021. I. Denial Of Divine Personality.

I. Denial Of Divine Personality.

1. Assumption of Limitation in Personality.—The pantheistic view is stated as follows: “Personality only exists on condition of a limitation, that is to say, by a negation. From this it follows that Infinite Being, excluding all negation and all limit, excludes also all personality. To conceive God as a person, we must attribute to him the forms of human activity, thought, love, joy, will. But thought supposes variety and succession of ideas. Love cannot exist without want, nor joy without sadness, nor will without effort, and all this implies limitation, space, and time. A personal God is therefore limited, mutable, imperfect. He is a being of the same species as man, more powerful, wiser if you will, but like him imperfect, and infinitely below an absolute principle of existence.”^[178] It will not be overlooked that Saisset has thus given, not his own doctrine, but that of pantheism—a doctrine which he treats with a masterly analysis and refutation.

^[178]Saisset:Modern Pantheism, vol. i, pp. 11, 12. The following passage from Spencer gives the substance of his doctrine: “Those who espouse this alternative position Spencer’s—of an ultimate personal cause—make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between personality and something lower than personality; whereas the choice is rather between personality and something higher. Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion? It is true that we are utterly unable to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for questioning its existence; it is rather the reverse.”^[179] What would Spencer think of a theologian who should so reason about the Trinity? He has an unquestioning faith in such a “higher mode of being,” but loyalty to his nescience of the Infinite permitted only an hypothetic statement of it. The passage cited, especially as taken in connection with his doctrine of the Absolute, plainly denies the divine personality as a limitation and imperfection. In the same connection he declares the ascription of personal attributes to God a degradation of him. Then follows a homily upon “the impiety of the pious “who meanly worship God as a person instead of reverently worshiping the Unknowable Absolute. There is the charitable concession of a contingent good, an element of truth even within the impious creeds of theology: “that while these concrete elements in which each creed embodies this soul of truth are bad as measured by an absolute standard, they are a good as measured by a relative standard.”^[180] The standard is relative with a personal God; absolute with an unknowable. Somewhat. But how can the nescience of Spencer reach an absolute standard? If this Absolute is utterly unknowable, there can be no knowledge of an absolute standard of religion. The fountain of charity still flows. Toleration for the impious creeds is a duty because “these various beliefs are parts of the constituted order of things; and not accidental but necessary parts. Seeing how one or other of them is every-where present, is of perennial growth, and when cut down redevelops in a form but slightly modified, we cannot avoid the inference that they are needful accompaniments of human life, severally fitted to the societies in which they are indigenous. From the highest point of view, we must recognize them as elements in that great evolution of which the beginning and the end are beyond our knowledge or conception—as modes of manifestation of the Unknowable; and as having this for their warrant.”^[181] A solace for the Christian conscience in an impious worship. There is still a grave question which the charity of Spencer has strangely overlooked. It is the question whether this palliation may continue in the higher light of his own philosopliy of the Unknowable. On the other hand, Ave may even suggest a doubt whether he might not have made a more gracious use of the fact that the impious creeds are necessary parts in the evolution of the great Unknowable. It was clearly open for him to say that, as necessary parts in this evolution, they could not be impious even in the worship of a personal God. Enough has been said to show that in the doctrine of Spencer personality is a limitation and in contradiction to the Infinite. That such is the doctrine of Hamilton and Mansel will appear under the next head.

^[179]First Principles, p. 109.

^[180]First Principles, p. 121.

^[181]Ibid., pp. 121, 122.

2. Erroneous Doctrine of the Infinite and Absolute.—As these terms are used in an abstract form, they are not properly definitive, but terms in need of definition. The definition which renders them essentially contradictory to personality gives a sense for which there is no need in human thought, no evidence of truth in reality, and certainly not the true sense of the divine infinity and absoluteness. In order to reach the truth in the case we require, first, the sense of the terms in the philosophy which makes them contradictory to personality, and, secondly, their true sense in application to God. To the terms infinite and absolute Sir William Hamilton adds the term unconditioned as of special significance in his philosophy. He notes their distinction, and holds the first two to be related to the third as species to genus.^[182] Hence the unconditioned is with him the deepest term. These distinctions, however, do not specially concern the relation of the doctrine embodied in the terms to the question of the divine personality.

