of human knowledge as agnosticism declares; or denying to Him personality as pantheism maintains, is instead, the very presupposition of His personality. And further, the idea of the Absolute can be maintained only as it posits an absolute Subject, that is, the absolute Personality. Thus the Absolute instead of being a contradiction of personality, can be explained only in the light of personality. The self-consciousness of the Absolute Personality does not need to limit itself by a not-self outside. God created the universe and gave it the position it holds, so that if we consider it a limitation in any sense of the word, it must be a self-limitation. This necessarily involves a belief in freedom. If we deny to God the freedom to create a world of finite existence apart from Himself, this very limitation would be a denial of His absoluteness. Thus the Christian concept of God preserves it from pantheism. On the other hand, it is maintained that one person can be distinguished from another, only by the multiplicity of powers which characterize him. Thus agnosticism holds that the Absolute, being by abstraction outside the realm of attributes, cannot be known. The Christian concept of God is that these powers are not abstracted from personality, but function in it as a unity instead of a multiplicity. Knowledge, feeling and will may be distinguished in finite personality, and exercised in some degree of independence, but this is not true of the Absolute Personality. Personal powers may correspond to certain objective distinctions in God, but it is His whole being that knows and feels and wills, and this in such a manner that their exercise does not break the absolute unity of His being. But apart from the philosophical significance of the term personality as applied to God, there is a religious significance to the term. As a personal Being, self-conscious and free, God stands in ethical and spiritual relations to mankind. As personal, God is Absolute reality in relation to the ground of all existence; as Infinite Efficiency, He is the Cause of all existence; so also as Perfect Personality, He is the reason or purpose of all existence.

PERSONALITY AS THE FINAL CAUSE OF FINITE EXISTENCE

We have shown that Perfect Personality is the completion of the process, which includes the concept of the Absolute as the ground of all reality, and the Infinite as the cause of all finite existence. We must now show that there is a sufficient reason or final cause of the universe, and this we find in Perfect Personality also. So far we have dealt mainly with the philosophical aspects of absoluteness, infinity and personality. But the term personality has a richer content than that given to it by metaphysics alone. To self-consciousness must be added self-determination. Perfect Personality involves perfection of intellect, feeling and will. There is therefore within the cosmos itself, a teleology or purpose which is derived from its Author. Dr. Dorner has shown that Spirit expresses something positive, a peculiar Being transcending Nature and its categories, which is not merely in degree of higher worth than all finite good things, but which is also the absolute final end. In this higher something, or in God as Spirit, the principles will be found of all those ideas of which the world forms the mere finite manifestation or type, the principles of Measure, Design and Order, of Beauty and Harmony. God, as Spirit is the original seat of the "eternal truths"; they have in Him their absolute being    For how can absolute Being, which is to be necessarily thought of as the real and original possibility, both of existing things and of knowledge, be such a possibility if it is not essentially spiritual? (Cf. DORNER, System of Christian Doc­trine, p. 284). God as Perfect Personality satisfies, therefore, the religious nature of man, not only in its intellectual aspects, but in its moral and ethical demands as well.

Nature and the Personal Spirit. Perfect Personality lies only in the realm of spirit. Spirit, therefore, must give meaning to nature. The spiritual sphere is the only sufficient explanation of nature, without which its contradictions for rational thought must ever remain an unsolved riddle. "It is no tragic accident," says Dorner, "that without exception, every individual thing or every natural good passes away. It lies in the nature of the case." Nature must be permeated by the spiritual sphere, so that all its processes are taken up and made subservient to higher ends. This is the argument of St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. There is, he says, a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (I Cor. 15: 44 -49). Here it is clearly declared that the end of nature is the spiritual, and that it is inherent in Christianity as a philosophy of life, that the natural must be spiritualized, that nature must be made to serve spiritual ends. The transient nature of finite existence, or the consumption of nature, is not therefore irrational, since it serves a permanent purpose and comes to fuller expression in something higher than the finite, thus serving an infinite end.

