Fundamental Idea of Reason. Thought-Conceptions
Founded on Relations.
(Essence) {ETERNITY }
{as ABSOLUTE REALITY.... {IMMUTABILITY } Immanent
{UNITY } Attributes.
{IDEALITY }
UNCONDITIONED {OMNIPOTENCE } Transitive
WILL {as INFINITE EFFICIENCY.. {UBIQUITY } or Causal
{OMNISCIENCE } Attributes.
{WISDOM } Moral Attributes
{as PERFECT PERSONALITY {GOODNESS } (Relational).
{HOLINESS }
{BLESSEDNESS }
The references to the Sacred Scriptures already given will show the harmony between the conceptions of reason and the verbal revelations of God. Reason and Scripture unite in proclaiming that God is "the great and holy One that inhabiteth eternity," who "only hath immortality," "with whom is no variableness," and who "filleth all in all;" to whom "all his works are known from eternity," in whose book "all our members were written when as yet there was none of them," and whose "purposes," ideas, and plans are "eternal." These are mainly the immanent attributes of God, conceptions which flow from the very idea of the Absolute and Infinite Being. They are evolved from Real Being by the negation of all limit, all parts, all change; the canceling of time and space and matter, the recognition of God as pure Reason, pure Spirit, pure Love.
The Scriptures, however, deal more immediately with the causal, transitive, and relational aspects of the Divine attributes—that is, with the conception of God in his voluntary relations to finite being and finite personality. They speak of God in his historically known existence, as a Being who voluntarily conditions his Omnipotence and Sovereignty under concessions of self-reality, self-life, and freedom to finite beings, without Himself being conditioned by any thing—a self-limitation which in nowise detracts from the absoluteness and infinity of God—an unconditioned conditionating Will.[46]
The relation which God sustains to his works is not a necessary relation—it is a voluntary and self-imposed relation. Free Love is the highest determining principle for the efficiency of Divine Omnipotence. Power thus directed and conditioned by wisdom and love does not, can not detract from the perfection of God. The substitution of choice for necessity is, in fact, no real limitation; on the contrary, it ascribes to God the most absolute perfection.
The causal attributes of God, or those conceptions of God which are especially grounded upon his relation to the world and humanity, are properly divided into those which are Cosmical and those which are Ethical. The first, of course, embrace his relation to the world, the second his relation to personal, responsible beings. The content of the cosmological conception is Omnipotence, Ubiquity, Omniscience. The content of the ethical conception is Wisdom, Goodness, Holiness, and Blessedness. God as the Creator and Sustainer of the world, God as the Father, Teacher, and Ruler of humanity, are the two grand manifestations of the one infinite and perfect Being, and "Elohim" and "Jehovah" are his expressive and distinctive names, the first denoting the cosmical activity of God, the latter his government and kingdom among men.
These two grand aspects of the Divine manifestation are marked in the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of the first revelation given to the Semitic race. They are still more distinctly recognized in Paul's discourse before the assembled Athenian philosophers, where Christian theology was for the first time presented to the Greek mind—God the Creator and Conservator of the world (Acts xvii. 24, 25); God the Father, Teacher, Ruler, and Judge of humanity (Acts xvii. 26-31).
[CHAPTER III.]
THE CREATION.
God is the Absolute, Infinite, and Perfect Being, in whom, through whom, and for whom are all things. This is the Christian conception of God; and it is the only conception which furnishes an adequate and satisfactory explanation of all the facts of the universe. Here we have a First Principle, an Originative Cause which is sufficient to account for all existence.