^[182]Discussions, pp. 20, 21. The doctrine of Hamilton, as given in the definition of these terms, denies to the unconditioned, and hence to the infinite and absolute, causal agency, or, at least, holds such agency to be a contradiction in thought to the unconditioned. “A cause is a relative, and what exists absolutely as a cause exists absolutely under relation. Schelling has justly observed that ‘he would deviate wide as the poles from the idea of the absolute who would think of defining its nature by the notion of activity.’ But he who would define the absolute by the notion of cause would deviate still more widely from its nature; inasmuch as the notion of a cause involves not only the notion of a determination to activity, but of a determination to a particular, nay, a dependent, kind of activity—an activity not immanent, but transeunt.”^[183] If the absolute cannot be a cause, or if the notion of causation is contradictory to the absolute, then either God cannot be the absolute, or his personality must be contradictory in thought to his absoluteness; for the power of causal agency is central to the notion of personality. The sense of the absolute or unconditioned thus appears in the doctrine of Hamilton as contradictory to the divine personality.

^[183]Ibid., p. 40.

Mansel is properly the expositor of Hamilton, and more fully sets forth the implications of his doctrine of the unconditioned as contradictory to the notion of divine personality. It is proper to cite a few passages from his treatment of this question.

“To conceive the Deity as he is, we must conceive him as First Cause, as Absolute, and as Infinite. By the First Cause is meant that which produces all things, and is itself produced by none. By theAbsolute is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being. By the Infinite is meant that which is free from all possible limitation; that than which a greater is inconceivable; and which, consequently, can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence, which it had not from all eternity.”^[184] Little exception need be taken to these definitions so far as the true sense of the terms is concerned, but exception must be taken to the erroneous inferences drawn from them or the false sense given in further statements. “The metaphysical representation of the Deity, as absolute and infinite, must necessarily, as the profoundest metaphysicians have acknowledged, amount to nothing less than the sum of all reality. ‘What kind of an Absolute Being is that,’ says Hegel, ‘which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included?’ We may repudiate the conclusion with indignation; but the reasoning is unassailable.”^[185] The reasoning is unassailable only on an extreme and false sense of the absolute, which is contradictory to the co-existence of the finite, and equally contradictory to the personality of God. This consequence appears in the further words of Mansel: “A cause cannot, as such, be absolute: the absolute cannot, as such, be a cause. . . . How can the Infinite become that which it was not from the first? If causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite; that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits.”^[186] A power of causation may be reckoned an intrinsic mode of being, but the becoming a cause is not such a mode. Hence becoming a cause is not the acquisition of any new quality of being. These obvious and valid distinctions bring to naught the logic of the above passage. But the sense of the infinite and absolute as therein given is openly contradictory to the divine personality; for personality and the power of causal agency are inseparable truths. The same contradictory sense runs through the further treatment of the question. A necessary causation is contradictory to the infinite and absolute. A voluntary causation is equally contradictory, because it implies consciousness.^[187] The same contradictory sense is thus manifest; for it is needless to say that consciousness is an essential fact of personality.

^[184]Limits of Religious Thought, p. 75.

^[185]Ibid., p. 76.

^[186]Ibid., p. 77.

^[187]Ibid., pp. 77-79.

Thus, in the doctrine of the infinite and absolute as maintained by Hamilton and Mansel, personality is not only an inevitable limitation in human conception, but must be intrinsically a limitation. The reasoning proceeds in this manner: Consciousness can only be conceived under the form of a variety of attributes; and the different attributes are, by their very diversity, conceived as finite. The conception of a moral nature—even as we must think of a moral nature in God—is in itself the conception of a limit.^[188] But God cannot be a person without a distinction of attributes, nor a moral personality without a moral nature. If such facts are contradictory to the infinite and absolute, does it not follow that we must either deny these qualities to God or deny his personality? It certainly follows that so far as in religious thought God is conceived as a person he is neither infinite nor absolute. Thus from Mansel: “But personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation.”^{[189] [188]} Limits of Religious Thought, p. 127.

^[189]Ibid., p. 103.