Personality and Its Positive Spiritual Content. But the spiritual realm not only transcends nature and becomes its end in a general way; there is a positive content to the term Spirit. It signifies not merely a higher degree of worth than nature, but a unique, personal being, transcending nature and its categories, and is in itself the Sufficient Reason of nature, its absolute and final end. It was Athanasius (296-373), the great champion of the Trinitarian conception of God who declared that "he who contemplates Creation rightly is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through him begins to apprehend the Father" (ATHANASIUS, Discourse Against the Arians, I, p. 12). Here we approach the deep and unfathomable mystery of the adorable Trinity. But it is impossible to discuss the question of Perfect Personality without anticipating the distinctly Christian conception of God as Trinal Spirit or Triune Being. Why are the principles of truth, right, beauty and harmony in the world? Do they not force us immediately to the belief that there is a principle of order in the world? And can there be order without wisdom? And can wisdom be less~ than personal? Here we have reached the inspired declaration of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1: 1-3). Here it is specifically stated that the world was created by the Word, that is, according to a rational order, and after principles absolute in the personal Word which later became incarnate in Christ. It was just because the Logos was personal and creative, that Christ became the Redemptive Person. In Him was manifested the fullness of grace and truth. It is then in God as Spirit, that we must find the original seat of mercy and truth, strength and beauty (Psalm 96: 6). It is in the Logos as the Eternal Word that they have their absolute and un-originated being. These principles did not originate in will; they are true in themselves and are therefore eternal within His essence as Spirit. They are the categories which presuppose Divine Intelligence. Whether finite or absolute, there can be no true end apart from intelligence, nor can there be either beauty or harmony without it. Only as there is a synthesis of the mind within nature and the mind within man can there be any understanding of nature by man, or any communication of man with man. It is because of the eternal Logos which precedes and underlies the very structure of creation, constituting it a cosmos and not a chaos, that we have our world of order and beauty. And further still, it is because the Christian conception of the Logos given us by St. John is both personal and creative, that we are preserved from pantheism, which on the one hand would merge everything into God, or on the other, regard the world as an emergence or emanation from God. St. Paul in his address on Mars' Hill declared to the Athenians that God is not worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and passing directly from the creative aspect, he presents the ethical as the great goal of human personality, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17: 25-28). A firm grasp upon the fact of personality forever prevents thought from becoming pantheistic.

THE PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL INTUITION

What are these absolute principles, eternal in the Godhead and peculiarly the property of the Divine Logos, which form the archetypal ideas of the world, the rational principles of order in the universe? The ancient philosophers expressed these norms in the familiar classification of the true, the beautiful and the good. Dr. Samuel Harris in his Philosophical Basis of Theism (p. 180ff) thinks this classification inadequate. Starting with Kant's questions, "What can I know? What shall I do? What may I hope?" he divides the last into two; which he finds to be "What may I become?" and "What may I acquire and enjoy?" He thus finds four norms instead of three, which he regards as ultimate realities, known through rational intuition. These are (1) the true, which is the rational standard or norm of what a man may know; (2) the right, which is the norm of human activity; (3) the perfect, which is the norm of what a man may become; and (4) the good, which is the norm of what a man may acquire and enjoy. A brief discussion of these will give us some idea of the richness of Perfect Personality, which forms the spiritual goal of finite human beings and the supreme end of all things.

The First Ultimate Is the True. By the "true" we mean those universal truths or primitive principles of the mind which regulate all knowing. These truths of the reason have objective reality as principles or laws of things, in that they are the constituent elements in absolute reason. There can be no truth apart from the reality of the world-ground, just as there can be no laws of nature apart from the Author or Creator. "By truth," says Dr. Strong, "we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God's being and God's knowledge eternally conform to each other" (STRONG, Systematic Theology, I, p. 260). Thus as a Divine Perfection we must regard truth as an absolute correspondence of revelation with reality. Dr. Samuel Harris approves of Plato's position in regard to archetypal ideas, when touched, as he says by Christian theism. These archetypal ideas of the true, the right, the perfect and the good exist eternally and archetypal in God the Supreme Reason. These and all other forms and ideals compatible with them were in the mind of God as an ideal universe before they came to existence in the physical universe as we now perceive it. To these He gives expression in time and space, and under other limitations of finite beings. He also created men as finite rational beings which in their normal development come not only to know themselves, but to know themselves in the light of Another, and thus arises the moral and ethical system in which God gives expression to even higher archetypal thoughts.

