7. § 26. The Essential Names of God.

7. § 26. The Essential Names of God.

§ 26. The Essential Names of God.

A. God as the Being.

. Among some, the locus de trinitate precedes that concerning the virtues of God. Damascenus, de fide orthod. I 6 sq., Lombardus, Sent.

I dist. 2 sq., Bonaventura, Brevil. I c. 2 sq., Martyr, Loci Comm. p. 36 sq. etc.; and Frank has even serious objection to the reversed order, Syst. der chr. Wahrh. I 151 f. If, by treating the virtues of God before the doctrine of the Trinity, it were intended gradually to ascend from theologia naturalis to theologia revelata and from the natural to the Christian concept of God, it would without doubt deserve disapproval. But this is by no means the case.

In the doctrine of the perfections of God the divine nature is treated, as it has been revealed to us in Scripture, is confessed by the Christian faith, and, as will presently appear in the locus de trinitate, exists in a threefold manner. In order, in that locus, to understand that Father, Son, and Spirit

partake of the same divine nature, it is necessary to know what that divine nature contains in itself and wherein it is distinguished from all created nature. Scripture also goes before us in this. The being of God is there taught to us earlier and more clearly than his trinitarian existence; the Trinity first comes to clear revelation in the N. Test.; the names Ihvh,

Elohim precede those of Father, Son, and Spirit. The first thing that Scripture makes known to us of God is that He has a proper being and life, distinct from all creatures, self-subsistent and independent. He has a proper essence, a proper φυσις, natura, substantia, essentia, not in distinction from his virtues, but confronting us and becoming knowable in all virtues and perfections. He bears proper names, which belong to no creature. [116]

Among these the name Ihvh stands at the head, Ex. 3:14. By this name He is designated as the one who is and will be what He was, who eternally, in relation to his people, remains like himself. He exists of himself. He existed before all things, and these exist only through Him, Ps. 90:2, 1 Cor. 8:6,

Openb. 4:11. He is ‎‏‏ָאדֹון‎ κυριος, δεσποτης in the absolute sense, Lord of the whole earth, Ex. 23:17, Deut. 10:17, Jos. 3:13. He is from nothing, everything is dependent on Him, Rom. 11:36. He kills and makes alive, creates the light and the darkness, peace and evil, Deut. 32:39, Jes. 45:5-7,

54:16. He does with the host of heaven and with the inhabitants of the earth according to his will, Dan. 4:35, so that men are in his hand as clay in the hand of the potter, Jes. 64:8, Jer. 18:1 v., Rom. 9:21. His counsel, his good pleasure is the ultimate ground of all that is and happens, Ps. 33:11, Spr.

19:21, Jes. 46:10, Mt. 11:26, Hd. 2:23, 4:28, Ef. 1:5, 9, 11. He therefore also does everything for his own sake, for his name's sake, for his glory's sake,

Deut. 32:27, Jos. 7:9, 1 Sam. 12:22, Ps. 25:11, 31:4, 79:9, 106:8, 109:21, 143:11, Spr. 16:4, Jes. 48:9, Jer. 14:7, 21, Ezech. 20:9, 14, 22, 44. He also

needs nothing, is all-sufficient, Job 22:2, 3, Ps. 50:19 v., Hd. 17:25, and has life in himself, Joh. 5:26. And thus He is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, who is and who was and who is to come, Jes. 41:4, 44:6, 48:12,

Openb. 1:8 etc.; absolutely independent, not only in his existence, but as a consequence thereof also in all his virtues and perfections, in all his decrees and deeds. Independent He is in his understanding, Rom. 11:34, 35, in his will, Dan. 4:35, Rom. 9:19, Ef. 1:5, Op. 4:11, in his counsel, Ps. 33:11, Jes.

46:10, in his love, Hos. 14:5, in his power, Ps. 115:3 etc. And thus allsufficient in himself, and receiving nothing from outside himself, He is, on the contrary, the only source of all being and life, of all light and love, the abundant fountain of all goods, Ps. 36:10, Hd. 17:25. This independence of God is acknowledged more or less by all men. The Heathen indeed draw the divine down into the creaturely and teach a theogony, but behind and above their gods they nevertheless often again assume a power to which everything is subjected in the absolute sense. Many speak of nature, chance, fate, or fortune as a power that is exalted above everything; and philosophers [117] preferably designate God by the name of the Absolute.

In Christian theology this virtue of God bore the name of αὐυταρκεια, aseitas, omnisufficientia, independentia, magnitudo. In the East one spoke of θεος ἀναρχος, ἀναιτιος, ἀγεννητος and one preferably called God αὐτογεννητος, αὐτοφυης, αὐτουσιος, αὐτοθεος, αὐτοφως, αὐτοσοφια, αὐτοαρετη, αὐταγαθος etc., cf. Suicerus, Thes. Eccl. s. v. God is all that He is through himself. He is ipsa per se bonitas, sanctitas, sapientia, vita, lux, veritas etc. As was already said earlier, the church fathers, in imitation of Philo, in the description of God mostly proceeded from the name Ihvh. That was his essential name par excellence. God was the Being. In this name: I will be who I will be, everything is enclosed. All other virtues of God were

derived from it. God is summum esse, summum bonum, summum verum, summum pulchrum. He is the perfect, the highest best being, quo esse aut cogitari melius nihil possit. He has the whole being in himself, He is an infinite and unbounded sea of being. Si bonum, si magnum, si beatum, si sapientem vel quidquid tale de Deo dixeris, in hoc verbo instauratur quod est Est. Nempe hoc est ei esse, quod haec omnia esse. Si et centum talia addas, non recessisti ab esse; si ea dixeris, nihil addixisti; si non dixeris nihil minuisti, Bernardus, de consid. I c. 6. Scholasticism joined in with this, Anselmus, Monol. 6. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 8. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 2 art. 3 and qu. 3 and qu. 13 art. 11. S. c. Gent. I c. 16 sq. and also treated this virtue under the name of the infinitas or spiritualis magnitudo

Dei, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 7. S. c. Gent. I c. 43, or under that of the aseitas Dei, by which it was indicated that God as summa substantia per se ipsam aut ex se ipsa est quidquid est, Anselmus, Monol. 6. Later Roman

Catholic theologians likewise mostly proceed from this aseitas or independentia, Petavius, de Deo I c. 6. Theol. Wirceb. III p. 38 sq. Perrone,

Prael. theol. II p. 88-90. Jansen, Prael. theol. dogm. II 26 sq. The Reformation brought no change in this. Luther too, on the basis of the name

Ihvh, describes God as the absolutely being; He is pure being. But Luther nevertheless does not linger long over abstract, metaphysical descriptions and soon passes from the Deus absconditus to the Deus revelatus in Christus, Köstlin, Luthers Theol. II 302 f. Melanchton in his Loci describes

God as essentia [118] spiritualis. The Lutherans have mostly adopted this description but then often added to it the further determination infinita, a se subsistens or independens, Schmid, Dogm. der ev. Luth. K. § 17. Among the Reformed this perfection of God comes still more strongly to the foreground, although the name aseitas is later mostly exchanged for that of

independentia. Aseitas expresses only the independence of God in his existence, but independentia has a broader sense and includes that God is independent in everything, in his being, in his virtues, in his decrees, in his works. While earlier writers therefore mostly proceed from the name Ihvh,

Hyperius, Meth. Theol. p. 87, 135. Sohnius, Op. II 48. III 261. Polanus, Synt. Theol. p. 135 etc., later the independentia mostly occurs as the first of the incommunicable attributes, Mastricht, Theol. II c. 3, Heidegger, Corpus

Theol. III § 30. Maresius, Syst. theol. loc. 2 § 17. Marck, Merg der Godg.

IV § 20. L. Meyer, Verhand. over de Godd. eigensch. 1783 I bl. 39-110 etc.

If now God in Scripture ascribes this aseitas to himself, then by it He makes himself known as absolute being, as the being in the absolute sense. By this perfection He is at once essentially and absolutely distinguished from all creature. For all the creature is not a se but ab alio, and thus is and has nothing of itself; it is absolutely dependent in its origin and thus also in its whole further existence and development. But God, according to this name, is only of himself, a se, not in the sense as if He had caused himself, but as being from eternity to eternity who He is, being not becoming, absolute being, the fullness of being, and thus also eternally and absolutely independent in his existence, in his virtues, in all his works, the first and the last, the only cause and final end of all things. In this aseitas of God all other virtues are enclosed; they are given with it and are its rich, manysided unfolding. And yet, while with this virtue the immeasurable distinction between Creator and creature at once comes to light clearly and plainly, there is nevertheless also of this perfection of God a weak likeness in all the creature. Pantheism cannot acknowledge this, but theism confesses that the creature, though absolutely dependent, nevertheless has a proper, distinct being. And in this being perseverance in its existence is

implanted, the conatus in suo esse perseverandi, the Selbsterhaltungstrieb, the [119] urge to self-preservation. All creature, insofar as it is, fears death; and even the smallest atom offers resistance to every attempt at destruction.

It is a shadow of the independent, immutable being of our God.

2. From God's aseity his immutability flows of itself. Yet this seems to find little support in Scripture. For there God always stands in the most living intercourse with the world. In the beginning he created heaven and earth and thus passed from not-creating to creating. And from that beginning he lives, as it were, the life of the world and especially of his people Israel along with it; he comes and he goes, he reveals and conceals himself, he turns his face away and turns it toward in grace. He repents,

Gen. 6:6, 1 Sam. 15:11, Amos 7:3, 6, Joel 2:13, Jon. 3:9, 4:2, and changes his intention, Ex. 32:10-14, Jon. 3:10. He becomes angry, Num. 11:1, 10,

Ps. 106:40, Zach. 10:3, and lays aside his anger, Deut. 13:17, 2 Chr. 12:12, 30:8, Jer. 18:8, 10, 26:3, 19, 36:3. He is different toward the pious than toward the ungodly, Spr. 11:20, 12:22; with the pure he keeps himself pure but with the perverse he shows himself a wrestler, Ps. 18:26, 27. In the fullness of time he even becomes man in Christ and comes to dwell through the H. Spirit in the congregation; he rejects Israel and accepts the Gentiles.

And in the life of the children of God there remains a continual alternation of feeling of guilt and consciousness of forgiveness, of experiences of God's wrath and of his love, of his abandonment and of his nearness. But at the same time that same Scripture testifies that God under all that is the same and remains the same. Everything changes but he remains standing, he remains who he is, Ps. 102:26-28. He is Ihvh, the being and ever remaining like himself; the first and with the last still the same God, Jes.

41:4, 43:10, 46:4, 48:12. He is who he is, Deut. 32:39, cf. Joh. 8:58, Hebr.

1:17, 6:16, Hebr. 1:11, 12. And immutable in his existence and being, he is so also in his thought and will, in all his intentions and decisions. He is not a man that he should lie or repent. What he says, he does, Num. 15:29, 1

Sam. 15:29. His charismata and calling are ἀμεταμελητα, Rom. 11:29. He does not cast off his people, Rom. [120] 11:1. He completes what he began,

Ps. 138:8, Phil. 1:6. In one word, he, Ihvh, does not change, Mal. 3:6; with him οὐκ ἐνι παραλλαγη ἢ τροπης ἀποσκιασμα, Jak. 1:17. Upon this, in Christian theology, the doctrine of the immutabilitas Dei was built.

Mythological theogony could not raise itself to this height, but philosophy named and described God many times as the only, eternal, immutable, unmoved, self-like ruler of all things, Philolaus et al., in Zeller, Phil. d. Gr.

I4 425, 488 f. II 928. Aristotle concluded from the motion of the world to a primum movens, an αἰδιος οὐσια ἀκινητος, which was one and eternal, necessary, immutable, free of all composition, without any possibility, ὑλη, δυναμις, but only ἐνεργεια, pure εἰδος, mere being, absolute form, το τι ην εἰναι το πρωτον, ib 359-365. Philo called God ἀτρεπτος, ἰσαιτατος ἑαυτῳ, ἀκλινης, παγιος, βεβαιος, ἀμεταβλητος, ἑστως, Dähne, Gesch. Darst. der jüd.-alex. Rel. Philos. I 118. And with this Christian theology agreed. God is according to Irenaeus, semper idem, sibi aequalis et similis, adv. haer. IV c. 11, cf. Orig. c. Cels. I 21. IV 14. With Augustine the immutability of God flowed directly from the fact that he was the highest, perfect being. To every rational creature it is naturaliter et veraciter insitum, esse omnino incommutabilem et incorruptibilem Deum, de Gen. ad litt. VII 11. Through the senses this concept of an eternal and immutable being is not to be obtained, for every creature, also man himself, is mutable; but within himself he sees and finds that immutable, which is better and greater than

all that changes, de lib. arb. II 6, de doctr. chr. I 9. If God were not immutable, he would not be God, Conf. VII 4. His name is being and this name is a nomen incommutabilitatis. All that changes ceases to be what it was. But true being belongs only to him who does not change. What truly is, that remains. Quod est, manet. But what changes fuit aliquid et aliquid erit; non tamen est, quia mutabile est, de trin. V 2. God, however, who is, cannot change, since every change would be a diminution of being. And as immutable as God is in his being, so is he also in his knowing, willing, and deciding. Dei essentia, qua est, nihil mutabile habet, nec in aeternitate, nec in veritate, nec in voluntate, de trin. IV prooem. As he is, so he knows and wills, [121] in an immutable manner. Essentia tua scit et vult incommutabiliter et scientia tua est et vult incommutabiliter et tua voluntas est et scit incommutabiliter, Conf. XIII, 16. Creation, revelation, incarnation, affections, etc. brought about no change in God. In God there has never come a novum consilium, de ord. II 17. There has always been in God a single, immutable will. Una eademque sempiterna et immutabili voluntate res quas condidit, et ut prius non essent egit, quamdiu non fuerunt, et ut posterius essent, quando esse coeperunt, de civ. XII, 17. Only there is change in the creature from non-being to being, from good to evil, etc. The same thought we then later find again time and again, with Joh.