Herbert Spencer maintains substantially the same doctrine of the Absolute, as the ground of contingent existences. How must we think of the First Cause, if we can think of it at all? “It must be independent. If it is not independent it cannot be the First Cause; for that must be the First Cause on which it depends. . . . But to think of the First Cause as totally independent is to think of it as that which exists in the absence of all other existence. . . . Not only, however, must the First Cause be a form of being which has no necessary relation to any other form of being, but it can have no necessary relation within itself. There can be nothing in it which determines change, and yet nothing which prevents change. For if it contains something which imposes such necessities or restraints, this something must be a cause higher than the First Cause, which is absurd. Thus the First Cause must be in every sense perfect, complete, total: including within itself all power, and transcending all law. Or, to use the established word, it must be absolute.”^[190] How causation, as necessary to finite existences, can arise in such an absolute is a question for Mr. Spencer to answer. The only modes of action are in spontaneity or necessity; but both are denied to the absolute. Yet there can be no causation without action.

^[190]First Principles, p, 38. The doctrine of Spencer is further given thus: “The objects and actions surrounding us, not less than the phenomena of our own consciousness, compel us to ask a cause; in our search for a cause, we discover no resting-place until we arrive at the hypothesis of a First Cause; and we have no alternative but to regard this First Cause as the Infinite and Absolute.”^[191] No exception could be taken to these positions, but for the false doctrine of the Infinite and Absolute, which equally with that of Hamilton and Mansel excludes the divine personality. Indeed, Spencer appropriates their doctrine, and freely cites their discussions in its support.

^[191]First Principles, p. 38.

It should be said that Spencer adheres to this doctrine with a consistency which can scarcely be accorded these eminent Christian philosophers. In his own philosophy there was no need, as in their theology, to dispose of the doctrine in consistency with Christian theism. He repudiates their appeal to faith in God as an immediate and necessary datum of the religious consciousness. If a personal God is thus saved to their theology, it is difficult to see in what consistency with their doctrine of the infinite and absolute. This faith, even if a reality, cannot cancel the contradiction of that doctrine to the divine personality. What, then, is God as thus saved in theology? He cannot be both a person and the infinite and absolute. Or if held to be both, it is against the contradiction of thought. This cannot be satisfactory.

Such an absolute and infinite as appears in the doctrine under notice is no immediate truth, and no requirement of the mind. In the activities of thought the finite may suggest the infinite, the conditioned the absolute, the temporal the eternal, the changeable the immutable; but the truth or objective reality of these suggestions is not thus either given or required. Much less is such an infinite and absolute as posited in the doctrine under notice either given or required. The necessity of thought, the only necessity, and comprehensive of the whole, is for a cause of finite and dependent existences. The necessity is definitely and only for such a cause as will account for the finite and dependent. Such a cause is no impersonal infinite and absolute. The original or first cause which answers to the necessity of thought must possess the power of a beginning, and an intelligence equal to the order and adjustments of the cosmos; must be equal to the origination of rational and moral personalities. A personal God, and only a personal God, can answer to this necessity of thought.

There is no such an infinite and absolute as that posited in the doctrine of Hamilton and Spencer; certainly no need of it in human thought, and no proof of it in human reason. There must be an eternal being; for otherwise present existences must have sprung from nothing, which is unthinkable. An eternal being is by no necessity eternally the totality of being. Nor need it be such an infinite and absolute that it must at once exclude all distinction of attributes and modes, and yet necessarily include all actualities and possibilities of both. The infinite which must forever be the totality of being is an infinite in the sense of magnitude or bulk, and so space-filling as to allow no room for any other existence. “To think of the First Cause as finite is to think of it as limited. To think of it as limited, necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its limits: it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries. What now must we say of this region? If the First Cause be limited, and there consequently lies something outside of it, this something must have no First Cause—must be uncaused. . . . Thus it is impossible to think of the First Cause as finite. And if it cannot be finite it must be infinite.”^[192] With all the use of causal terms, the First Cause is here treated simply as being, not as causal agency. The being is an infinite magnitude, a bulk filling all space. It is a very crude notion. It is only such an infinite that can allow no room for the finite. God is not such an infinite. There is no such an infinite. The absolute which is, and must forever be, so unrelated that it cannot be a cause—such an absolute being, if an existence at all, must be a dead existence, and therefore utterly useless for any requirement of thought or any rational account of the universe.