Truth as it is applicable to God is usually classified as verity, veracity and faithfulness or fidelity. The two latter may be considered attributes in that they represent transitive truth manifested to His creatures. The former must be regarded as immanent truth, and not merely an active attribute. It is the exact correspondence of the Divine Nature with the ideal of absolute perfection. While this ideal can be only partially comprehended by finite beings, it is fully known to God in all its excellence, and to this supreme excellence His whole nature corresponds. It is in this aspect that the Scriptures call Him the true God, as indicated in the following references: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent (John 17: 3). Since truth is reality revealed, Jesus is the Truth because in Him are revealed the hidden qualities of God. This is given further statement in I John 5: 20 where the writer declares that We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. In both of these passages the word alhqinon is used which describes God as genuine or real as distinguished from alhqhs, a term used to express the veracity or truthfulness of God. When, therefore, our Lord speaks of himself as the Truth, He means not merely that He is the truthful One, but that He is the Truth and the source of truth. His truth is that of being and not merely that of expression (Cf. also II Chron. 15: 3, Jer. 10: 10 , I Thess. 1: 9, Rev. 3:7).

As to the veracity and faithfulness of God, the Scriptures abound in both references and illustrations. Since God's knowledge is perfect He cannot be mistaken; since He is holy there can be no disposition to deceive; and since His resources are infinite He is under no necessity of failure. His law being a transcript of His nature is unchangeable and exactly adapted to the character and condition of His people. It becomes, therefore, the ground of adoration and praise. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth. Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever (Psalm 119: 142, 160). The Scripture writers delight in meditating upon the faithfulness of God as the foundation for faith and hope and love. If God were not true in all His promises and faithful in all His engagements, religion would be impossible. Hence we have such references as the following: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Num. 23: 19). He is a Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he (Deut. 32:4). Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds (Psalm 108:4). The truth of the Lord endureth forever (Psalm 117:2).  Thy faithfulness is unto all generations (Psalm 119:90). In the New Testament we have such references as the following: God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (I Cor. 1: 9). If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself (II Tim. 2: 13 ). Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (Jas. 1: 17 ). Other references must be reserved for treatment in relation to the specific attributes of God.

The Second Ultimate Is the Right. Here the principles of rational intuition are known as laws, in that they are regulative of energy or power. These apply in every realm-the physical, the moral and the spiritual. The term right is used to express conformity of action to the principles of reason regarded as law. This is applicable to both intellect and will. By the term "ought" is meant the action of a free rational being in response to the demands of reason. Law in its bare intellectual form is merely observed sequences, and as it concerns physical power is conformity of action to the laws of the physical realm. In duty, however, a new reality arises which must be considered in relation to free will and thus becomes moral law. Like the other intuitions of reason this law is operative in a practical way before it is formulated in thought. As man reflects, he comes to see that whatever he knows as true in the reason becomes a law of action. Hence there develops a sense of oughtness, and duty takes on a new and intense meaning. He sees himself under an overmaster or Lord, and in conscience he knows himself along with, or in the light of, Another. Kant in his Metaphysics represents conscience as conducting a case before a court and gives his conclusion in these words: "Now that he who is accused by conscience should be figured to be just the same person as the judge, is an absurd representation of a tribunal; since in such an event the accuser would always lose his suit. Conscience must, therefore, represent itself always some one other than itself as Judge, unless it is to arrive at a contradiction with itself." He finds, also, that conformity or lack of conformity to the law as right results in two conflicting types of character. To the one he applies the term virtue and to the other vice. More remotely, however, he finds the one to be holy and the other sinful, and this in direct relation to the Overmaster, known and felt in conscience. God as Perfect Personality must, therefore, be both holy and righteous, and as such demands both holiness and righteousness in His subjects. "Holiness," says William Newton Clarke, "is the glorious fullness of God's moral excellence, held as a principle of His own action and the standard for His creatures" (CLARKE, Outline of Christian Theology, p. 89).