Damascenus, de fide orthod. I c. 8. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu 9. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 8, 3. Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 8 art. 2 qu 1-2. Petavius, de Deo

III c. 1-2. and thus also with Luth. and Reformed theologians, Gerhard, Loc. II cap. 8 sect. 5. Zanchius, Op. II col. 77-83. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c.

13, cf. Conf. Gall. art. 1. Conf. Belg. 1 enz.

But this immutability of God found much opposition, both from the deistic and from the pantheistic side. With Epicurus the gods are wholly like

excellent men, who change of place, activity, thought, etc., Zeller IV 430 f., and with the Stoa the Deity, just as formerly with Heraclitus, was taken up as the immanent cause of the world in its unceasing change, ib. IV 133 f. Of the same nature was the opposition to the immutability of God in Christian theology.

On the one side stands Pelagianism, Socinianism, Remonstrantism, rationalism, which especially opposes the immutability of God's knowing and willing, and makes the will of God dependent on and thus lets it change according to the conduct of man. In particular Vorstius in his work de Deo et ejus attributis opposed the immutability of God. He distinguished between the essentia of God, which is simple and immutable, and the voluntas Dei, which as libera also does not will everything eternally and not always the same, Dorner, Gesammelte Schriften 278. But much more serious still is the opposition to the immutability of God, from the pantheistic side. Common to this opposition is that the idea of becoming is transferred to God and thus the boundary between Creator and creature is wholly erased. The idea of God as substantia, as it occurs with Spinoza,

[122] proved to be an abstract concept without content. In order to bring life into that concept, philosophy often replaced being with becoming. Naturally there is in that still a great difference, according as one conceives this process, through which God himself becomes, unitarily or trinitarily and lets it be accomplished immanently in the being of God or transeunt in the world. To this belongs in the first place Gnosticism, but then further the theosophy of the kabbala, of Böhme, Baader, Schelling, Rothe, Hamberger, etc., working on in the doctrine of the kenosis, and finally the pantheistic philosophy of Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Hartmann etc.

However differently worked out, the fundamental thought is one. God is not but becomes. An sich, in the first moment, He is βυθος ἀγνωστος, an

abstract purely potential being, nature without more, contentless thinking, a dark urge, a blind alogical will, in one word, a being that is nothing but can become everything. But out of that potential being God brings himself in the form of a process gradually to actuality. He is his own Creator. He produces himself. He gradually comes, whether then in himself or in the world, to personality, to self-consciousness, to spirit. God is causa sui.

Under the influence of this philosophical idea of absolute becoming, the immutability of God has also in more recent theology been repeatedly denied or limited, and God has with preference been called causa sui, selfactualising power, Rothe, Theol. Ethik § 16-38. Martensen, Chr. Dogm.

1856 S. 86. 116, cf. Chr. Ethik. I 90 f. Luthardt says, Gott ist seine eigene That, Apol. Vortr. über die Grundwahrh. des Chr. 1870 I 45, cf. Müller, Die chr. Lehre v. d. Sünde II5 171 f. Others speak of a Selbstsetzung Gottes,

Dorner, Chr. Gl. I 244. 245. Frank, Syst. der chr. Wahrh. I2 116 f. In his treatise Ueber die richtige Fassung des dogm.

Begriffs der Unveränderlichkeit Gottes, Ges. Schriften 1883 S. 188-377, Dorner attempts to avoid deism and pantheism (acosmism) both and to unite the immutability and the Lebendigkeit of God with one another. He thinks to attain this goal by placing the immutability of God in the ethical, S. 340 f.

Ethically God is immutable and always like himself, He remains holy love, S. 352. But otherwise Dorner thinks that through the creation, the incarnation and satisfaction etc. indeed change has come in God, S. 309.

311 f. 358 f. 364, [123] that He stands in Wechselverhältniss to man, S. 319.

362, that He knows reality only from the world, S. 320, that there is also for Him a past, present and future, S. 322, that He is wrathful, justifies, and has a disposition corresponding to man, S. 324 etc. And thus essentially also

Weisse, Philos. Dogm. I 573. F. A. B. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm. 365 e. a. Many

also in the doctrine of God do not express themselves about this important attribute, but let it first be noticed at the creation or at the incarnation or at the kenosis etc., that they assume change in God, as e.g. Ebrard, Hofmann,

Thomasius e. a.

Nevertheless, the doctrine of the immutability of God is of the highest importance for religion. The distinction between Creator and creature lies in the antithesis of being and becoming. All that is creature is becoming. It is changeable, strives continually, seeks rest and satisfaction and finds that rest only in Him, who is pure being without becoming. Therefore God is so often called in Scripture the rock, Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37. 1 Sam. 2:2,

2 Sam. 22:3, 32, Ps. 19:15, 31:3, 62:3, 7, 73:26 etc. On Him man can rely, He does not change in his essence, nor in his knowing or willing, He remains who He is eternally. Every change is foreign to God. There is in Him no change of time, for He is eternal; nor of place for He is omnipresent; nor also of essence for He is pure being. Christian theology also expressed this latter many times by the term purus actus. Aristotle had thus conceived the essence of God, as πρωτον εἰδος without any δυναμις, as absolute ἐνεργεια. Scholasticism therefore came to speak of God as actus purissimus et simplicissimus, in order to indicate that He is the perfect, absolute being without any potentia to non-being or to other-being. Thus

Boethius says, de cons. philos. lib. III, that God does not change in essence (forma), quia purus actus est, cf. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 3. Therefore the expression causa sui was also avoided of God. The idea of absolute becoming was first clearly expressed by Heraclitus and thereafter repeatedly returned in philosophy. Plotinus in particular makes use of this concept, not only in application to matter, but also to that which he holds for absolute being. He teaches concerning God, that He has produced his

own [124] being, that He was active before He was, Thilo, Kurze pragm.

Gesch. d. Philos. I 352 f. Now Christian theology did indeed speak of God that He was an ens a se, and thus of his aseitas. And Lactantius, Synesius and Hieronymus also employed the expression causa sui; the latter wrote:

Deus qui semper est nec habet aliunde principium et ipse sui origo est suaeque causa substantiae, non potest intelligi aliunde habere quod subsistit,

Comm. ad Eph. cap. 3:15. But this expression was nevertheless always understood thus, that God indeed existed of himself but not that He had become and been produced of himself, Klee, Kath. Dogm. II 43. When later

Cartesius accorded precedence to the will of God above the understanding and made the essentia of all things depend on that will, indeed even made

God's existence a product of his will, so that he said, Deus se revera conservat, God is causa sui and a se, not in a negative but in a positive sense, God is causa efficiens sui ipsius, He has being a reali potentiae immensitate, Resp. ad primas objectiones p. 57, 58; then indeed some followers adopted this expression, such as e.g. Burmannus, Synopsis theol.

I c. 15 § 2, but the Reformed theologians wanted the expression causa sui, existentia a se to be understood in no other than a purely negative sense,

Ryssenius, De oude rechtsinnige waerheyt enz. Middelb. z.j. bl. 24.

Mastricht Theol. theor. pract. II c. 3 § 22. Moor, I 590 sq. A causa sui in a positive sense is not possible, because then one and the same thing would at the same moment be said to exist, insofar as it produces itself, and not to exist, insofar as it is produced. Now it is understandable that monistic philosophy has taken refuge in this idea of absolute becoming, in order to give at least an appearance of explanation of reality. But Herbart has rightly subjected this idea to a sharp critique, and his adherents Thilo, Die

Wissenschaftlichkeit der mod. Theol. S. 25 and Flügel, Die spekul. Theol.

in der Gegenwart 1888 S. 201. f., Die Probleme der Philos. und ihre Lösungen 1888 S. 10 f. have not without reason expressed their astonishment over the fact that this idea has made such progress in speculative theology. For there is, in theology, with application to the Divine essence, nothing to be done with it. Not only does Scripture testify that there is in God no change nor shadow of [125] turning, but thinking leads to the same conclusion. With becoming one must ask after a cause, for there is no becoming without cause. But being, in an absolute sense, no longer permits the question after a cause. Absolute being is, because it is.

The idea of God brings immutability of itself along. No increase or decrease is conceivable in Him. He cannot change for the better or for the worse. For He is the absolute, perfect, true being. Becoming is proper to the creature and is a form of change in space and time. But God is who He is, eternally, above space and time, far exalted above all the creature. He rests in himself and is therefore the goal and the point of rest of all creatures, the rock of salvation, whose work is perfect. Whoever ascribes change to God, of essence, knowledge or will, does injury to all his virtues, the independence, the simplicity, the eternity, the omniscience, the omnipotence. He robs God of his Divine nature and religion of its firm ground and sure comfort. Yet this immutability is no monotonous unity, no rigid immovable being.

Scripture itself goes before us, to describe God to us in the most manifold relations to all his creatures. Immutable in himself, He nevertheless as it were lives along the life of his creatures and takes part in their alternations.

Scripture speaks of God in a human way and cannot do otherwise. But however humanly it may speak, it at the same time forbids us to posit any change in God himself. There is change around Him and outside Him, there is change in the relation to Him, but there is no change in God himself. And

herein consists precisely the incomprehensible greatness of God and at the same time the glory of the Christian confession, that God, immutable in himself, can nevertheless call changeable creatures into being; that He, eternal in himself, can nevertheless enter into time; that He, immeasurable in himself, can nevertheless penetrate every point of space with his essence; that He who is absolute being, can nevertheless also grant to the becoming creature a place of its own. In the eternity of God no moment of time, in his immeasurability no point of space, in his being no element of becoming is to be discovered. But conversely it is God who posits the creature, it is eternity that posits time, it is immeasurability that posits space, it is being that posits becoming, it is immutability that posits change [126]. A transition between the two does not exist; there is a deep chasm between the being of God and the being of all creature. It is Divine greatness, that He can descend to the creature; that He, transcendent, can nevertheless dwell immanently in all that is created; that He, preserving himself, can give himself and, absolutely maintaining his immutability, can nevertheless enter into an infinite number of relations to his creatures. With various examples one attempted to elucidate this. The sun remains the same, whether it scorches or warms, causes pain or refreshes (Augustine). A coin does not change, although it is now called a prize and then a pledge (id.). A pillar remains standing, whether someone now sees it at his right hand, then at his left hand (Thomas). An artist does not change, when he gives form to his conception in word or tone, in voice or color, and a scholar does not, when he sets down his thoughts in a book. All these comparisons limp, but they nevertheless give some idea how something, remaining the same in essence, can change in relation. With God this now holds so much the more, because

He, the immutable, is himself the sole cause of all that changes. He does not

place himself in relation to any creature, as if this would in any way exist without Him, but He himself places all things in those relations to himself, which He eternally and immutably wills and precisely thus, in that manner and in that moment of time, in which they actually take place. Every prius and posterius does not fall in God, but in rebus prius non existentibus et posterius existentibus, Aug. de civ. XII 17. It is immutable being itself, that places changing becoming with an entirely own order and law outside itself and brings it, as it were for itself, onto the stage.

3. The immutability of God is called eternity with respect to time and omnipresence with respect to space. Both were indeed sometimes brought together under the name infinitas Dei. The concept of infinity, however, is in itself unclear. In the first place it can be taken negatively in the sense of endless. Something is then called infinite because it in fact has no end but nevertheless can have one. Often in philosophy God has been called infinite in this sense. Neoplatonism conceived God in this sense as without boundary and form, without any determinateness, οὐ πεπερασμενος, [127] ὁρος οἰκ ἐχων, ἀπειρος etc., an overflowing fullness, from which the world has emanated, Zeller, Philos. d. Gr. V 485 f. 497. In the same sense the kabbalah spoke of God as ‎‏‏ֵאין טֹוף‎, the infinite, without boundary and form, but who in the ten sefiroth created a transition from the infinite to the finite,

Frank, La Kabbale 179. Later the philosophy of Spinoza gave currency to this concept of the infinity of God. The substance, God, in Spinoza is not a being proper, distinct from the world; it is that which in creatures constitutes reality, and therefore of itself infinite, ens absolute infinitum,

Eth. I prop. 8. All determination is therefore negation, a deprivation, a lack of existence, Epist. 50 and 41, God, however, is free from all limitation and delimitation, He is substantia non determinata. Extension is one of his

attributes. With Hegel the concept of infinity again received another meaning, because he conceived the substance of Spinoza not as an eternal immutable being but as an absolute becoming. God was therefore called infinite, because He could become everything, approximately in the same way as the ἀπειρον of Anaximander, which itself is indeterminate but can bring forth all kinds of things. The error of this conception consists in this, that the most universal, which the understanding obtains by abstraction from finite being, is identified with the infinite. For it was precisely the striving of the philosophy of identity, to let the particular proceed from the universal, the determinate from the indeterminate, the finite from the endless by a process. God is an sich infinitus potentiâ, He becomes finitus, personal, conscious, determinate in the creatures as his revelation. But this conception is untenable. Infinite is not a negative but a positive concept; it does not indicate that God has no being proper, distinct from the creatures, but that He is limited by nothing finite and creaturely. Now of course in different ways such a creaturely limitation can be denied of God. If one means that God non tempore finiri potest, then infinitas coincides with aeternitas. If one wishes to make known that God non loco finiri potest, then infinitas is the same as omnipraesentia. And thus the infinitas Dei is also often defined, Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 10. 11. Zanchius, Op. II 90.

But infinitas can also be understood in this sense, that God is infinite in his virtues, that every virtue [128] is present in Him in an absolute way; then infinitas is as much as perfectio, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 7. But even then the infinity of God must be well understood. The infinity of God is no infinitas magnitudinis, as one sometimes speaks of the infinite or endless size of the world, for God is not a body and has no extension. It is also no infinitas multitudinis, as mathematics speaks of infinitely small and

infinitely great, for God is one and simple. But it is an infinitas essentiae.