^[192]Spencer:First Principles, pp. 37, 38. The doctrine of Hamilton and Mansel was maintained in the interest of Christian theology, as against the German transcendentalism, the drift of which was into rationalism and pantheism. It is true, however, that the contention of Hamilton was more directly with Cousin, who held with the German transcendentalists the capacity of the soul for an immediate cognitive vision of the Infinite, though with the rejection of its pantheistic implication. The refutation of this transcendentalism should in itself be reckoned a valuable service; but the method of it involves a detriment not less than the gain. There was no necessity for the nescience of the Infinite which the method involved, or for the representation of personality as contradictory to the divine infinity. In the doctrine of an immediate and necessary faith in the divine personality there is little relief from the agnosticism which, for our reason, sinks the personality of God in his infinity. It is not pretended that this faith either changes the sense of the Infinite or replaces the consequent nescience with any true knowledge of God. Hence God is still beyond the reach of cognitive thought. We may affirm his personality as an immediate datum of the religious consciousness, but for rational thought personality is still a limitation. Hence God can be the Infinite for faith only by a divorcement of faith from rational thought; indeed, only against the contradiction of thought. “It is greatly to be lamented that men should teach that the only way in which it is possible for us to form any idea of God leads to no true knowledge. It does not teach us what God is, but what we are forced against reason to think he is.”^{[193] [193]} Hodge:Systematic Theology, vol. i, p. 344.

3. The True Infinite and Absolute.—In the true sense of these terms in application to God we shall find their consistency with his personality. The true sense of these terms must be determined in view of the subject of their predication. Only in the observance of this principle can we reach any definite or clear result. There may be an infinite and absolute without relevancy to any question respecting the co-existence of the finite, or the consistency of causation and personality with itself. Or these terms may be used in a false sense, and are so used in the doctrine of the unconditioned.

Space is infinite and absolute—without either limitation or relation. Yet it is neither the ground nor cause nor quality of any existing thing. There are what we call the spatial qualities of being, but these are purely from the nature of the being, and are in no sense caused or affected by the nature of space. A body may occupy space, or rest or move in space, and undergo great change, so that a chaos shall become a cosmos, but space itself is ever the same, and without any effect upon that which occupies it or transpires in it. Hence the questions whether the infinite and absolute must be the totality of being, and unrelated, and impersonal, can have no relevancy to such an infinite and absolute as space. The same is true of duration, also infinite and absolute—without limit and unrelated. Succcssional events and uniform revolutions of bodies which mark off periods of time to us do not affect duration itself: neither does duration affect them. The power of time to affect existences and to work changes is purely a figure of speech. All such changes are from interior constitution or exterior influence, in neither of which has duration any part. It is without influence upon any thing, and is itself unaffected by any. Hence there can be no relevancy in the questions whether such an infinite and absolute can admit the co-existence of the finite and become the relative through causal agency.

We have previously noted the crude and contradictory notion of the infinite in the sense of quantity or space-filling being, and so space-filling as to preclude all other existences—a sense which certainly can have no application to God. Yet this sense ever appears in the transcendental philosophy of the infinite, and is too often present in the doctrine of Hamilton and Mansel. “The very prevalent tendency in philosophic speculation on this subject, to argue as if ‘our idea of infinity arises from the contemplation of quantity, and the endless increase the mind is able to make in quantity, by the repeated additions of what portions thereof it pleases,^[194] has led to various uses of the term ‘infinite,’ which are not only inapplicable to the Divine Being, but even contradictory of his nature. Such, for example, are these: ‘an infinite line,’ ‘an infinite surface,’ and ‘an infinite number.’ All such expressions have obviously been used from a tacit admission that ‘our idea of infinity arises from the contemplation of quantity.’ But, as I have said, the terms ‘infinite’ and ‘unlimited,’ while they apply to the nature of God, do not explain what that nature is, and as soon as the nature of the Deity is indicated all these expressions immediately disappear. When it is declared that God is a spirit it is affirmed that God is not extended, and that all references to quantity are inapplicable to him.”^[195] A being infinite in the sense of quantity, and therefore preclusive of finite existences, must be infinite in spatial extension. Thus the notion inevitably becomes materialistic with respect to both the infinite being and the finite existences in question; for otherwise the question of co-existence could not arise. There is no such an infinite. Whatever is extended in space in the manner of material bodies must be actually divisible into parts, and nothing thus divisible can be infinite. The parts must be finite, and yet equal to the whole; therefore the whole cannot be infinite, because the finite parts, however many or great, cannot make an infinite. There is no actually infinite line, or surface, or number. The crude and contradictory notion of the infinite in any sense of quantity should be eliminated from this question. Martineau, having cited from Mansel a passage in which there is too much of that notion, says with force: “Now what does all this prove? This, and this only: that if we take the words ‘Absolute’ and ‘Infinite’ to mean that he to whom they are applicable chokes up the universe, mental and physical, and prevents the existence of every one else, then it is nonsense and clear contradiction for any one else, who is conscious of his own existence, to use these words of God at all. Surely this might have been said without so much circumlocution. And what does Mr. Mansel thereby gain? Simply, so far as we can see, that he has established the certain non-existence of any Being in this sense ‘absolute’ or ‘infinite.’”^{[196] [194]} Locke:Essay, book ii, chap, xvii, sec. 7.

