Notice the distinction between absolute and relative, between immanent and transitive, attributes. Absolute = existing in no necessary relation to things outside of God. Relative = existing in such relation. Immanent = “remaining within, limited to, God's own nature in their activity and effect, inherent and indwelling, internal and subjective—opposed to emanent or transitive.” Transitive = having an object outside of God himself. We speak of transitive verbs, and we mean verbs that are followed by an object. God's transitive attributes are so called, because they respect and affect things and beings outside of God.
The aim of this classification into Absolute and Relative Attributes is to make plain the divine self-sufficiency. Creation is not a necessity, for there is a πλήρωμα in God (Col. 1:19), even before he makes the world or becomes incarnate. And πλήρωμα is not “the filling material,” nor “the vessel filled,” but “that which is complete in itself,”or, in other words, “plenitude,” “fulness,” “totality,” “abundance.” The whole universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of God's garment, or a breath exhaled from his mouth. He could create a universe a hundred times as great. Nature is but the symbol of God. The tides of life that ebb and flow on the far shores of the universe are only faint expressions of his life. The Immanent Attributes show us how completely matters of grace are Creation and Redemption, and how unspeakable is the condescension of him who took our humanity and humbled himself to the death of the Cross. Ps. 8:3, 4—“When I consider thy heavens ... what is man that thou art mindful of him?” 113:5, 6—“Who is like unto Jehovah our God, that hath his seat on high, that humbleth himself?” Phil. 2:6, 7—“Who, existing in the form of God, ... emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”
Ladd, Theory of Reality, 69—“I know that I am, because, as the basis of all discriminations as to what I am, and as the core of all such self-knowledge, I immediately know myself as will” So as to the non-ego, “that things actually are is a factor in my knowledge of them which springs from the root of an experience with myself as a will, at once active and inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another.” The ego and the non-ego as well are fundamentally and essentially will. “Matter must be, per se, Force. But this is ... to be a Will” (439). We know nothing of the atom apart from its force (442). Ladd quotes from G. E. Bailey: “The life-principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence, and this thrills through every atom of the whole Cosmos” (446). “Science has only made the Substrate of material things more and more completely self-like”(449). Spirit is the true and essential Being of what is called Nature (472). “The ultimate Being of the world is a self-conscious Mind and Will, which is the Ground of all objects made known in human experience” (550).
On classification of attributes, see Luthardt, Compendium, 71; Rothe, Dogmatik, 71; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:162; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:47, 52, 136. On the general subject, see Charnock, Attributes; Bruce, Eigenschaftslehre.
V. Absolute or Immanent Attributes.
First division.—Spirituality, and attributes therein involved.
In calling spirituality an attribute of God, we mean, not that we are justified in applying to the divine nature the adjective “spiritual,” but that the substantive “Spirit” describes that nature (John 4:24, marg.—“God is spirit”; Rom. 1:20—“the invisible things of him”; 1 Tim. 1:17—“incorruptible, invisible”; Col. 1:15—“the invisible God”). This implies, negatively, that (a) God is not matter. Spirit is not a refined form of matter but an immaterial substance, invisible, uncompounded, indestructible. (b) God is not dependent upon matter. It cannot be shown that the human mind, in any other state than the present, is dependent [pg 250] for consciousness upon its connection with a physical organism. Much less is it true that God is dependent upon the material universe as his sensorium. God is not only spirit, but he is pure spirit. He is not only not matter, but he has no necessary connection with matter (Luke 24:39—“A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having”).
John gives us the three characteristic attributes of God when he says that God is “spirit,” “light,” “love” (John 4:24; 1 John 1:5; 4:8),—not a spirit, a light, a love. Le Conte, in Royce's Conception of God, 45—“God is spirit, for spirit is essential Life and essential Energy, and essential Love, and essential Thought; in a word, essential Person.” Biedermann, Dogmatik, 631—“Das Wesen des Geistes als des reinen Gegensatzes zur Materie, ist das reine Sein, das in sich ist, aber nicht da ist.” Martineau, Study, 2:366—“The subjective Ego is always here, as opposed to all else, which is variously there.... Without local relations, therefore, the soul is inaccessible.” But, Martineau continues, “if matter be but centres of force, all the soul needs may be centres from which to act.” Romanes, Mind and Motion, 34—“Because within the limits of human experience mind is only known as associated with brain, it does not follow that mind cannot exist in any other mode.” La Place swept the heavens with his telescope, but could not find anywhere a God. “He might just as well,” says President Sawyer, “have swept his kitchen with a broom.” Since God is not a material being, he cannot be apprehended by any physical means.