God is infinite according to his essence, absolutely perfect, infinite in an intensive, qualitative, positive sense. But thus the infinity of God entirely coincides with perfection, and it does not need to be discussed separately.

Infinity in the sense of not being determined by time is the eternity of God. In Scripture there is nowhere any mention of a beginning or an end of God's existence. Although He is often very vividly represented as entering into time, He is nevertheless exalted above it. He is the First and the Last,

Jes. 41:4, Op. 1:8, existing before the world, Gen. 1:1, Joh. 1:1, 17:5, 24, and remaining despite all change, Ps. 102:27, 28. He is God from eternity to eternity, Ps. 90:2, 93:2. There is no searching out of the number of his years, Job 36:26. A thousand years are for Him as little as for us the day of yesterday, Ps. 90:4, 2 Petr. 3:8. He is the eternal God, Jes. 40:28, Rom.

16:26, dwelling in eternity, Jes. 57:15, living for ever, Deut. 32:40, Op.

10:6, 15:7, who swears by his life, Num. 14:21, 28, the θεος ζων και μενων, 1 Petr. 1:23, incorruptible, Rom. 1:23, immortal, 1 Tim. 6:16, who is and was and shall be, Ex. 3:14, Op. 1:4, 8. Most certainly Scripture here too speaks of God in a human way, and of eternity in the forms of time, but it nevertheless at the same time clearly indicates that God is exalted above time and is not to be measured or determined by this standard. The deism of earlier and later times, however, understands by eternity a time endlessly extended forward and backward; the difference between time and eternity lies only in quantity, not in quality; it is gradual, not essential. The distinction does not lie in this, that in eternity there is no succession of moments, but that it is without beginning and end. Past, present, and future are there not only for man, but are there also for and in [129] God. Thus the Socinians taught, Socinus, Prael. theol. c. 8. Crell, De Deo et ejus attributis

c. 18. Catech. Racov. qu. 60, cf. Fock, Der Socinianismus S. 427 f.; likewise Reinhard, Dogm. S. 106. Wegscheider, Instit. theol. § 63. Dorner,

Glaub. I 132. Ges. Schriften 322 etc. From the other side, eternity and time are likewise mingled by pantheism. God and world here relate as natura naturans and natura naturata, Spinoza, Eth. I prop. 29. Eternity is not essentially distinguished from time, but is the substance, the immanent cause of time, and this is the mode, the accidens of eternity, just as the surge of waves is the form of appearance of the ocean; God himself is dragged down into the stream of time and only in time comes to his full reality,

Spinoza, Cog. Metaph. I c. 4. II c. 1. Hegel, Encycl. der philos. Wiss. § 257 f. Hartmann, Philos. des Unbew. I9 S. 281 f. 298 f. Biedermann, Dogm. II 518 f. Strauss expressed it clearly in his Glaub. I 562: Ewigkeit und Zeit verhalten sich wie die Substanz und ihre Accidentien. And Schleiermacher cautiously defined the eternity of God as seine mit allem Zeitlichen auch die Zeit selbst bedingende schlechthin zeitlose Ursächlichkeit Gottes. Now

Christian theology, with respect to this perfection of God as well, has to avoid both deism and pantheism. Naturally the distinction between eternity and time also lies in the fact that the latter has a beginning and end or at least can have them and the former does not. But the whole difference is nevertheless not exhausted in that. There are three notae of the concept of eternity, namely that it excludes principium, finem and also successionem.

God is ἀγεννητος, ἀφθαρτος but also immutabilis, Petavius, de Deo III c. 3

§ 6. There is between eternity and time a distinction not only in quantity and degree, but also in quality and essence. For indeed, already Aristotle observed that time was indeed not one but nevertheless stood in the closest connection with motion, with becoming, i.e. with the transition from potentia to actus, although he thought that a motion in the world without

beginning was conceivable. Augustine expressed this in another way thus, that there is time only where the present becomes past, and the future becomes present. Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio; fidenter tamen dico, scire me. Quod si nihil praeteriret, non esset praeteritum [130] tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non esset praesens tempus, Conf.

XI 14. Time is not a substance alongside others, no real quid, but a mode of existence of things. If there were no creatures, there would be no time. Time began a creatura, much more than creatura coepit a tempore, Aug., de Gen. ad litt. V 5, de civ. XI, 6. On the other hand, time is also not merely a subjective form of perception, as Kant thought, Kr. d. r. V. 81 f. Indeed, truth also lies here, and Augustine reasoned that there is indeed, in order to measure and calculate time, need of a thinking spirit, which holds fast the past by memory, stands in the present, and expects the future, and which insofar measures the times in itself, Conf. XI, 23-28. Thereby, however,

Augustine did not deny that there would be no measurable and divisible motion of things if there were no thinking spirit that counted and measured it. But a distinction must be made between external and internal time, tempus extrinsecum and intrinsecum. By external time we understand the standard by which we measure motion. This is in a certain sense accidental and arbitrary. We derive it from the motion of the heavenly bodies, which is constant and known to all men, Gen. 1:14 v. This time will once cease, Op.

10:6, 21:23 v. But something else is the case with internal time. This is that mode of existence of things by which they have a past, present, and future and thus parts, which, by whatever standard, can be measured or counted.

Now what can be measured or counted is subject to measure and number and thereby bounded; for there is always still a measure and number greater

than what is measured or counted. The essence of time therefore does not lie in this, that it is a parte ante and a parte post finite or endless, but in this that it contains succession of moments, that there is an earlier, a now, and a later in it. But from that it follows that time, tempus intrinsecum, is the mode of existence of all that is created, and is essentially proper to all finite being. Whoever says time, says motion, change, measurability, countability, boundedness, finitude, creature. Time is the duration of creaturely being; tempus est mensura motus in re mobili. But therefore no time can fall in God. He is who He is from eternity to eternity. There is in Him no change nor shadow of turning. He is not a becoming but an eternal being. [131] He has no beginning and no end, but also no earlier and later. He cannot be measured nor counted in his duration. A thousand years are for Him as one day. He is the eternal ἐγω εἰμι, Joh. 8:58. The eternity of God is therefore rather to be thought of as an eternal present, without past or future. Omne praesens est apud Deum. Hodiernus tuus (dies est) aeternitas. Aeternitas ipsa Dei substantia est, quae nihil habet mutabile, Aug. Conf. XI 10-13. de vera relig. c. 49. Boethius defined the eternity of God by this, that He interminabilis vitae plenitudinem totam pariter comprehendit ac possidet, de cons. philos. V, and Thomas as interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio, S. Theol. I qu. 10 art. 1. And thus all theologians speak, Tertull. adv. Marc. I 8. Greg. Nyss. adv. Eunomium I. Greg. Naz. orat. 38, 11.

Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 5 § 4. Anselmus, Monol. c. 18-24. Prosl. c. 18.

Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 8, 2. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 10. Petavius, de Deo III c. 3-6. Gerhard, Loci II c. 8. Zanchius, Op. II 73-77. Alting, Theol. problem. loc. 3 probl. 20 etc. Yet the eternity of God may therefore not be thought of as an eternally standing still, immovable moment of time. But it is one with God's essence, and thus a fullness of being. God is not only

eternal, but He himself is sua aeternitas, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu 10 art. 2. It has its analogy not in the contentless being of man, for whom through idleness or boredom, through pain or anxiety the minutes stretch into hours and the days do not go but creep, but rather in the rich, full life of that man, for whom through labor and enjoyment time as it were does not exist, and the hours and days fly by. Therefore there is truth in the assertion that in hell there is no eternity, but only time, Thomas, S. Theol. I. qu. 10 art. 3 ad

3, and that a creature the more loses the imperfect in time and approaches eternity, as it is akin to God and is his image, ib art. 4 and 5. Therefore the eternity of God also does not stand abstract and transcendent above time, but is present and immanent in every moment of time. There is an essential distinction between eternity and time, but there is nevertheless also analogy and kinship, so that the former can dwell and work in the latter. Time was created with the things, it has no origin in itself; an eternal time, a time without beginning, is inconceivable. God, the eternal, is the only absolute cause of time. But [132] that time also has no subsistence in itself, it is a continual becoming and must rest in an unchangeable being. It is God who with his eternal power bears time in its entirety and in every moment. God permeates time and every moment of time with his eternity. In every second the pulsebeat of eternity beats. God therefore stands in relation to time. He enters with his eternity into time. Time is also objective for Him. He knows in his eternal consciousness the whole of time and the succession of all its moments. He himself thereby does not become temporal, not subjected to time, measure, number; He remains eternal and dwells in eternity. But He uses time, in order therein to bring his eternal thoughts and virtues to revelation; He makes time subservient to eternity and thus proves himself to be the βασιλευς των αἰωνων, Rex seculorum, 1 Tim. 1:17.

4. Infinity, as not being limited by space, is the omnipresence of God.

This too is described in Holy Scripture in a very vivid manner. God is the Creator, and all that exists is and remains his in an absolute sense. He is the Lord, the Possessor of heaven and earth, Gen. 14:19, 22, Deut. 10:14, and is exalted above all creature, also above place and space. Heaven and earth do not contain Him, much less an earthly temple, 1 Kon. 8:27, 2 Chron. 2:6,

Jes. 66:1, Hd. 7:48. Yet He is also not shut out by space. He fills heaven and earth; no one can hide himself from his face; He is a God from afar and from near, Jer. 23:23, 24, Ps. 139:7-10, Hd. 17:27, ἐν αὐτῳ γαρ ζωμεν και κιυουμεθα και ἐσμεν, Hd. 17:28. Indeed, He is present in different places of creation in different degree and manner. The whole of Scripture proceeds from the thought that heaven, which nevertheless is also created, since its existence is in a special sense God's dwelling and throne, Deut. 26:15, 2

Sam. 22:7, 1 Kon. 8:32, Ps. 11:4, 33:13, 115:3, 16, Jes. 63:15, Mt. 5:34, 6:9, Joh. 14:2, Ef. 1:20, Hebr. 1:3, Op. 4:1 v. etc. But from there He descends,

Gen. 11:5, 7, 18:21, Es. 3:8, walks in the garden, Gen. 3:8, appears repeatedly and in definite places, Gen. 12, 15, 18, 19, etc., comes down especially to his people on Mount Sinai, Ex. 19:9, 11, 18, 20, Deut. 33:2,

Richt. 5:4. While He lets the Gentiles walk [133] in their ways, Hd. 14:16, He dwells in a special manner among his people Israel, Ex. 19:6, 25:8,

Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 26:19, Jer. 11:4, Ezech. 11:20, 37:27, in the land of Canaan, Richt. 11:24, 1 Sam. 26:19, 2 Sam. 14:16, 2 Kon. 1:3, 16, 5:17, in Jerusalem, Ex. 20:24, Deut. 12:11, 14:23 etc., 2 Kon. 21:7, 1 Chron. 23:25,

2 Chr. 6:6, Ezra 1:3, 5:16, 7:15, Ps. 135:21, Jes. 24:23, Jer. 3:17, Joël 3:16 etc., Mt. 5:34, Op. 21:10, in the tabernacle and in the temple on Zion, which is called his house, Ex. 40:34, 35, 1 Kon. 8:10, 11:2, 2 Chr. 5:14, Ps. 9:12,

Jes. 8:18, Mt. 23:21, above the ark between cherubim, 1 Sam. 4:4, 2 Sam.

6:2, 2 Kon. 19:15, 1 Chron. 13:6, Ps. 80:2, 99:1, Jes. 37:16. But the prophets repeatedly warn against a fleshly trust in this dwelling of God in the midst of Israel, Jes. 48:1, 2, Jer. 3:16, 7:4, 14, 27:16. For the Lord is far from the ungodly, Ps. 11:5, 37:10 v., 50:16 v., 145:20, but his face beholds the upright, Ps. 11:7. He dwells with him who is of a broken and humble spirit, Jes. 57:15, Ps. 51:19. When Israel forsakes Him, then He returns to them in Christ, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, Col.

2:9. Through Him and through the Spirit whom He sends, He dwells in the congregation as in his temple. Joh. 14:23, Rom. 8:9, 11, 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19,

Ef. 2:21, 3:17, until He shall one day dwell with his people and shall be all in all, 1 Cor. 15:28, Op. 21:3. In polytheism, gnosticism and manichaeism this omnipresence of God could not be acknowledged. But also in the Christian church there were many who indeed wanted to know of an omnipraesentia of God's power but not of his essence. The anthropomorphites could not think of God without a definite form and place. In order to preserve God from mixture with material substance and the impurity of the world, some church fathers, over against the Stoa, went so far as to assert that God πορρω κατ' οἰσιαν, ἐγγυτατω δε δυναμει was,

Clemens Alex. Strom. II c. 2, that He dwelt in heaven, like the human spirit in the head, Lactantius, de opif. Dei c. 16. Inst. div. VIII 3. But by this they nevertheless did not deny the essential presence of God in every place. Only later was this decisively denied and contested by Augustinus Steuchus, bishop of Eugubium † 1550 in his commentary on Ps. 138 and further by [134] Crell, de Deo ejusque attributis c. 27, who assumed indeed an omnipraesentia operativa but not essentialis and restricted this latter to heaven. Remonstrantism expressed itself cautiously, called the question of less importance and preferably refrained from decision just as with the

eternity of God, Episcopius, Inst. theol. IV, 2, 13. Limborch, Theol. Christ.