^[195]Calderwood:Philosophy of the Infinite, pp. 183, 184 ^[196]Essays, Philosophical and Theological, vol. i, pp. 291, 292. The summary method which posits an infinite and absolute ground of things, and then denies its consistency with personality, cannot be admitted, it has no claim to admission on the ground of either a priori or inductive truth. The inconsistency alleged is in the definition of the terms, not in their true sense as predicates of the First Cause. The inference of inconsistency may be legitimate to the premise as determined by definition, but the premise itself is an instance of the sheerest material fallacy. The question of the divine personality cannot be thus negatively concluded. It is the great question of the divine reality, and cannot be disposed of by a false definition. God is what he is. As an eternal being, there is no cause of his existence, and no reason for his being what he is or other than he is. Hence no a priori assumption can be valid against his personality. The reality of a ground of finite and dependent existences is given as a necessity of thought, and only the boldest phenomenalism or positivism can question its truth. But, as we previously found, the same law of thought requires by an equal necessity the personality of the First Cause. The true sense of the infinite and absolute in their application to God is given in the perfection of his personal attributes. This accords with the principle previously noted, that the sense of these terms must be determined by the nature of the subject of their application. God in personality is here the subject. We must not anticipate, further than the requirement of the present question, what more properly belongs to the treatment of the divine attributes; but we cannot conclude the present question without reference to these attributes. We need not include all.

God is infinite in knowledge and power. Omniscience and omnipotence are his personal attributes. It may be objected that objects of the divine knowledge and products of the divine power are finite, and therefore no conclusive manifestation of an infinite knowledge and power. Things known to God are mostly finite; yet they are such in number, complexity, and relation, especially as we include the possible with the actual, that only an omniscient mind can know them as he knows them. God has perfect knowledge of himself, and this is infinite knowledge of the infinite. Dependent existences are finite; yet the power which produced them, and, according to their nature as physical or spiritual, set them in their order or endowed them with intellectual and moral reason, must be infinite. There is an infinite love of God.

It will be easy for the doctrine of the conditioned as the utmost limit of human thought, with its inevitable nescience distinction of God, to attempt a criticism of this view. With a ready relapse into the crude and contradictory notion of a quantitative infinity, it must object to a triplicity of infinites, with the implication of a fourth—an infinite God with three infinite attributes. But the criticism falls with the false and contradictory notion of an infinite magnitude or quantity. God is a spiritual being, and, with a distinction of attributes, a simple unity of being, without any spatial or quantitative quality. His measureless personal perfections are not preclusive of finite existences. Infinite knowledge, power, and love are neither reciprocally preclusive nor a limitation of each other. The divine knowledge is not the less for all the knowledge of finite minds, nor the divine power less for all the forces of physical nature or power of finite wills, nor the divine love less for all the love of human and angelic spirits.

