The Theistic Conception of the World / An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought - B. F. Cocker

This, then, we shall postulate as the fundamental axiom of all rational integration, viz., AN UNCONDITIONED WILL, the principle of all Reality, all Efficiency, and all Perfection.

1. An unconditioned Will which realizes itself in IPSËITY—self-potency and self-affirmation; expresses itself in that august name of God "I AM;" and constitutes ABSOLUTE REALITY.

2. An unconditioned Will which manifests itself in ALTERITY—pluri-efficiency; utters itself in the "I WILL" of the creative fiat; and constitutes INFINITE EFFICIENCY.

3. An unconditioned Will which returns to itself in TOTALITY—a complete Ideal to be realized in Creation; which expresses its satisfaction in pronouncing all things "very good," and constitutes PERFECT PERSONALITY.

The changeless correlation and inherent harmony of these ideas of the reason (Reality, Efficiency, and Personality) may be rendered more obvious by the following formula, after the method of Coleridge's "polar logic."[20]

Prothesis expresses the absolute identity or eternal co-inherence of Reason, Love, and Power (the Divine Essence). Thesis expresses Power in the form of Love (the Divine Self-sufficiency and Self-potency). Antithesis expresses Reason in the form of Power (the Divine Efficiency). Synthesis expresses the diversity in unity of Reason, Love, and Power (the Divine Perfection). And Mesothesis expresses the essential correlations which integrate the whole (the Triunity of the manifested God). Thus Absolute Reality, Infinite Efficiency, and Perfect Personality are all, as a triplicity, contained in the fundamental unity of an unconditioned Will, which has Love as its motive, Power as its agent, and Reason as its light and law.

And now let us retire within our own consciousness, and see if this fundamental axiom of rational integration—Will as the principle of all Reality, Efficiency, and Perfection—is not reflected in our reason, and evolved in our inner experience. Do we not find that the central point of our consciousness—that which makes each man what he is in contradistinction from every other man—that which expresses the real essence of the soul apart from its formal processes and regulative laws—is the WILL? Without Will man would fall back from the elevation which he now assumes to the level of impersonal nature: in a word, he would be a thing, and not a power. Power, spontaneity, causality, will—these, or similar forms, express, as nearly as can be, the essential nature or principle of the human soul.[21] Furthermore, it is obvious that mere Power or Energy does not suffice for the notion of Will—there must also be Reason and Affection.[22] Indeed, "Will is contemplated universally as the inseparable union and perpetual differentiation of Intelligence and originative Power, and as such the sole ground of the intelligibility of all causation."[23]

A volitional act, a moral and responsible act, must be one which is performed under the influence of motives, and for which, when called to account, we can assign valid reasons. All true volition supposes a purpose or end to be realized, an inward appetency or motive which makes the end desirable, and the selection and adaptation of means to accomplish that end. Power divorced from reason is simply blind force, and can not be dignified with the name of Will. The mind of man is sometimes in a predominant state of knowing, sometimes in a predominant state of feeling, and sometimes in a predominant state of determination. To call these separate faculties, however, is altogether beside the mark. No act of intelligence can be performed without some determination of the Ego, no act of determination without some cognition, and no act of the one or the other without some amount of feeling being mingled in the process. Thus, while each mental state may have its distinctive characteristics, there is unity at the root—the identical Ego, spirit, WILL.[24]