II, 6. Coccejus too was accused that under the omnipresence of God he understood only the efficacissima Dei voluntas omnia sustentans ac gubernans, but defended himself against that in a couple of letters to Anslar and Alting, Opera VIII p. 137 sq. epist. 169, 170, 176. The Cartesians said that God was omnipresent not by extension of his essence but by a simple act of his thinking or by a powerful act of his will, which were one with his essence, and denied that an ubi could be ascribed to God, Burmannus,

Synopsis I, 26, 6. Wittichius, Theol. pacifica c. 14. Rationalism went still further, which restricted God's essential presence to heaven and deistically separated Him from the world, Reinhard, Vorles. S. 106, 120. Wegscheider,

Instit. § 63. Deism came to this restriction of the omnipresence of God out of fear of the pantheistic mixing of God and world and of the defilement of the Divine essence with the moral and material impurity of created things.

Indeed that fear is also not imaginary. The Stoa already taught that the Godhead as fire, aether, air, breath penetrates all things, also the bad and the ugly, Zeller IV 138. Spinoza spoke of the substantia as corporea, Eth. I prop. 15, called God a res extensa, ib. II prop. 2 and taught a presence of God that coincides with the being of the world, Cog. metaph. II c. 3. With Hegel, Werke XI 268 God's omnipresence is identical with his absolute substantiality. On this line also lies the definition of the omnipresence of God by Schleiermacher as die mit allem Räumlichen auch den Raum bedingende schlechthin raumlose Ursächlichkeit Gottes, Gl. § 53. Likewise

Biedermann says, Chr. Dogm. § 702, that the pure In-sich-sein Gottes is pure antithesis of all space and place and insofar transcendent, but that God as ground of the world is immanent to it and that this Grundsein is his being itself, cf. also Scholten, Initia p. 124.

Christian theology has here too once again avoided deism [135] and pantheism. For Scripture taught clearly that God is exalted above space and place and therefore cannot be determined or enclosed, 1 Kon. 8:27, 2

Chron. 2:6, Jer. 23:24. Even where Scripture speaks in human fashion and, in order to give us a conception of the being of God, as it were enlarges space infinitely, Jes. 66:1, Ps. 139:7, Am. 9:2, Hd. 17:24, the thought nevertheless lies at the foundation of this, that God stands outside all bounds of space. There is then also, just as between eternity and time, so between the immensitas Dei and space an essential distinction. Space or place was defined by Aristotle as the immovable boundary of something surrounding or enclosing, το του περιεχονυος περας ἀκινητον, Phys. IV c.

5. This definition, however, proceeds from an overly external concept of space. For very certainly space is the distance of a particular object to other fixed points. But even if we were to think only one single simple object, space and place would nevertheless belong to it on account of the relation to imaginary points, which we could assume in thought. Space and place is therefore a property of all finite being and is, with the finite as such, given of itself. A finite being exists of itself in space. Its limitedness brings with it the concept of a ubi. It is always somewhere and not at the same time in another place. Abstracted from all measurable distance to other points

(locus extrinsecus), a locus intrinsecus is proper to all creatures. Spiritual beings too are not excepted from this. In another dispensation the distances can be wholly different than we know them here on earth, just as now steam and electricity have already brought about a great change in this for our perception. But limited, local being remains proper to all creatures. Space is therefore not a form of perception, as Kant asserted, but a mode of existence of all that is created. And still much less correct is it, that space

would be a form of external, time a form of internal perception, and thus the representation of space would apply only to the bodily and that of time only to the spiritual world. Both, time and space, are inner modes of existence of all finite being. But from that it follows, that just as time, so also space cannot apply to God, the Infinite. He is transcendent, exalted above all space. Already Philo and Plotinus [136] spoke in this sense, Zeller, V 354,

483, and Christian theology likewise said that God παντα χωρων, μονος δε ἀχωρητος was, Hermas, Pastor mand. 1. Iren., adv. haer. II 1. IV 19.

Clemens Alex. Strom. VII c. 7. Orig., c. Cels. VII 34. Athanasius, de decr.

Nic. Syn. c. 11. Greg. Naz. Orat. 34. Damascenus, de fide orthod. I 9.

Augustine formerly thought in his Manichaean period that God, like a fine ether, was spread through the whole world and through endless space, Conf.

VII 1. But later he saw it differently. God is exalted above all space and place. He is not somewhere and yet He fills heaven and earth; He is not spread through space like the light and the air, but He is at all places with His whole being, ubique totus and nusquam locorum, Conf. VI 3. de civ.

VII 30. He is enclosed by no space or place; and therefore it would be better to say that all things are in Him than that He is in the things. But yet this too is again not to be understood as if He were the space in which the things were located, for He is no locus. Just as the soul tota in toto corpore et in qualibet parte is, just as the one and the same truth is known everywhere, so by way of comparison God is in all things and all things in God, Enarr. in Ps. 74. And these thoughts of Augustine later return with all theologians,

Anselmus, Monol. c. 20-23. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 36 en 37. Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 8. S. c. Gent. III, 68. Sent. I dist. 37. Bonaventura, Sent. I dist.

37. And Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians have added nothing essentially new to it. Petavius, de Deo III c. 7-10. Gerhard, Loci I c. 8 sect.

8. Polanus, Synt. II c. 12. Zanchius, Op. II col. 90-138 enz. Indeed, of God too no space and place can be predicated. Space is a form of existence of finite being; the immensitas is a property of God alone and proper to no single creature, not even to the human nature of Christ. It contains, first of all, that God is outside all space and place, and infinitely exalted above it.

Deus sibi ipsi locus, αὐτος ἑαυτου τοπος, Tert. adv. Prax. c. 5. Theophilus, ad Autol. II, 10. Damasc. de fide orthod. I 13. He is in Himself, in se ipso ubique totus. In this sense God can just as well be said to be nowhere as somewhere (Philo, Plotinus). For a ubi, a locus does not apply to Him. The omnipresence of God expresses not only and even [137] not in the first place this being of God in Himself, but indicates especially a certain relation of God to space, which has been created with the world. Here too we can speak of God only on the ground of creation. Scripture even speaks of a going, coming, walking, descending of God. It speaks in human fashion and we too do not get beyond that. Difficile invenitur ubi sit, difficilius ubi non sit, August. de quant. an. c. 34. Therefore it is not useless, cf. e.g. Lipsius Dogm. § 306. Hoekstra, Wijsg. Godsd. II 121-128, to remind ourselves with every attribute that we thus speak humanly of God.

Precisely the awareness that God is measured by no time or space, even if this is purely negative, preserves us from robbing God of His exaltation above all creature. In the negation there nevertheless lies again a strong position. The relation of God to space cannot consist in this, that He is in space and is enclosed by it, as Uranos and Kronos were powers above Zeus.

For God is no creature. Si in aliquo loco esset, non esset Deus, August.

Enarr. in Ps. 74. Not only is He no body, which extends itself through space and is circumscriptive in space, but He is also no finite, created spirit, which is always bound to a ubi and thus is definitive in space. Nor can the

relation be of such a nature that space is within Him and is enclosed by Him as the greater, infinite space, as some formerly did call God τοπος των ὁλων, and Weisse, Philos. Dogm. I § 492 f. speaks of infinite space as immanent to God. For space is by nature a form of existence of the finite creature and does not apply to God, the Infinite. But God is in space in such a way that He, as the Infinite existing in Himself, nevertheless repletively fills and upholds every point of space by His immensitas. Indeed pantheism is to be avoided here, which makes God's being into the substance of things and thereby also makes the divine being spatial. But equally deism is to be resisted, which lets God be omnipresent per potentiam but not per essentiam et naturam. There is essential distinction, but no separation between God and the creature. For every part of being and every point of space, in order to exist, needs nothing less than His immensitas. The deistic representation as if God dwells in a particular place and from there now governs all things by His [138] omnipotence, is in conflict with the being of God. It actually denies all His virtues, His simplicity, His immutability, His independence; it makes God into a man and creation independent. Not like a king in his realm or a captain on his ship is God present in His creation.

His activity is no actio in distans. But He is, as Gregory the Great expressed it, present in all things, per essentiam, praesentiam et potentiam; enter, praesenter Deus hic et ubique potenter, His omnipresence is ἀδιαστασια, adessentia. He is in hell just as well as in heaven; in the godless as well as in the pious; in the places of uncleanness and of darkness just as well as in the halls of light. For He is not defiled by that uncleanness, because His essentia, although omnipresent, is nevertheless another than that of the creatures. Therefore Anselm said that it was actually better to say that God was cum tempore et loco than in tempore et loco, Monol. c. 22. Yet this

does not take away that God in another sense is again present in the creatures in different ways. There is a distinction between His physical and His ethical immanence. People too can in a natural sense be right next to one another and yet in sympathy and direction of spirit differ from one another by a world's breadth, Mt. 24:40, 41. The soul is present in the whole body and in all parts, but in each of them in its own way, in the head differently than in the heart, and in the hand differently than in the foot.

Haec autem facit atque agit unus verus Deus; sed sicut idem Deus, ubique totus, nullis inclusus locis, nullis vinculis alligatus, in nullas partes sectilis, ex nulla parte mutabilis, implens coelum et terram praesente potentia, non indigente natura. Sic itaque administrat omnia quae creavit, ut etiam ipsa proprios exercere et agere motus sinat. Quamvis enim nihil esse possit sine ipso, non tamen sunt ulla quod ipse, Aug. de civ. VII, 30. God's immanence is no unconscious emanation, but a conscious praesentie of His being in all creatures. And therefore that presence of God differs according to the nature of those creatures. Certainly every being, even the smallest and least, arises and exists only by divine power. There is nothing less than the being of God needed, to grant the smallest creature arising and subsistence. God dwells in all creatures but not in all [139] aequaliter, August. Epist. 187 c. 5 n. 16.

Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 37 pars 1 art. 3 qu. 1-2. All things are indeed in eo but not cum eo, Lomb. Sent. I dist. 37. God dwells in heaven differently than on earth, in the animals differently than in human beings, in the inanimate creatures differently than in the animate, in the godless differently than in the pious, in Christ differently than in the church. The creatures are different, according as God dwells in them in a different way.

Nature and being of the creatures is determined by their relation to God.

Therefore they all reveal God, but in different measure and according to

different sides. With the pure You keep Yourself pure, but with the perverse You show Yourself a wrestler, Ps. 18:27. In all creatures God is present per essentiam, but in no one except only in Christ does the fullness of the Godhead dwell bodily. In Christ He dwells in an entirely unique way, per unionem. In other creatures He dwells according to the measure of their being, in these per naturam, in others per justitiam, in others per gratiam, in others per gloriam. There is endless diversity, so that they all together would reveal the glory of God. It helps little, whether we deny this omnipresence of God. He makes us feel it in heart and conscience. He is not far from each one of us. What separates us from Him is only sin. It removes us not locally, but spiritually from God, Jes. 59:2. To forsake God, to flee from Him, as Cain did, does not consist in local separation but in spiritual unlikeness. Non loco quisque longe est a Deo, sed dissimilitudine, Aug.

Enarr. in Ps. 94. And conversely, to go to Him, to seek His face, does not consist in a pilgrimage but in humiliation and repentance. And whoever seeks Him, finds Him, not far away, but in His immediate nearness. For in Him we live, move, and are. Propinquare illi, est similem illi fieri; recedere ab illo, dissimilem illi fieri, Aug. Enarr. in Ps. 34. Noli ergo cogitare Deum in locis; ille tecum est talis, qualis fueris. Quid est talis, qualis fueris?

Bonus, si bonus fueris; et malus tibi videtur, si malus fueris; sed opitulator, si bonus fueris; ultor, si malus fueris. Ibi habes judicem in secreto tuo.

Volens facere aliquid mali, de publico recipis te in domum tuam, ubi nemo inimicorum videat; de locis domus tuae promtis et in faciem constitutis, removis te in cubiculum; times et in cubiculo aliunde conscium, secedis in [140] cor tuum, ibi meditaris: ille in corde tuo interior est. Quocumque ergo fugeris, ibi est. Te ipsum quo fugies? Nonne quocumque fugeris, te sequeris? Quando autem et te ipso interior est, non est quo fugias a Deo

irato nisi ad Deum placatum. Prorsus non est quo fugias. Vis fugere ab ipso? Fuge ad ipsum, Aug. Enarr. in Ps. 74.

B. God as Spirit.

5. This being, however, is not to be conceived in God as an abstract being without content, but as a rich, full, Divine life. Holy Scripture, in order to indicate the fullness of the life of God, makes use not only of adjectives but also of substantives and calls God truth, righteousness, life, light, love, wisdom, Jer. 10:10, 23:6, Joh. 1:4, 5, 9, 1 Cor. 1:30, 1 Joh. 1:5, 4:8. And theology treated this doctrine under the name of the simplicitas Dei. With Irenaeus, adv. haer. I 12. II 13. 28. IV 4, God is called totus cogitatus, totus sensus, totus oculus, totus auditus, totus fons omnium bonorum, cf.

Clemens, Strom. V 12. Orig. de princ. I 1, 6. Athanasius, de decr. Nic. syn. c. 22. c. Ar. II 38. The three Cappadocians, over against Eunomius, had especially to maintain the right of the different Divine names. But Augustine returned again and again to the simplicitas Dei. God is pure essentia, without accidens, de trin. V 4. Compared with Him all created being is a non-being, de trin. VII, 5 Enarr. in Ps. 134. Conf. VII, 11. XI, 4.

In creatures there is a difference between being, living, knowing, willing; there is a difference of degree among them; there are creatures that only are, others that also live, still others that also think. But in God all that is one, de civ. VIII, 6, de trin. XV, 5. God is all that He has, de civ. X, 10. He is his own wisdom, his own life. Being and life are one in Him, cf. above 88 v. 92 v. and Gangauf, Des h. Aug. specul. Lehre von Gott dem Dreieinigen 1883

S. 147-157. And furthermore we find them with Damascenus, de fide orth. I

9, who adduces different proofs for this doctrine, with Anselmus, Monol. c.

15, Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 8 n. 4-9, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 3, who in art.

3 expresses it briefly thus, Deus est Deitas, Id. S. c. Gent. I c. 16 sq.

Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 8 art. 3 and further [141] with all Roman Catholic, Luth. and Ref. theologians, Petavius, de Deo Lib. II c. 1-8. Theol.

Wirceb. III p. 64. Perrone, Prael. theol. II 92 sq. Jansen, Prael. theol. dogm.

II 60 sq. Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit I 183 f. Philos. der Vorzeit II 742 f.

Gerhard, Loci theol. Loc. 2 cap. 8 sect. 3. Baier, Comp. theol. posit. I c. 1 § 9. Buddeus, Inst. theol. II c. 1 § 17. Hyperius, Meth. theol. p. 88, 89.

Zanchius, Op. II 63-73. Polanus, Synt. theol. lib. 2 c. 8. Trigland, Antapologia cap. 4. Voetius, Disp. I 226-246. H. Alting, Theol. Elenct. p.

119 sq. Moor I p. 604-618. L. Meijer, treatise on the Div. attributes IV 517552 etc. On the other hand, this simplicity of God was opposed from various sides. Eunomius did indeed teach the absolute simplicity of God, but concluded from it that all names of God were only sounds and that the essence of God coincided with the ἀγεννησια. This one property made all others superfluous and useless, Schwane, D. G. II2 21. The anthropomorphites of earlier and later times opposed the simplicity of God, because they ascribe a body to God. The Arabic sages taught the simplicity of God, but thereby opposed the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, because the three persons were denominationes additae super substantiam, Stöckl

Gesch. der Philos. des M. A. II 89. Duns Scotus came into contradiction with the simplicity of God, which he otherwise expressly teaches, Sent. I dist. 8 qu. 1-2, insofar as he assumed that the attributes were formaliter distinct from one another and from God's essence, ib. qu. 4. Nominalism went still much further and assumed a real distinction of the attributes. In the century of the Reformation this track was followed by the Socinians.

These came to it, in the interest of the independence of man, to limit the Divine essence and thus knew no way with the simplicity of God. Socinus doubted whether simplicity could be ascribed to God according to Scripture. The catechism of Rakow omits it entirely. Schlichting, Volkelius and others denied that the attributes were one with God's essence, and asserted that a fullness of attributes was not in conflict with his unity,

Hoornbeek, Socin. conf. I p. 368-369. Vorstius agreed with this and said, especially on the ground of the doctrine of the Trinity, that in God a distinction must be made between materia and forma, essence and attributes, genus and differentiae. Scripture therefore also says that God swears by his [142] soul, Jer. 51:14, that the Spirit is in Him, 1 Cor. 2:11.

There is a distinction between knowing and willing, between the subject that lives and the life by which he lives, cf. Trigland, Kerk. Gesch. IV 576,

585 v. Schweizer in de Theol. Jahrb. 1856 S. 435 f. 1857 S. 153 f. Dorner, Gesammelte Schriften 1883 S. 278 f. The Remonstrants were of the same opinion. In their Apol. Conf. cap. 2 they said that of the simplicitas Dei not a jot stood in Scripture, that it was purely metaphysical doctrine and absolutely not necessary to believe. As an objection it was especially urged that with the simplicity of God the freedom of his will and the change of his disposition could not be reconciled. Episcopius still included the simplicitas

Dei among the attributa, and thought that the relationes, the volitiones and decreta libera could indeed be united with it, Instit. Theol. Lib. 4 sect. 2 cap.

7, but Limborch no longer mentioned this property. With rationalism it receded entirely into the background, or even remained undiscussed,

Wegscheider, Inst. Theol. § 61. Reinhard Dogm. § 33. Bretschneider, Handb. der Dogm. I4 486. The latter says that Scripture does not know these subtleties of philosophy. Pantheism too could not recognize or

appreciate the doctrine of the simplicity of God. It identified God and world and, by the mouth of Spinoza, even ascribed to God the property of extension. Thus the simplicitas Dei has almost entirely disappeared from more recent theology; its significance is not seen; sometimes it is strongly opposed. Schleiermacher did not place the simplicity of God on one line with the other attributes and held it only for das ungetrennte und untrennbare Ineinandersein aller göttlichen Eigenschaften und Thätigkeiten,

Chr. Gl. § 56. With Lange, Kahnis, Philippi, Ebrard, Lipsius, Biedermann, F. A. B. Nitzsch, Oosterzee and others this property is no longer mentioned.

By Vilmar, Dogm. I 208 f. Dorner, Glaub. I 221 f. Id. Gesammelte Schriften S. 305. Frank, Syst. de chr. Wahrh. I2 124. Ritschl, Theol. u. Metaph. S. 12 f. Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 S. 2 f. Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1865 S. 275 f. 1868

S. 67 f. S. 251 f. Doedes Ned. Geloofsbel. bl. 9 it is strongly opposed, especially on these two grounds, that it is a metaphysical abstraction and conflicts with the doctrine of the Trinity, cf. against that Schweizer, Chr. Gl.

I 256-259. Shedd, Dogm. Theol. I 338. Kuyper, Ex ungue leonem 1882.

Yet this simplicitas Dei is of the greatest significance for the knowledge of God. Not only is it taught in Scripture where God is called light, life, love, etc., but it also flows from the idea of God itself and is necessarily given with the other attributes. Simple here is the opposite of composite. If God is composite of parts, like a body, or also of genus and differentia, substantia and accidentia, materia and forma, potentia and actus, essentia and existentia, then his perfection, his unity, his independence, his immutability cannot be maintained. For then He is not the highest love, because something other than in Him is the subject that loves and something other the love by which He loves, and so with respect to all the other attributes. God then is not the one, quo melius nihil cogitari potest.

But God is of himself and has nothing above himself; He is therefore completely one with wisdom, with grace, with love, etc.; He is absolutely perfect, something higher than God cannot be thought, August. de trin. V 10

VI 1. Hugo a St. Victor, de trin. I 12. With creatures all that is different.

Here there is a distinction between existence, essence, life, knowing, willing, acting, etc., omne quod compositum est creatum est, no creature can be absolutely simplex, for every creature is finite. But God is the infinite, and all that is in Him is infinite. All his attributes are divine and therefore infinite, one with his essence. Therefore He is and can also alone be sufficient, supremely blessed and supremely glorious in himself,

Petavius, de Deo lib. II 2. From this it already appears that this simplicity of God is absolutely no metaphysical abstraction. It is essentially distinct from the philosophical idea of το ὀν, το ἑν, το μοναχον, το ἁπλουν or of the substance, of the absolute, etc., with which Xenophanes, Plato, Philo,

Plotinus and later Spinoza and Hegel designate God. It is not found by abstraction, by going out above all oppositions and distinctions in creatures, and by defining the idea of God as the being elevated above all oppositions.

But rather one has arrived at this attribute by positing all perfections of creatures in God in a perfect, divine way. The definition of God as simplicissima essentia indicates that He is the perfect, infinitely-full being, that He is an infinite and unbounded πελαγος οὐσιας. And far from promoting pantheism, as Baur, chr. Lehre van d. Dreiein. Gottes [144] II 635 thinks, this doctrine of the simplicissima essentia Dei stands directly opposite to it. For in pantheism God has no own existence and life outside of and without the world. With Hegel, for example, the absolute, pure being, thinking, the idea exists not before, but only logically and potentially earlier than the world. All the determinations of the absolute being are

without content, being is nothing but abstract, logical forms of thought, Drews, Die deutsche Spekulation I 249. But the definition of God as simplicissima essentia in Christian theology maintains precisely that God has an own, infinite, supremely blessed life in himself, even if it is also the case that we can only designate that essence of God with names borrowed from creatures. The substance, the highest being, the absolute, etc., with which pantheistic philosophy by preference names the divine essence, is obtained by abstraction; one proceeded to think away everything from things until one retained nothing but the last, most general concept, namely pure being, naked existence. This being is indeed an abstractum, a concept, to which no reality corresponds and that may not be further determined.

Every further determination would make it finite, make it into something particular and thus destroy the generality. Omnis determinatio est negatio.

But the being that in theology is ascribed to God is an own, particular being, distinct from the world. It designates God, not as a being of which we can think absolutely nothing except that it is, but as a being in which everything is essence, as the absolute fullness of being. This simple essence therefore does not exclude the many names, as Eunomius asserted, but requires them. God is so rich that we cannot obtain any conception of his richness except with many names. Each name names the same full, divine essence, but each time from another side, according to which it reveals itself to us in his works. God is therefore simplex in his multiplicitas and multiplex in his simplicitas (Augustinus). Every determination, every name, with which we designate God, is therefore not a negation, but an enrichment of the knowledge of his essence. Divinum esse est determinatum in se et ab omnibus aliis divisum per hoc quod sibi nulla additio fieri potest, Thomas, Sent. I dist. 8 qu. 4 art. 1 ad 1. Kleutgen,

Theol. der Vorzeit I2 204 f. Understood thus, this simplicity of God is also not in conflict with the Trinity. For simple, simplex here does not stand opposite [145] to twoor threefold, duplex, triplex, but opposite to composite, compositus. And now the divine essence is not composed of three persons, nor is each person composed of the essence and the proprietas personalis; but the one same simple essence exists in the three persons, each person or personal property is distinguished from the essence not re but only ratione, each personal property is indeed a relatio realis but nevertheless adds not aliquid reale to the essentia. The personal properties non componunt sed solum distinguunt, Petavius, lib. 2. cap. 3-4. Zanchius,

Op. II col. 68. 69.

6. The simplicity of God includes his spiritual nature, for everything bodily is composite. Scripture does indeed always speak of God in a human way, and ascribes to Him all kinds of bodily organs and activities, but even in this it nevertheless observes a certain limit. Of the internal organs of the human body only heart and bowels are ascribed to Him. Organs of nourishment, digestion, and reproduction are never transferred to Him.

There is indeed in God mention of seeing and hearing, and also of smelling, but not of tasting and touching. A body is nowhere attributed to Him.

Although the O. T. also nowhere says in so many words that God is spirit, yet this conception underlies the whole description of God. God is Jahveh, who descends to his people and reveals himself in a human way, but from the beginning He is also Elohim, who is far exalted above all that is creaturely. He exists of himself, Ex. 3:13, Jes. 41:4, 44:6, is eternal, Deut.

32:40, Ps. 90:1 v., 102:28, omnipresent, Deut. 10:14, Ps. 139:1 v., Jer.

23:23, 24, incomparable, Jes. 40:18, 25, 46:5, Ps. 89:7, 9, invisible, Ex.

33:20, 23, incapable of being imaged, Ex. 20:4, Deut. 5:8, because without

likeness, ‎‏‏ְּתמּוָנה‎, Deut. 4:12, 15. God and human beings stand over against one another as spirit and flesh, Jes. 31:3. Although He reveals himself many times in appearance, dream, vision and in so far makes himself visible, Gen.

32:30, Ex. 24:10, 33:11, Num. 12:8, Deut. 5:24, Judg. 13:22, 1 Kings 22:19, Jes. 6:1, it is nevertheless by his Spirit, and thus in a spiritual way, that He is present in creation and creates and sustains all things, Ps. 139:7, Gen. 2:7,

Job 33:4, Ps. 33:6, 104:30 [146] etc., Oehler, Theol. des A. T. § 46. Schultz, Altt. Theol. 496-504. More clearly the spiritual being of God comes to light in the N. Test. Not only is it evident from this, that God is eternal, Rom.

16:26, 1 Tim. 6:16, 1 Petr. 1:23, Rev. 1:8, 10:6, 15:7, and omnipresent, Acts 27:27, 28, Eph. 4:6, and incomparable, Acts 17:29, Rom. 1:22, 23, but Jesus also expresses it directly, when He calls God πνευμα and therefore demands a spiritual and true worship of God, John 4:24. And indeed this statement is not repeated literally by the apostles, but nevertheless they have the same conception of the being of God, when they call Him invisible, John 1:18, cf.

6:46, Rom. 1:20, Col. 1:15, 1 Tim. 1:17, 6:16, 1 John 4:12, 20; something which does not conflict with the promise of the beholding of God in the status gloriae, Job 19:26, Ps. 17:15, Mt. 5:8, 1 Cor. 13:12, 1 John 3:2, Rev.

22:4. This spiritual being of God has been misunderstood and denied in paganism, Rom. 1:23. Even philosophy has not been able to detach itself from the sensible representations of God. Materialism holds the material atoms to be the ultimate ground of being. Deism finite-izes God and makes

Him in essence like human beings; with Epicurus the gods are a company of reasoning philosophers, with a fine etheric body, and distinguished by sex, Zeller, IV3 433. But pantheism too encroaches upon this spiritual being of God. According to Heraclitus and the Stoa the first cause is to be thought of as material and bodily; God is at the same time the original power, which

in the course of time brings forth everything out of itself and thus also takes it back again into itself, Zeller IV3 133-146. All these directions also worked in the Christian church and down to the present day. With the realistic-eschatological representations, which in the second half of the second century prevailed in a wide circle, the thought of a certain corporeality of God was not far away. Of Tertullian it is not entirely certain whether he ascribed to God a material body. For he does indeed say, quis enim negabit, deum corpus esse, etsi deus spiritus est? spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie, adv. Prax. 7, but he seems to take corpus in the sense of substance, when he says: omne quod est, corpus est sui generis, nihil est incorporale nisi quod non est, de carne 11, and elsewhere speaks just as realistically of the soul, de an. 6. Yet the identification [147] of corpus and substantia is remarkable; it proves that Tertullian could think of no substance except as corpus. And elsewhere he then also says that God is no more free from affects than the human being, even though they are also present in Him in a perfect way. He even goes so far that he wants to take the hands and eyes ascribed to God in Scripture not spiritually but literally, though in a perfect way, adv. Marc. II 16. Tertullian can therefore be called the father of biblical realism. The danger of the spiritualism of the Alexandrian school, obtained by allegorical exegesis, drove many in the direction of anthropomorphism. Melito, bishop of Sardis, according to Origen ascribed a body to God, although it cannot be determined to what extent this report is correct, Herzog2 9, 539. In the fourth century such an anthropomorphism was taught by Audius and his followers, and by many

Egyptian monks, who were especially opposed in the writing attributed to Cyril contra anthropomorphitas. Later this man-shaped representation of God was renewed by Socinianism. Here God is only a Lord, who has power

over us. Of his simple, infinite, independent, spiritual being no mention is made, Socinus, Christ. relig. instit. Catech. Racov. qu. 53. Crell asserted that the word spirit of God, angel and soul was used not aequivoce and analogice but univoce, de Deo et attrib. lib. 1 c. 15. And Vorstius said in the sense of Tertullian, vere corpus Deo attribui, si per corpus vera et solida substantia intelligatur, Dorner, Ges. Schriften 279. Furthermore, theosophy also teaches that God indeed in a certain sense has a body and that therefore the human being also was created bodily after God's image. In the kabbalah the ten sefiroth, that is, the attributes or modes, in which God reveals himself, together bear the name of Adam Kadmon, the first heavenly man, because the human form is the highest and most perfect revelation of God and God is thus represented in Scripture, Franck, La Kabbale 1843 p. 179.