The Third Ultimate is the Perfect. By perfection is meant the correspondence of outward action with the inner rational standard. When the mind imagines a perfect object, that creation of the imagination is called an ideal. Ideals, therefore, are not obtained by imitation, or the copying of observed objects, but are creations of the mind itself. Beauty and harmony are not dependent upon material altogether, but may be pure spiritual images. Beauty is primarily and originally pure form. It does not arise from matter, but is a form impressed upon matter. Material things as we find them in nature become beautiful through the interlocking of these forms. Furthermore, this formative principle must be capable of being fixed in thought, not merely as outward law of beauty or harmony, but as a principle of the Essence itself. The law of the beautiful, of harmony and order, of perfection must therefore belong to the nature of God and be a part of the absolute Essence. As God is the Supreme Being, or the Being of beings, so His perfection is a supreme perfection, or a perfection of all perfections. It belongs therefore to God to impress the stamp of His own being upon all the divine works, and consequently His works are perfect. It was for this reason that Augustine loved to think of God as primary beauty and harmony. "God," he says, "is lovely as the beautiful, for we can only love the beautiful; but the truly beautiful is the super sensuous, is immutable truth." As applied to God, perfection is usually regarded in theology as the principle of harmony which unifies and consummates all the divine attributes, thus preventing the sacrifice of one attribute to another, and bringing each one to its supreme manifestation. Perfection in God is not the combination of many qualities, but only, "the undivided glory of the several rays of the divine character." It is the harmony of absolute freedom from inner contradictions. Beauty is therefore directly connected with holiness, and we are commanded to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 96: 9. Cf. I Chron. 16: 29, Psalm 29:2, II Chron. 20: 21, Psalm 110:3).

But the Divine Life as perfect, is not merely one of freedom from inner contradictions, it is also one of positive content. It is filled with inner divine potentialities, and all these potencies are in harmonious equilibrium. It becomes, therefore, essentially a Self-purpose. The Scriptures recognize this beauty and harmony which characterize the Divine Perfection, as it recognizes truth and righteousness as belonging to the Divine Nature. The psalmist declared that Out of Zion , the perfection of beauty, God hath shined (Psalm 50: 2); and again, Thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain (Psalm 104: 1-3). When Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount enjoined upon His disciples the principles of perfection, saying, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is. in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5: 48), He could have referred to nothing short of that freedom from inner contradictions which constitutes a holy being, and the possession of those positive potencies which in harmony with the divine nature stamped themselves in beauty upon all His works. The perfection He enjoins upon His disciples is not the absolute perfection of the Divine Being, but that in human personality 'which corresponds to the divine nature. It is the deliverance of the soul from the inner contradictions brought about by sin, or inherited depravity, and its restoration to purity of heart and simplicity of purpose. And, furthermore, this perfection implies in man as it does in God, a correspondence between the outer activities of life and the inner harmony of being. Perfection in this sense is intensely ethical, in that it includes both inner holiness and outward righteousness. It is the fulfillment of the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life (Luke 1: 73-75).

The Fourth Ultimate Is the Good. The good is the last and highest in the series of ultimate which constitute the norms of finite human existence. In its ultimate and absolute sense, our Lord applies the term to God only, there is none good but one, that is God (Matt. 19: 17 ). In this sense it is to be interpreted as the divine sentiment which wills the good of all creatures as such. Thus there is seen to be a distinction between the perfect in the sense of conformity to the norms of truth and right, and the good in the sense of the useful. A thing may be either a means to something else, or it may be an end in itself. In the former sense, its value is estimated only in relation to that other thing and not for its own sake. This determines it as useful. 'The fitting, the useful, the convenient, depend on something else," says Augustine, and "cannot be judged by themselves, but only according to that relation to something else." On the other hand, a thing may be willed for its own sake instead of another, and through its own inner harmony and beauty become an end in itself or a good. It should be observed that the good as the highest in the series of norms involves each of the others in an order of precedence and dependence. Truth in itself appears to be foundational and presupposes no truth, and right is such, only by conformity to truth as a law of action. The perfect presupposes both the ideas of truth and right; while the good not only involves the experiences of joy and sorrow, but presupposes the true, the right and the perfect as the norm or standard by which to discriminate the sources of joy and the pursuit of pleasures worthy of a rational being. The good is then the rational.

The good, therefore, is the rational end or object of acquisition, possession and enjoyment. It presupposes the true, the right and the perfect; it is that in which they culminate. Here we come to the province of ethics, and the necessary investigation of the realm of ends, which shall constitute a full and sufficient reason for life itself. It is this reality known by reason, which opens to knowledge the whole sphere of teleology or final causes. But while the good may be defined as that which has rational worth, the question arises immediately, "What is this good? What is it which has in itself some worth as estimated by reason; which is everywhere and always worthy of human acquisition and possession, and everywhere and always worthy to be the source of happiness to a rational being?" This Harris defines as "the perfection of his being; his consequent harmony with himself, with God the Supreme Reason, and with the constitution of the universe; and the happiness necessarily resulting" (HARRIS, Self-revelation of God, p. 271).