God is the absolute. The absolute is the self-sufficient, the unconditioned, the unrelated, except as voluntarily related. Any sense of the absolute which excludes even the possibility of relation must be false to the ground or cause of finite and dependent existences. Causal agency is the only original of the finite and dependent; but such original must come into relation to its own agency and effects. An absolute, therefore, which cannot become related cannot be the ground of the finite and dependent. God as an eternal personal being, with the perfections of infinite knowledge and power and the free determination of his own agency, is absolute in the truest, deepest sense of the term. We challenge a comparison with the transcendental absolute which precludes personality. Such an absolute must forever remain unrelated, and therefore can account for nothing. Otherwise, the finite, and self-conscious personalities, as really as material forms of existence, must be accounted as purely phenomenal, with the result of a monism which at bottom is pantheism. Far truer and grander is the view of a personal God, infinite in his perfections, with the power of free causal agency. God is the true absolute.

Thus we find the divine personality consistent with the truest, deepest sense of the infinite and absolute. The true sense is not in being itself, but in the perfection of being or the perfection of attributes. “The infinite is to be viewed as having an independent being, it is not to be regarded as a substance or a separate entity; it is simply the quality of a thing, very possibly the attribute of the attribute of an object. Thus we apply the phrase to the Divine Being to denote a perfection of his nature; we apply it also to all his perfections, such as his wisdom and goodness, which we describe as infinite.”^[197] “We cannot think of God as the unconditioned Being conditioning himself, without conceiving him as Reality, Efficiency, andPersonality. These constitute the conception of the divine essence whereby it is what it is. When we think of the attributes of such a Being we must necessarily conceive them as Absolute, Infinite, and Perfect.”^[198] “In particular, Mansel sought to show that God could not be thought of as cause, because as cause it must be related to its effect. He cannot, then, be creator, because as such there must be a relation between God and the world. But this objection overlooks the fact that relation in the abstract does not imply dependence. The criticism would be just if the relation were necessary and had an external origin. But as the relation is properly posited and maintained by himself there is nothing in it incompatible with his independence and absoluteness.”^[199] As we thus expose and eliminate the contradictory notion of a quantitative infinite and absolute, and find the true sense of the terms in the perfection of personal attributes, their consistency with the divine personality is manifest. Only a personal God, infinite and absolute in the perfection of his attributes, can answer in human thought for any rationale of finite and dependent existences. God in personality is the true infinite and absolute.

^[197]McCosh:Intuitions of the Mind, p. 197.

^[198]Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, p. 41.

^[199]Bowne:Metaphysics, p. 131.

4. Personality the Highest Perfection. — This we confidently maintain against the assumption of pantheism, and against the theistic nescience which posits an infinite and absolute inconsistent with personality. The question may be appealed to the clearest logical judgment and to the profoundest intuitions of the reason. In the orders of existence directly known to us man is the highest, and the highest by virtue of the facts of personality. If this be not the truth, then Judgment and reason are no longer trustworthy and we are incapable of any rational treatment of the question. Judgment and reason are trustworthy, and the truth we stated is above question. With this basis of truth, we may rise to the thought of God, and find in personality the highest conception of his perfection. In all the range of being, finite and infinite, personal attributes are the highest. What impersonal terms can replace the personal with any comparable idea of God? In the vague and contradictory use of the terms infinite, absolute, unknowable, inscrutable, in application to the original cause of finite and dependent existences, with personality lost in the confusion, there is an infinite descent from the notion of God as personal cause.

There is a false principle underlying all the speculations in which personality is held to be a limitation. It is the principle that all determination, predication, or distinction of attributes is a limitation, or, in the extreme form of Spinoza, a negation. We cannot know the infinite and absolute, because as such it exists out of all limitation and relation. If we predicate intelligence, will, affection, causal agency of God, we so distinguish his attributes and bring him into relation to the products of his agency as to deny his infinity and absoluteness. This denial is on the principle that all predication is limitation or negation. This point is so admirably treated by another that the citation of his words should be heartily approved.