From that there developed among the Christian theosophists, in connection with the doctrine of the Trinity, the representation that God, who is not a resting being, but an eternally becoming life, not only inwardly raises himself from darkness to light, from nature to spirit, but also outwardly surrounds himself with a certain nature, corporeality, glory, heaven, and in that gives form [148] to himself for himself and glorifies himself. Thus we find it with Böhme, cf. Joh. Claassen, Jakob Böhme, Sein Leben und seine theos. Werke, 3 Bde Stuttgart 1885 I S. XXXII, 157 II 61. Oetinger, Die

Theologie aus der Idee des Lebens usw. 1852 S. 109 f. Baader, cf. Joh.

Claassen, Franz v. Baaders Leben und theos. Werke usw. 2 Bde Stuttgart 1887 II 110-112. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol. S. 48 f. Auberlen, Die Philos.

Oetingers 1847 S. 147. Hamberger, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. VIII 1863 S.

448 etc. Finally, even in pantheism the spiritual nature of God does not come into its own. Spinoza ascribed to substance the property of extensio,

Eth. II prop. 1, 2. And in the philosophy of Hegel, Schleiermacher,

Hartmann e. a. the world is an essential moment in the infinite. Ohne Welt ist Gott nicht Gott, Hegel, Werke XI 122. God and world are correlata, they express the same being, first as unity then as totality, Schleiermacher,

Dialektik S. 162. To be sure, this pantheism, and even with a certain predilection, continues to speak of God as Spirit. But what is to be understood by that is difficult to comprehend. Hegel uses the name spirit especially for the last and highest Stufe, which the idea through nature in the human being, specifically in philosophy, reaches. Das Logische wird zur

Natur und die Natur zum Geiste, Werke VII, 2 S. 468. Hegel still seeks the essence of spirit in ideality, in the einfache Insichseyn, in the ikness, ib. S.

14 f. 18 f., but God nevertheless becomes spirit only after a long process through and in the human being. Others have begun to use that word spirit for the last immanent cause of things, without thereby thinking of a proper, distinct existence and of a personal, conscious life. Hartmann designates the unconscious as pure, unconscious, impersonal, absolute spirit, and therefore calls his philosophy spiritualistic monism and panpneumatism, Philos. des

Unbew. II9 457. Philos. Fragen der Gegenwart 1885 S. 61.

Against all these tendencies the Christian church and theology have always held fast to the spiritualitas Dei, Iren. adv. haer. II c. 13. Orig. de princ. I 1, 6. c. Cels. VII 33 sq. VIII 49. Augustine, de trin. XV 5. de civ.

VIII 5. Conf. VI 3 etc. John of Damascus, de fide orthod. I c. 11. II c. 3 etc.

The spiritualitas Dei is often not treated separately, but is brought up under the simplicitas Dei, Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 8, 4 sq. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu.

3. art. 1-2. S. c. Gent. I c. [149] 20. Petavius, de Deo II c. 1. The spiritual being is likewise maintained and defended by Roman Catholic, Luth., and Reformed theologians, Theol. Wirceb. III 27-34. C. Pesch, Prael. dogm. II 68. Gerhard, Loci theol. II c. 8 sect. 1. Forbesius a Corse, Instruct. histor.

theol. lib. 1 c. 36. Mastricht, Theol. theor. pract. II c. 6. Under this spiritualitas Dei it was now understood that God was a proper substance, distinct from the being of the world, and that this substance was immaterial, imperceptible to bodily senses, without composition or extension. Of the nature of such an immaterial substance man can form only some faint notion from the analogy of the spiritual being that he finds in himself. But the being of his own soul is unknown to man in a positive sense; he observes in himself all kinds of psychic phenomena and from these concludes to a spiritual substance as their bearer, but this being of the soul itself escapes his observation. And even then the spiritualitas Dei is of a wholly different and unique kind. The designation spirit for God, angel, and soul is not to be understood univoce and synonymously, but analogice. This is already evident from the fact that the spirit in angels and men is composite, indeed not out of material parts but nevertheless out of substantia and accidentia, out of potentia and actus, and is thus subject to change. In God, however, this composition is no more present than that out of bodily parts; He is pure being. But furthermore it also comes clearly to light in this, that God as πνευμα is not only the Πατηρ των πνευματων,

Hebr. 12:9, but equally the Creator and Father of all visible things. These too have come to be out of things that do not appear before the eyes, Hebr.

11:3, and have their origin in God as πνευμα. God as spiritual being is the author not only of all that among creatures is called πνευμα and ψυχη, but also of all that is called σωμα and σαρξ. And thus the spiritualitas makes known that perfection of God by which He is to be conceived both negatively, in analogy with the spirit of the angels and the soul of man, as immaterial and invisible, and also positively as the hidden, simple, absolute ground of all creaturely, somatic and pneumatic, being. This was also

perceived earlier, and hence some proposed to call even the spirits of the angels and the souls of men still bodies, while God [150] then alone was spirit in an entirely unique sense, cf. Augustine, Epist. 28, or also, to apply to God neither the predicate of corporeality nor that of incorporeality, because He is exalted above both, Petavius, de Deo II c. 1 § 14-16. But this deserves no recommendation, because it promotes misunderstanding and also forgets that, although all knowledge of God is analogical, that analogy nevertheless comes out more clearly in the one group of creatures than in the other, and speaks more strongly in the world of invisible things than in that of visible. Equally incorrect is it on the other side, with Cartesius to place the essence of spirit in cogitatio, de meth. c. 4, and with Cartesian theologians to define the essence of God as res cogitans, Wittichius, Theol. c. 15 § 218, or as perfectissima et purissima intellectio, Burmannus,

Synopsis I 17, 4. For thereby the spiritual nature of God is at once identified with personality, as indeed also happened with Reinhard, Dogm. 111,

Wegscheider, Inst. theol. § 64, and others. Pantheism therefore knew no way with this spiritual nature of God, and made it into a sound without meaning, into a word without reality. It is therefore of importance to maintain the spiritualitas Dei as an indication of his substantia incorporea.

Personality, self-consciousness and self-determination, is thereby not yet given of itself; indeed naturally in God, because He is a simple being; but not in the concept considered in itself. Animal consciousness and the unconscious representations in man prove sufficiently that spiritualitas and personalitas are not identical concepts. That which is expressed in the personalitas comes up later in the doctrine of the scientia and voluntas Dei.

Here, with the spiritualitas, it is a matter of maintaining the spiritual being of God. And this is of such great importance, that upon it rests the whole

manner in which we must serve God. Worship in spirit and truth rests on the spirituality of God. Only thereby is all image-worship in principle and for ever cut off.

7. From this spiritualitas Dei there follows directly his invisibilitas.

Scripture teaches this explicitly, above p. 145 f. And in the Christian church there was therefore little difference of opinion about whether God could be beheld with bodily eyes. Both for this dispensation and for that in glory this was generally [151] denied; only a few, the Audians, the Socinians,

Vorstius, and also some Lutherans, such as Quenstedt, Theol. I 554 sq. 566, Hollaz, Ex. theol. 458, Hulsemann, Majus, Jaeger e. a., accepted it and also appealed to the Reformed Alsted, Theol. schol. 849, Bucanus, Instit. theol.

1648 p. 443; but Gerhard, Loc. XXXI § 144 left it undecided; and Baier, Comp. I c. 6, Buddeus, Inst. theol. II c. 3 § 4 restricted it to the cognitio intellectualis. Moreover, it was taught by all that God as spirit was invisible to bodily senses, Iren. adv. haer. II 6. IV 20. Orig. c. Cels. VII 33 sq.

Augustinus, de civ. XXII 29. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 12 art. 3 ad 3. Martyr, Loci, p. 8, 9. Zanchius, Op. I 225 etc. If there can be talk of a seeing of God, this is possible only with eyes of the soul or of the spirit. In that connection, however, the question could arise whether a beholding of God is possible, directly, without the medium of creatures, face to face? Can

God, as scholasticism said, be seen, ut est in se per essentiam, in substantia vel essentia sua? Now it was generally taught that such a beholding of God per essentiam in any case was possible only in the status gloriae. Here on earth such a seeing of God was attainable for no one. At most this was, by a special grace and only for a moment, permitted to Moses, Ex. 34, Isaiah, c.

6, Paul, 2 Cor. 12, August. Epist. 112, de Gen. ad litt. XII 27. Basil.

Hexaem. hom. 1. Hilarius, de trin. V. But by far the most judged also with

respect to the beholding of God that had fallen to the lot of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, that it had always taken place mediately, through a cloud, in some sign or other, under some form or other, Petavius, de Deo

VII c. 12. In discussion, therefore, in fact only the question was whether in the status gloriae there is a visio Dei per essentiam. Now the church fathers do indeed speak many times of a seeing of God that is laid up for believers in heaven, e.g. Iren. adv. haer. IV 20. Clem. Alex. Strom. V c. 1. Greg. Naz.

Orat. 34. August, de civ. XXII 29, de Gen. ad lit. XII 26, but they do not mention a seeing of God per essentiam. They only say with Scripture that the blessed will see God, not through a mirror, but face to face. And they add that God is invisible, but that he can make himself visible and can reveal himself to [152] man, Iren. ib. In potestate nostra non est eum videre, sed in potestate illius est apparere, Ambrosius, in Petavius, VII c. 7. Others therefore also denied that God per essentiam would be beheld in the hereafter, such as Chrysostom, Gregorius Nyss., Cyrillus Hier.,

Theodoretus, Hieronymus, Isidorus e. a. The Roman theologians are embarrassed by the statements of these patres. Vasquez acknowledged outright: hos patres, si sincere loqui volumus, vix possumus in bonum sensum interpretari. But others try to weaken these statements and to explain them in the sense that they deal with the bodily beholding of God or with the beholding of God in this life or with the absolute knowledge of God, which is also in heaven unattainable and remains so, Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 12 art. 1 ad 1. Sent. IV dist. 49 qu. 1 art. 1 ad 1. Petavius, de Deo VII c. 5. Theol. Wirceb. III p. 82-86. Gradually, however, under the influence of the neoplatonic mysticism that acted upon Pseudodionysius, another conception of the visio Dei arose. It was now conceived as a beholding of God in his being, ut in se est. God no longer descended to

man, but man was raised up to God by a supernatural gift and thus deified.

Greg. Magnus, Moral. l. 18 c. 28 already said that God will be seen not only in his glory but also in his nature, for ipsa ei natura sua claritas, ipsa claritas natura est. Prosper, de vita contempl. 1 c. 4 spoke of the blessed as sui creatoris substantiam mundis cordibus contemplantes. Bernardus, serm. 4 in festum omnium sanctorum, says that God will be seen in all his creatures, but that the trinitas will also be seen in semetipsa. And the council at Florence declared that souls in coelum mox recipi et intueri clare ipsum

Deum trinum et unum sicuti est, pro meritorum tamen diversitate alium alio perfectius, cf. Denzinger, Enchir. symb. et defin. n. 403, 456, 588, 870, 875.

Scholasticism found here ample material for all kinds of speculation and also made ample use of it. In connection with the doctrine of the dona superaddita it was taught that man with his natural gifts was not capable of this beholding of God, but that a divinum auxilium was necessary for it, which supplemented, elevated, and completed the natural gifts. That supernatural help was usually designated by the name of lumen gloriae. But there arose great difference about the nature of this lumen, whether it was objective or [153] subjective, whether it was the Word or the Spirit, a gift of the H. Spirit or this himself, although it was also mostly assumed that it was aliquid creatum, intellectui datum in ratione habitus. Moreover, it became the general doctrine that God in his being was the object of the beholding, and that the blessed therefore saw in God everything that cannot be separated from his being, thus both the attributes and the persons. But the Thomists asserted that the being could not be beheld without the persons and the one attribute not without the other, while the nominalists and Scotists maintained the opposite. Further, according to everyone's opinion,

God himself and all that was formaliter in him, i.e. belonged to his being,

was the object of the beholding; but there was again difference whether to that also belonged that which was eminenter in him, i.e. what is called into existence by God in accordance with his decrees. Usually this was maintained in order thereby to justify the invocation of the angels and of the blessed, who in God saw everything that would happen and thus knew the needs of believers on earth. Even though it was now also added that the visio Dei was no comprehensio and differed in the blessed according to the measure of their merits, yet this doctrine ended in the deification of man.