It will be seen, then, that perfect personality is not only the highest philosophical concept of the Divine Being, but it becomes also the supreme end of finite existence. The essential good is primarily the perfection of the being in personality. The good is itself the realization of the truths, laws and ideals of reason. In so far as man attains the perfection of his own being, he attains the end which reason declares to have true worth. This is an end worthy of pursuit and acquisition, not only for ourselves but for all moral beings. The steps in this process of development must begin in the acquisition of a right moral character. Character begins in choice, and from thenceforth the will is a character will. Each succeeding choice develops, confirms or modifies this character. The moral law requires of its subjects, love to God as supreme, and love to our neighbor equally with ourselves. Love is therefore the fulfilling of the law. It is the essential germ of all right character.

But the good not only includes harmony within the individual person, in the sense of a character unified and motivated by perfect love, it includes also the perfection of all the powers and susceptibilities of the person progressively unfolding according to the law of love. This tends toward the discipline, development and refinement of the individual, but implies also a correspondence of finite reason with the Supreme Reason, the finite will with the infinite will of God. Holiness, as we have pointed out, is "the glorious fullness of God's moral excellence, held as the principle of His own action and the standard for His creatures," and therefore the Supreme Good for all of God's creatures. Furthermore, we must regard harmony with God's universe as involved in this Supreme Good. The universe, both physical and spiritual, is the expression of the archetypal ideas of God, and was brought into existence through the Divine Word or Logos (John 1:3). The individual cannot work out his own good apart from the universe. He belongs to a universal system of which God is the Author, and in which His wisdom and His love are evermore coming to harmonious expression. His well-being consists in a proper and harmonious adjustment to the system of which he is a part, and which was designed by the Supreme Reason for his progressive good. Here is the deep and profound meaning of the words, All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Rom. 8: 28). Then again, the good must include happiness. This follows as a consequence of the perfection of the person and his harmony with God and the universe. Happiness can have no separate existence. It is always inseparable from that in which it has its source. Thus joy springs out of right character and action and is inseparable from it.   This is the meaning of Jesus who said to His sorrowing disciples, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you (John 16: 22 ). The personal, therefore, must ever be the true end or object of acquisition, possession or enjoyment. It is only in personality that the ideas of the true, the right and the perfect culminate. God as Perfect Personality is the only worthy object of human choice, and love to God the fulfilling of the law. With perfect love to God and man, the soul must forever unfold in the light of this Supreme Good, and at every stage of its progress will embrace enlarged conceptions of the true, and the right, the perfect and the good.

THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF GOD

In our discussion of the Divine Names and Predi­cates, we pointed out in a preliminary manner, some of the Scripture predicates of God as used by our Lord and His apostles. Among these were the terms Spirit, Life, Light and Love. Having now presented the philosophical aspects of God as the Absolute, the Infinite and the Personal; and having shown the necessity of a personal God to meet the ethical and religious demands of finite personality, we turn from philosophy to discuss the religious concept of God. Christianity holds that the true concept of God is that which Christ revealed, or more specifically, which God himself revealed through Christ. We shall therefore endeavor to fill up in some measure the outline already presented, by a further discussion of Christ's concept of God, enlarged and interpreted by those additional concepts given by Him to the apostles through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

God Is Spirit. In a revealing statement our Lord declares that God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24 ). Perhaps the passage should be more truly translated as "Spirit" and not "a Spirit." Doubtless the statement is intended to affirm the personality and religious value of God, and not primarily the mere philosophical essence as it is sometimes used. God is Spirit, an infinite Spirit; man is spirit, a finite spirit, but there is a common relationship so that "Spirit may with spirit meet"; and this possibility of spiritual communion is the basis of true worship. St. Paul emphasizes the aspect of spirit in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. Of the Spirit of God he affirms, the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Of the human spirit he says, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God (I Cor. 2: 11, 12).