“If I do not mistake, the whole system of those reasonings rests on an error common to skepticism and pantheism, which formerly misled, and still deceives, many a superior mind. This error consists in maintaining that every determination is a negation. Omnis determinatio negatio est, says Hamilton after Spinoza. Nothing can be falser or more arbitrary than this principle. It arises from the confusion of two things essentially different, namely, the limits of a being, and its determinate and constitutive characteristics. I am an intelligent being, and my intelligence is limited; these are two facts equally certain. The possession of intelligence is the constitutive characteristic of my being, which distinguishes me from the brute being. The limitation imposed on my intellect, which can only see a small number of truths at a time, is my limit, and this is what distinguishes me from the Absolute Being, from the Perfect Intelligence which sees all truths at a single glance. That which constitutes my imperfection is not, certainly, my being intelligent; therein, on the contrary, lies the strength, the richness, and the dignity of my being. What constitutes my weakness and my nothingness is that this intelligence is inclosed in a narrow circle. Thus, inasmuch as I am intelligent, I participate in being and perfection; inasmuch as I am only intelligent within certain limits, I am imperfect.

“It follows from this very simple analysis that determination and negation, far from being identical, differ from each other as much as being and nothing. According as a being has more or less determinations, qualities, and specific characteristics it occupies a rank more or less elevated in the scale of existence. Thus, in proportion as you suppress qualities and determinations, you sink from the animal to the vegetable, from the vegetable to brute matter. On the other hand, exactly in proportion as the nature of beings is complicated, in proportion as their bodies are enriched with new functions and organs, as their intellectual and moral faculties begin to be displayed, as more delicate senses are added to their grosser senses, to sensation, memory, to memory, imagination, then the superior faculties, reasoning, and reason, and will, you rise nearer and nearer to man, the most complicated being, the most determined and the most perfect in creation. . . . God is the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something indetermined in all finite beings, since they have always imperfect powers, which tend toward their development after an indefinite manner. God alone the complete Being, the Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by his own perfection from all progress, and development, and indetermination. It would be a pure illusion to imagine that different determinations could, by any chance, limit or contradict each other. Could intelligence prevent liberty? or the love of the beautiful extinguish the love of the good ? or truth, or beauty, or happiness be any hinderance, the one to the other? Is it not evident, on the contrary, that these are things perfectly analogous and harmonious, which, far from excluding, require each other, which always go together in the best beings of the universe, and, when they are conceived in their eternal harmony and plenitude, constitute the living unity of God?

“Now, let us hear our skeptics. They say the Absolute excludes all limits, and, consequently, all determination. I reply the Absolute has no limits, it is true, that is to say, that his being and the powers that are in him are all full, complete, infinite, eternal; but far from these determinations limiting his being, they characterize and constitute it.”^{[200] [200]} Saisset:Modern Pantheism, vol. ii, pp. 69-72.

Unity is a perfection of being; but the highest unity lies in the harmony of differentiated qualities. Man, most complex of creaturely orders directly known to us, is yet a higher unity than any other. This higher unity is in personality; and personality is the highest perfection. In the plenitude and harmony of personal attributes in God there is an infinite perfection of unity. Herbert Spencer was far astray from truth and reason in saying that the question of personality in the First Cause was not a question between personality and something lower, but one between personality and something higher. There is nothing higher. Personality is the highest perfection. Being without qualities or attributes is a blank in itself, and a blank for thought. “Also, it must be added, that it is a strange perversion of thought which takes this caput mortuum, this logical phantom, and gives it the place of the highest reality, the object of profoundest veneration, in bowing down to which science and religion are to find their ultimate reconciliation. For, in so doing, we are simply turning away from all the concrete wealth of the world of thought and being, and deifying the barest, thinnest abstraction of logic. It is not too much to say that almost any object of reverence would be more worthy than this, and that in nature worship, animal worship, even the lowest fetichism, there is a higher cultus than in the blind veneration of the philosophic Absolute.”^{[201] [201]} Caird:Philosophy of Religion, p. 38.

If we compare the Absolute of pantheism, or as posited in the doctrine of Hamilton and Spencer, with the theistic conception of Moses and the prophets and apostles, the infinite transcendence of the latter must be manifest. Can any impersonal somewhat, however styled, be comparable with the divine Father as revealed by the divine Son? Personality is the highest perfection of the Absolute.^[202]

^[202] Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, pp. 43, 43; Martineau:Essays, vol. i, pp. 292, 293; Fisher:Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, pp. 69-71; Herbert:Modern Realism, pp. 408-423; Mansel:Limits of Religious Thought, pp. 103, 104; Christlieb:Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, Third Lecture, iii, iv.