The creature, on the ground of a supernatural gift, raises itself upward by its own merits and becomes like God, Lombardus, Sent. 4 dist. 49. Thomas S.

Theol. I qu. 12, I 2 qu. 3, especially art. 12. qu. 4 art. 2. S. c. Gent. III c. 3863. Sent. IV dist. 49 qu. 1, 2. Bonaventura, Brevil. VII c. 7. Hugo Vict. de

Sacr. lib. 2 pars 18 c. 16. Petavius, De Deo VII c. 1-14. Becanus, Theol.

Schol. I c. 9. Theol. Wirceb. III p. 67-90. Perrone, Prael. theol. III p. 266276. Jansen, Prael. theol. dogm. III p. 913-935. C. Pesch, Prael. dogm. III p.

23-44. Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorz. II S. 122-134. Scheeben, Dogm. I 562 f.

II 294 f.

The Reformation adopted a different position over against this visio Dei.

The Lutherans tended to assume a visio Dei per essentiam, and not only mentalis but even also corporalis. God's power was so great that He could grant to the blessed an illumination, whereby they can also see Him with the eyes of the body in his essence, above p. 151. Also some Reformed theologians did not consider such a visio Dei per essentiam impossible,

Bullinger on Joh. 1:18. Polanus, Synt. [154] Theol. p. 9, 518. Synopsis pur. theol. LII 11-24. Forbesius a Corse, de visione beatifica, Op. Amst. 1703 I 282-289. etc. But most, holding to the glory prepared for believers which surpasses all knowledge, set aside the spinosae quaestiones of scholasticism

or also rejected the visio Dei per essentiam entirely, Calvin, Inst. III 25, 11.

Pareus on 1 Cor. 13 12. Rivetus on Ps. 16:11, Op. II 68. Danaeus on 1 Tim.

6:16. Gomarus on Joh. 1:18. Op. p. 249-252. Maccovius redivivus, Theol. pol. 162. Hoornbeek, Instit. theol. XVI 20 Turretinus, Theol. El. XX qu. 8.

Heidegger, Corpus theol. III 37, XXVIII 138. Moor, VI 720. M. Vitringa IV 18-25, especially Voetius, Disp. II 1193-1217 etc.; cf. also Episcopius, Inst. theol. IV sect. 2 c. 4, Limborch, Theol. Chr. VI 13, 6. This modesty is certainly in accordance with Scripture, which indeed speaks of a beholding of God by the blessed, but declares nothing further about it and elsewhere expressly calls God invisible. The beholding that awaits believers is called by Paul a knowing as we are known. If God, as all assume, cannot be known perfectly, in his essence, but is incomprehensible, He also cannot be seen in his essence. Visio per essentiam and comprehensio are, after all, completely the same. Moreover, God is infinite and man remains finite, also in the status gloriae. God therefore can always be seen by man only in a finite, human manner. The objectum may thus be infinitum, the repraesentatio in human consciousness is and remains finita. But then the seeing of God is also not per essentiam. Then from God's side there is always a συγκαταβασις necessary, a revelation, whereby He from his side descends to us and makes himself known to us; Mt. 11:27 also remains in force in glory. The beholding of God in his essence would entail that man would be deified and the boundary between Creator and creature would be erased. That indeed lies on the line of the Neoplatonic mysticism, which was taken up by Rome, but not on that of the Reformation, and at least not of the Reformed church and theology. For with Rome man is raised by the donum supernaturale above his own nature; he thereby in fact becomes another being, a homo divinus and supernaturalis, Bellarminus, de justif. V

12; but however high and glorious the [155] Reformed also thought of the status gloriae, there too man nevertheless remained man, indeed elevated supra gradum suum naturalem, but not supra speciem suam et objectum illi analogum, Turret., Th. El. XX qu. 8, 12. The blessedness of man is certainly situated in the visio Dei beatifica, but nevertheless always in such a visio as for which the finite and limited human nature is capable. A θεωσις, as Rome teaches it, fits into the system of the Pseudodionysian hierarchy but finds no support in Scripture, cf. later the locus on the image of God, and also

Stuckert, Vom Schauen Gottes, Zeits. f. Th. u. K. von Gottschick VI 6 S.

492-544.

C. God as Light.

8. The whole of Scripture proceeds from the assumption that consciousness and knowledge belong to God. He is pure φως without any σκοτια, 1 Joh.

1:5, dwelling in an inaccessible light, 1 Tim. 6:16, and source of all light in nature and grace, Ps. 4:7, 27:1, 36:10, 43:3, Joh. 1:4, 9, 8:12, Jak. 1:17 etc.

In this designation of light is included that God is perfectly conscious of himself, that He surveys himself in his whole being and that nothing in that being is hidden from his consciousness. Also the trinitarian life of God is a perfectly conscious life, Mt. 11:27, Joh. 1:17, 10:15, 1 Cor. 2:10. But further, God has consciousness and knowledge of all that exists outside his being. Nowhere in Scripture is it even indicated that anything would be unknown to Him. Indeed the manner in which He takes knowledge is sometimes described very humanly, Gen. 3:9 v., 11:5, 18:21 etc., but He nevertheless knows everything. The thought that something would be

unknown to Him is rejected as absurd; would He who plants the ear not hear, and He who forms the eye not see, Ps. 94:9. Repeatedly there is mention of his ‎‏‏ָחְכָמה‎, ‎‏‏ְגבּוָרה‎, ‎‏‏ֵעָצה‎, ‎‏‏ְתבּוָנה‎, γνωσις, σοφια, Job 12:13, 28:12-27,

Spr. 8:12 v., Ps. 147:5, Rom. 11:33, 16:27, Ef. 3:10 etc. And this knowledge of God has every creature as its object. It extends to everything, and is thus omniscience in the strict sense. His eyes run through the whole earth, 2

Chron. 16:9; everything is known to Him and lies naked spread out before his eye, Hebr. 4:13. The smallest and least, [156] Mt. 6:8, 32, 10:30, the most hidden, heart and kidneys, Jer. 11:20, 17:9, 10, 20:12, Ps. 7:10, 1 Kon.

8:39, Luk. 16:15, Hd. 1:24, Rom. 8:27, thoughts and deliberations, Ps.

139:2, Ezech. 11:5, 1 Cor. 3:20, 1 Thess. 2:4, Op. 2:23, the human being in his origin and being and in all his ways, Ps. 139, night and darkness, Ps.

139:11, 12, hell and destruction, Spr. 15:11, the evil and sinful, Ps. 69:6, Jer.

16:17, 18:23, 32:19, the conditional, 1 Sam. 23:10-13, 2 Sam. 12:8, 2 Kon.

13:19, Ps. 81:14, 15, Jer. 26:2, 3, 38:17-20, Ezech. 3:6, Mt. 11:21 and the future, Jes. 41:22 v., 42:9, 43:9-12, 44:7, 46:10, specifically also the end of life, Ps. 31:16, 39:6, 139:6, 16, Job 14:5, Hd. 17:26 etc., it is all known to God. He knows everything, 1 Joh. 3:20. And He knows all that not aposteriori, by observation, but apriori, from eternity, 1 Cor. 2:7, Rom. 8:29,

Ef. 1:4, 5, 2 Tim. 1:9. His knowledge is not susceptible of increase, Jes.

40:13 v., Rom. 11:34, is certain and determinate, Ps. 139:1-3, Hebr. 4:13, so that all God's revelations are true, Joh. 8:26, 17:17, Tit. 1:2, all the works of God make his wisdom known to us, Ps. 104:24, 136:5, Ef. 3:10, Rom.

11:33, and dispose us to worship and admiration, Ps. 139:17 v., Jes. 40:28, Job 11:7 v., Rom. 11:33, 1 Cor. 2:11. The knowledge of God both of himself and of the world is taught in Scripture so decisively and clearly, that it was at all times acknowledged within the Christian church. But pantheism has

come into opposition to that. It ascribed to God no being of his own, distinct from the world, and therefore could also assume in God no consciousness of his own. Spinoza did indeed still speak of the cogitatio as an attributum Dei and called God a res cogitans, Eth. II prop. 1. But from that cogitatio he distinguished the intellectus as certus modus cogitandi, and this does not fall in the natura naturans but only in the natura naturata, Eth. I prop. 31, and all these modi cogitandi together constitute God's eternal and infinite intellect, Eth. V prop. 40 schol. This pantheism led through Fichte,

Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer to the Philosophie des Unbewussten of Eduard von Hartmann. In the first part of his work he indicates at length the significance which belongs to the unconscious everywhere in the world, and then says that that unconscious being is one in all things II9 155 f. And this

Unconscious, although preferably not called God II [157] 201, nevertheless with Hartmann fills the place of God. Now this Unconscious is sometimes conceived by Hartmann in such a way that it is not blind and alogical, like the will in Schopenhauer, but rather clear-sighted, clairvoyant, just like instinct in animal and human being, and possesses an omniscient, all-wise, überbewusste Intelligenz, II 176 f. But he denies that consciousness belongs to the Unconscious. For consciousness consists in a splitting of subject and object, is thus always a limitation and presupposes individualization, indeed even the body, II 177 f. As soon as consciousness is taken absolutely, it loses its form and of itself becomes unconscious, II 179. If the absolute still had a consciousness of its own outside the individual consciousnesses, it would at once devour these. Monism is incompatible with a conscious

Divine being. Such a being would not be immanent in but separated from the world. It is indeed the cause of all consciousness but is not itself conscious, II 178 f. And self-consciousness in particular cannot be ascribed

to the absolute, for this presupposes a distinction of subject and object, a reflection upon itself, which cannot occur in the absolute, II 187 f.

Pantheism thus denies to God both knowledge of the world, Weltbewusstsein, innerweltliches Selbstbewusstsein, and knowledge of himself, self-consciousness, ausserweltliches or innergöttliches Selbstbewusstsein. Even where He comes to consciousness in the individual consciousnesses, He knows only the world but not himself, Hartmann II.

176. Now to Hartmann almost everything that he says about the power and significance of the unconscious in creatures can be conceded. The unconscious indeed plays a great role in animal and human life. But it is remarkable that Hartmann does not even pose the question whether that extensive power of the unconscious does not precisely presuppose and require the intelligence of God. For very certainly there is many a time an unconscious and yet purposive action. But the unconscious in animal and human being then does not itself act with a purpose; rather, the conscious spirit of the human being sees in that action a purpose, toward which it is directed precisely by a higher consciousness standing above it, Thomas, S. c. Gent. I 44, 5. From of old, therefore, the observation of the purposive in the world has led to the recognition of a Divine being. Anaxagoras therefore already assumed a νους, which possessed an infinite knowing, in order to order everything in the best way. Socrates defines the Deity thus, that it sees and hears everything [158] and is present everywhere. With Plato God is the world-former, who creates everything according to the ideas. Aristotle reasons that the Deity is the primum movens, the absolute being, actus purus, and absolutely incorporeal. It is therefore thinking, νους, and has as its content itself. God cannot derive the content of his thought from without;

He can only think the best, and that is Himself. God thus thinks himself, He

is the thinking of the thinking; the thinking and its object is in Him one, God is νοησις νοησεως, Metaph. XII 9. And even the Stoa concluded teleologically from the purpose in the world to an intelligent cause. Zeno already reasoned thus: Nullius sensu carentis pars aliqua potest esse sentiens. Mundi autem partes sentientes sunt. Non igitur caret sensu mundus, Cic. N. D. II, 8, 22. cf. III, 9, 22: quod ratione utitur melius est quam id quod ratione non utitur. Nihil autem mundo melius. Ratione igitur mundus utitur. So also Thomas, S. c. Gent. I c. 28 and 44. Whoever recognizes no purpose in the world also has no need of a self-conscious

God and has enough with materialism. But whoever, with von Hartmann, defends the teleological worldview, must assume in God a consciousness, and does not explain the conscious by the unconscious. For in the effect there cannot be more present than lies in the cause. Would He who plants the ear not hear, and He who forms the eye not behold? A perfection in the creature points back to a perfection in God. If the rational being in value surpasses all others, if thinking, the human being, otherwise weak as a reed, nevertheless elevates above all creatures, God cannot be thought of as unconscious. Religion resists that, which always and everywhere presupposes a personal, self-conscious God, but philosophy too registers protest against that. Pantheism may be able to appeal to Spinoza and Hegel; theism has all the philosophers of antiquity on its side and also finds in more recent philosophy still support with Cartesius, Leibniz, Kant,

Schelling (2nd period), J. H. Fichte, Herbart, Lotze, Ulrici, Carrière etc.

That now the Divine self-consciousness differs specifically from that of the human being and has in this only a weak analogy, certainly stands beyond all doubt. In so far there would be no objection to calling God überbewusst.

But precisely therefore one cannot conclude from the limitation of human

self-consciousness to Divine knowledge. In spite of all reasonings from the pantheistic side about limitation, individuality, and the sensory basis as necessarily proper to self-consciousness, it is not to be seen why God's selfknowledge would be a limitation of his being. With us self-consciousness is finite and limited, because we ourselves are finite and because it never covers our being. Our being is much richer than our self-consciousness. But God is the eternal, pure being. And his self-knowledge has nothing less than that full, eternal, Divine being itself as its content. Being and knowing are one in God. He knows himself through his own being. He also does not come to consciousness gradually, and is not now more than less conscious of himself. For in Him there is no becoming, no process, no development.

He is pure being, mere light without darkness, Augustinus, de trin. XV 14.

Thomas, S. c. Gent. I c. 57-48.

From this self-consciousness of God his Weltbewusstsein is to be distinguished. Earlier theology therefore divided the knowledge of God into scientia naturalis (necessaria, simplicis intelligentiae) and scientia libera

(contingens, visionis). The two are not identical, as pantheism teaches, for if the absolute is to be conceived as only logically and potentially prior to the world, it is wholly insufficient for the explanation of the world. God does not need the world, in order to come to personality, to self-consciousness.