It is sometimes objected that our Lord's declaration concerning the nature of God cannot be called a definition of God. Christlieb, however, affirms that we have here "the most profound definition of Scripture as to the nature of God, a definition to the sublimity of which the presentiments and longings of no heathen people ever rose, although the truth of them directly forces itself on the reason and the conscience. Man has spirit, God is Spirit. In Him the Spirit does not form merely a portion of His being; but the whole substance of His nature, His peculiar self is Spirit. Here we have the idea of God in His inner perfection, just as the names Elohim and Jehovah tell us mainly of His external position. As Spirit, God is the eternal, self-de­pendent brightness and truth, absolute knowledge, the intelligent principle of all forces whose glance penetrates into everything, and produces light and truth in all directions" (CHRISTLIEB, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 221).

God as Spirit Is Life. Of God the Scriptures predicate not only that He exists but that He lives. The Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself (John 5: 26 ). Of Himself Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14: 6). This life, which exists absolutely in the Father, is mediated to the Church through Jesus as the bread from heaven. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever (John 6: 57 , 58). St. John affirms also of the eternal Logos, that in him was life; and the life was the light of men (John 1: 4); while St. Paul in his discussion of the redemptive mission of Christ testifies that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8: 2). We are to understand by the term "life" as here used, not only the ens which denotes simple reality or being, but organized life, an organism including the fullness of truth, order, proportion, harmony and beauty. The Scriptures give us no warrant for thinking of God as mere Being in repose. Neither may He be regarded as merely thought or ideal. "As absolute Life," says Dorner, "He has a pleroma (plhrwma), a world of real forces in Himself. He bears within Him an inexhaustible spring, by virtue of which He is Life eternally streaming forth, but also eternally streaming back into Himself. Still He is not to be defined as transient Life; He is before everything essentially Absolute Life; He neither empties nor loses Himself in His vital activity. He is a sea of self-revolving life; an infinite fullness of force moves, so to speak, and undulates therein... The life of God is expressed in an especially picturesque manner, in that vision of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1: cf. Rev. 4) where the theme is Living Beings, who are not angels, but who belong to the throne of God or to His manifestation. They are united with the symbols of wheels which lift of themselves and move freely on all sides, because in them there is a spirit of life, of forcibly revolving life, which flashes to and fro. The wheels point to the circular movement of life: (Cf. James 3: 6, the course or 'wheel' of nature) they are sown with a thousand eyes, to express that space is everywhere equally present to them; whilst the wings signify the life which moves freely on all sides. But it is to be considered that in Ezekiel this life and motion of the powers of life do not exhaust the description of the theophany. All this, the cherubim with the living wheels, merely forms, so to speak, the chariot, the base for the living God, is the mere forecourt of the divine sphere-the innermost circle is reserved for God as living Spirit (Ezek. 1: 26). If we approach from the side of the world, this heavenly fullness of life may already appear to be the Godhead or God. But later on, when we are in possession of the Divine Personality, that fullness will be a predicate of God, a mere substratum, so to say, of His Personality. As absolute Life, He is absolutely exalted above passivity or diminution and transitoriness, as well as above increase. He has absolute Sufficiency in Himself, for He has Life in Himself" (John 5: 26 cf. 1: 3) (DORNER, System of Christian Doctrine, I, pp. 259, 260). As absolute Life, God is Perfect Personality. Life is in some sense the substratum in which the attributes in­ here. The necessary powers of personal spirit are not attributes, but the essence of the Being who possesses the attributes. Life may thus in some sense be indefinable, but it is known in consciousness as thought, feeling and will, and therefore the source of all reason, emotion and self-directed activity. In God thought is creative, His affections perfect and His activity infinitely free and powerful.

God as Spirit Is Light. Another fundamental property of Spirit, as set forth by St. John , is that of Light or Absolute Truth. The apostle uses the term in its most general sense, not "a light," but "light." "God is light," says Meyer, "so also all light outside of Him is the radiation of His nature." God as Absolute Personality is luminous with truth. In Him is no darkness at all. Hence the possibility of falsehood and error is excluded. Light is revealing, and the supreme revelation of God in Christ becomes the firm basis of the Christian religion, in both its objective and subjective subsistence. But the contrast between natural light and darkness is but the symbol of a deeper contrast between holiness and sin. Isaiah uses both terms in a related sense prophetically, And the light of <st1:country-region> Israel </st1:country-region> shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day (Isa. 10: 17 ). Light is therefore the outshining or effulgence of the Father's intrinsically holy nature, for the natural and the moral in God must be regarded as one. "Holiness is the hidden glory," as one writer expresses it, and "glory the manifested holiness of God." This is the conception of God as revealed in Christ according to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, affirms that Christ is the full objectification of God's inner glory; and upholding all things by the word of his power, relates Him as the Divine Son to the whole creative process; while the last clause identifies Him with God's redemptive purpose, when he had by himself purged our sin, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1: 3). St. Paul , also in a single verse of great depth and comprehensiveness, uses the term light as a miraculous consequence of the Divine Word, to express the spiritual transformation in the hearts of men. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (II Cor. 4: 6). Here the terms light, knowledge, and glory are identified or at least used in a closely related sense, and all shining in the face of Jesus Christ as God's supreme revelation of Himself to the world.

There are two doctrines of primary significance in the Christian system, which arise immediately from the conception of light as absolute holiness and truth. First, there is the negative conception of moral depravity as the absence of spiritual light. This results in ignorance of God and His relations to the world and to man. But this absence of light is such, because of personal freedom asserting itself in contradiction to God. It is a voluntary shutting out of the light with its illuminating and healing influences. But this contradiction of God is also a self-contradiction, that is, it is a violation of the immanent law of God in the nature and constitution of man. This perverted activity of personal freedom brings about a false attitude on the part of the human spirit, giving rise to a sphere of inner contradictions characterized by falsehood and ignorance. The self-contradictory state which follows in the intellectual and ethical life is that in which reigns the deceitfulness of sin as self-perverted personality. It is therefore a state of moral darkness. It is the consequence of a "deprivation" of light, and therefore a state of moral depravity. Original sin as a state is due to original sin as an act, and becomes in turn the state or condition of the natural man out of which springs the transgression of the law of God. St. Paul declares of the heathen, that even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind (Hom. 1: 28), a state which he in the same epistle calls the carnal mind which is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8: 7). Back of this, the apostle maintains, is the "God of this world," who is not merely the personification of darkness, but a personality, a spirit which embraces within it that moral and spiritual darkness occasioned by the absence of every ray of spiritual light. Satan therefore, as the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them (II Cor. 4: 4). There is, second, the positive content of light which issues from the holiness of God, as over against the negative concept of moral depravity, consequent upon the absence of spiritual light. The Scriptures affirm that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (I John 1: 5). We have seen that Spirit implies not only self-consciousness but self-determination, and the eternally free self-determinations of God must be in accord with His divine nature. His goodness and His holiness being absolute, his self-knowledge and self-determination must be commensurate with the infinitude of His Being. Consequently, down to the depths of His infinite Being, there is no darkness, nothing that is undiscovered, nothing that is unfulfilled, nothing that needs to be brought to completion or perfection. He is the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (Jas. 1: 17 ). God as light is the inexhaustible fountain of truth, Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen (I Tim. 6: 16 ).

God as Spirit Is Love. The third fundamental property of Spirit is love. Here again we are indebted to St. John for his clear and strong utterances on this phase of the nature of God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. And again, God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in him (I John 4: 8, 16). Personality, as we have seen, demands a subject and an object in order to knowledge, and in self-consciousness this subject and object are identified. So also in love there is an equal necessity for subject and object, and also a free and reciprocal relationship between them. In love, the subject and the object are identified with each other, and yet each asserts and maintains a distinct selfhood. Here again we must anticipate the trinal nature of Spirit and the Trinitarian distinctions in the Godhead. To the Father primarily belongs life; to the Son light, and to the Spirit love, which is the bond of perfectness (Col. 3: 14). Of the Father, the Son declared Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world (John 17: 24), and in a statement immediately preceding it, affirms the same love toward the disciples in the words, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me (John 17: 23). Here the communion is personal. Not only are the terms Father and Son personal, but the organ of this reciprocal love, the bond of perfectness, is likewise personal. "This unity, this absolute communion of love with love, of the personal subject with the personal object, in the glory of the Divine Life, is," says Gerhart, "the Holy Spirit" (GERHART, Institutes, I, p. 447). But love belongs to both the nature and the attributes of God. Here we must consider love as the essence of God only, leaving the discussion of the attribute of love which forms a link between the absolute Godhead, and His manifestation to His creatures, for a later chapter.

Scanned by John Mitchel Gianatalla. Edited by John Patterson. Corrected by George Lyons. © 2002 Wesley Center for Applied Theology and the Wesley Center Online, Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686.