He has neither, according to Hegel, a logical, nor, according to Schelling, a historical cursus to run through, in order to attain his full actuality (von

Baader). But yet the self-consciousness and the Weltbewusstsein in God cannot stand so separated alongside one another, as it was sometimes represented in the earlier dogmatics. Rather, there exists between the two an organic connection. God has, out of the infinite fullness of ideas, which are present in his absolute self-consciousness, not arbitrarily selected some, in

order to realize them outside himself. He has therein let himself be guided by the goal, to bring to revelation in the world himself, all his virtues and perfections. The cognitio libera thus comprises precisely those ideas which in their realization are suited to unfold, in a creaturely manner, the being of God. The cognitio naturalis is of course unfit to be communicated to creatures. As God knows himself, he can never be known by creatures, neither as regards the content and the [160] extent, nor also as regards the manner. But the cognitio libera comprises all that which is susceptible of realization and suited to bring the virtues of God to revelation in and for creatures. It stands to the cognitio naturalis as the ectype to the archetype.

Yet also with this cognitio libera it must be kept in view that it is in God something wholly different than in the creatures. Even if this cognitio libera is communicable, it is nevertheless distinguished not only in extent but also in nature and essence to a great degree in God and in the rational creature.

In the first place, Holy Scripture teaches very clearly that this scientia Dei comprises all that is; nothing is withdrawn from his omniscience, nothing hidden from his all-seeing eye. Past, present, and future; the least and the most hidden; everything is naked and revealed before Him with whom we have to do. At all times this was also acknowledged in Christian theology.

The only one who spoke otherwise was Hieronymus. This one called it in his commentary on Hab. 1:13 absurd, to bring down the Divine majesty so far, ut sciat per momenta singula quot nascantur culices, quot ue moriantur; quae cimicum et pulicum et muscarum sit in terra multitudo, quanti pisces in aqua natent, et qui de minoribus majorum praedae cedere debeant. But this limitation of God's omniscience finds no support in Scripture and has been unanimously rejected by Christian theology. And furthermore God knows everything not by observation from the things, but he knows

everything out of and from himself. Our knowledge is posterior; it presupposes being and is derived from it. With God it is the reverse; he knows everything before it is. Scripture also expresses this clearly, when it says that God knows everything before it happens, Jes. 46:10, Am. 3:7,

Dan. 2:22, Ps. 139:6, Mt. 6:8 etc. God is after all the Creator of all things; he has thought them before they existed. Iste mundus nobis notus non esse posset, nisi esset; Deo autem, nisi notus non esset, esse non posset, August. de civ. XI 10, de Gen. ad lit. V 18. He exists of himself and can also in his consciousness and knowledge not depend on or be determined by anything that is outside him. From his aseitas there flows of itself the absolute independence of his knowing. He knows everything not from the things after their existence, for then these, as with Schopenhauer and Hartmann, would have proceeded out of the unconscious being, cf. August. de civ. XI,

10 [161] Conf. XIII 16. Gen. ad. litt. V 15, but he knows everything in and through and out of himself. And therefore his knowledge is also one, simple, unchangeable, eternal; he knows everything at once, simultaneously, from eternity; and everything stands eternally present before his eye, Iren., adv. haer. I 12. August., de trin. XI 10. XII 18. XV 7,

13, 14. Lombardus, Sent. I. dist. 35, 36. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 14. S. c. Gent.

I c. 44 sq. Zanchius, Op. II 195 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 18 etc.

Therefore, of praescientia there can, in the proper sense, be no question with God. With Him there is no differentia temporis, Tertull., adv. Marc. III 5. He calls the things that are not as though they were, and sees what is not as though it already existed. Quid est enim praescientia, nisi scientia futurorum? quid autem futurum est Deo, qui omnia supergreditur tempora?

Si enim scientia Dei res ipsas habet, non sunt ei futurae sed praesentes; ac per hoc non jam praescientia sed tantum scientia dici potest, August., ad

Simpl. II 2. Omne quod nobis fuit et erit, in ejus prospectu praesto est, Gregorius Magnus, Mor. l. 20 c. 23. Quidquid tempora volvunt, praesens semper habet, Marius Victor, in Petavius, de Deo IV 4. The distinction of God's omniscience into praescientia, scientia visionis (of the present) and reminiscentia is wholly and entirely a human representation, Philippi,

Kirchl. Gl. II 67. Yet Scripture represents it many times in such a way, as though God's omniscience temporally precedes the being of things. And without this auxiliary representation we also cannot speak of God's omniscience. But from that there arose in theology the question, how this omniscience of God was to be reconciled with man's freedom. If God nevertheless foreknows everything, then everything stands fixed from eternity and there remains no place any longer for free and contingent acts.

Cicero therefore already came to denial of God's omniscience, because he could not bring it into agreement with the free will, de fato c. 14. de div. II 5-7. Marcion denied to God, together with omnipotence and goodness, also omniscience, because He had let the first man fall into sin, Tertull. adv.

Marc. II 5. Later this same was taught by the Socinians. God knows everything but everything according to its nature. He knows the possibly future, the contingent, thus not with absolute certainty, for then it would cease to be contingent, but He knows it as possible and contingent, i.e. He knows the future, insofar as it depends on [162] men, not certainly and infallibly in advance. For otherwise freedom of will was lost, God became author of sin and Himself subjected to necessity, Fock, der Socin. 437-446.

But such a limitation of God's omniscience was too much in conflict with Holy Scripture for it to be able to find acceptance otherwise than with a few. Christian theology usually seeks the solution in another direction. Two ways offered themselves for that. On the one hand Origen made a

distinction between the praescientia and the praedestinatio. God indeed foreknows the things, but this praescientia is not the cause and the ground of their happening; rather God only foreknows them certainly, because they will happen in time through the free decision of men; ὀυ γαρ ἐπει εγνωσται γινεται, ἀλλ' ἐπει γινεσθαι ἐμελλεν ἐγνωσται, in Gen. I 14. c. Cels. II 20.

On the other side stands Augustine, who also wants to maintain both, the praescientia and freedom of will. Religiosus animus utrumque eligit, utrumque confitetur, et fide pietatis utrumque confirmat, de civ. V 9, 10.

But he sees that, if God foreknows something certainly, it must also necessarily happen; otherwise the whole praescientia again collapsed.

Praescientia, si non certa praenoscit, utique nulla est, de lib. arb. III 4.

Therefore he says that the will of man, with his whole nature, with all his decisions, is included in the praescientia and is not destroyed by it, but rather is posited and maintained. Cum enim sit praescius voluntatis nostrae, cujus est praescius ipsa erit. Voluntas ergo erit, quia voluntatis est praescius, de lib. arb. III 3. Voluntates nostrae tantum valent, quantum Deus eas valere voluit atque praescivit; et ideo quidquid valent, certissime valent; et quod facturae sunt, ipsae omnino facturae sunt; quia valituras atque facturas ille praescivit, cujus praescientia falli non potest, de civ. V 9. Scholasticism, although making all kinds of distinctions, in principle aligned itself with Augustine, Anselmus, de concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis necnon gratiae Dei cum libero arbitrio. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 38.

Bonaventura, ib. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 14. Hugo Vict., de Sacram. I 9 etc.

But the Jesuits brought change, cf. deel I 91 v. In connection with semipelagianism, between the scientia necessaria and the scientia libera they inserted still the so-called scientia media, in order by means of this to reconcile God's omniscience with man's freedom. By this they understood

[163] a knowledge of God, logically preceding the decrees, of the conditionally future. The object of this knowledge is not the merely possible, which will never become actuality, nor also that which, as a consequence of a decree of God, will certainly happen, but that possible which under one or another condition can become actuality. God namely in his government of the world lets much depend on conditions, and now knows in advance what He will do, in case the conditions are fulfilled or in case they are not fulfilled by man. God is thus ready in all cases, He foresees and knows all possibilities, and with a view to all those possibilities has taken his measures and made his decisions. He knew in advance what He would do, if Adam fell and also if he remained standing; if David went to Keilah or did not go there; if Tyre and Sidon repented or did not repent etc. The knowledge of the futura conditionata thus precedes the decree of the futura absoluta; man decides wholly freely and independently at every moment but can nevertheless never surprise God by one decision or another or nullify his plans, for on all possibilities God's praescientia has been reckoned. This doctrine of the scientia media was supported with many passages of Scripture, which ascribe to God the knowledge of what in a given case would happen, when one condition or another was or was not fulfilled, such as Gen. 11:6, Ex. 3:19, 34:16, Deut.

7:3, 4, 1 Sam. 23:10-13, 25:29 v., 2 Sam. 12:8, 1 Kon. 11:2, 2 Kon. 2:10, 13:19, Ps. 81:14, 15, Jer. 26:2, 3, 38:17-20, Ezech. 2:5-7, 3:4-6, Mt. 11:21,

23, 24:22, 26:53, Luk. 22:66-68, Joh. 4:10, 6:15, Hd. 22:18, Rom. 9:29, 1 Cor. 2:8. It was indeed opposed by the Thomists and Augustinians, e.g.

Bannez, the Salmanticenses, Billuart, Summa S. Thomae 1747 I 464 sq., but by the Molinists and Congruists Suarez, Bellarminus, Lessius etc. also zealously defended. Fear of Calvinism and Jansenism benefited the doctrine

of the scientia media in the Roman church, and gradually it found entrance in a more strict or moderate sense with almost all Roman theologians, cf. deel I 93, Karl Werner, Der h. Thomas v. Aq. III 389-442. Id. Gesch. der kath. Theol. 98 f. G. Schneemann, Die Entstehung der thomistischmolinistischen Controverse, Ergänzungshefte zu den Stimmen aus Maria

Laach, no 9. 13. 14. Schwane, D. G. der neuern Zeit S. [164] 37-59.

Petavius, de Deo IV c. 6. 7 etc. The line of Augustine was thereby abandoned and that of Origen taken up again. Thus the Greek theology had done from the beginning, Damasc., de fide orth. II c. 30. Roman theology followed. Also the Lutherans, Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 13, Quenstedt,

Theol. I 316, Buddeus, Instit. 217, Reinhard, Dogm. 116 etc., and the Remonstrants, Episc., Inst. IV sect. 2 c. 19, Limborch, Theol. Chr. II c. 8. §

29 were not disinclined to the scientia media. In more recent times many teach, approximately in the same way, that God also actually obtains knowledge from the world as medium scientiae. He indeed knows the contingent-future as possible in advance, but first learns from the world that it does or does not become actual. For all cases, however, He knows sein dem Thun der Creatur, wie es auch ausfalle, angemessenes Thun; He did indeed establish the schema of the world-plan but leaves the Ausfüllung to the creature, Dorner, Gl. I 319-323. Rothe, Ethik § 42. Martensen, Dogm. §

116. Kahnis, Dogm. I 343. Grétillat, Theol. syst. III 237 s. Sécretan, La civilisation et la croyance 1887 p. 260 s. etc. On the other hand, following in the footsteps of Augustine, such a nuda praescientia and scientia media were rejected by the Reformed, Voetius, Disp. I 254-258. Twissus, de scientia media, Op. III p. 1 sq. Turretinus, Theol. El. III qu. 13. Moor, I 659 sq. Ex. v. h. Ontw. v. Tol. IV 281 v.

Now with the scientia media the question does not concern this, whether things among themselves do not many times stand in a conditional connection to one another, which is known to God and is willed by Him

Himself. If only this were meant by the scientia media, it could be accepted without objection, as Gomarus, Disp. theol. X 30 sq. and Walaeus, Loci

Comm. Op. I 174-176, cf. Heppe, Dogm. der ev. r. K. 64, adopted and acknowledged it in that sense. But the doctrine of the scientia media aims at something else; it wants to bring the Pelagian conception of the freedom of the will into agreement with omniscience. The will of creatures namely is by virtue of its nature indifferent. It can do the one as well as the other. It is determined neither by its nature nor by the manifold circumstances in which it is placed. These can exercise influence on the will, but in the end the will remains free and chooses as it pleases. This freedom of the will is of course not to be reconciled with a decree of God; it essentially consists in [165] independentia a decreto Dei. God has not determined that will, but has left it free; He could not determine it without destroying it. God must, over against the will of rational creatures, adopt a waiting attitude. He looks on to see what it will do. But now He is omniscient. He thus knows all possibilities, all contingently-future things, and also knows the absolutely future things beforehand. Accordingly He has taken His decrees. If a man in certain circumstances will accept grace, He has elected him to life; if he will not believe, He has rejected him. Now it is clear that such a doctrine in principle deviates from that of Augustine and Thomas. For with these the foreknowledge precedes the things and nothing can come into being except through the will of God. Non fit aliquid nisi omnipotens fieri velit, Aug.

Enchir. 95. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 14 art. 9 ad 3. Not the world but the decrees are the medium from which God knows all things, Thomas, I qu. 14

art. 8. Bonaventura, Sent. II dist. 37 art. 1. qu. 1. And the contingent and free can therefore be known in its connection and order certainly and infallibly. It is true that scholasticism on this point sometimes expressed itself somewhat differently than Augustine. Anselm e.g. said that the praescientia brought with it no necessitas interna and antecedens but only a necessitas externa and consequens. Cur Deus homo 16. And Thomas judged that God indeed knows the futura contingentia eternally and certainly secundum statum, quo actu sunt, secundum suam praesentialitatem, but that they in their causae proximae were nevertheless contingent and undetermined, S. Th. I qu. 14 art. 13. But that does not take away that with a view to the causa prima they are perfectly certain and thus cannot be called contingent; and elsewhere Thomas nevertheless also says again, omne quod est, ex eo futurum fuit antequam esset, quia in causa sua erat ut fieret, cf. Billuart I 440 sq. But in the doctrine of the scientia media the contingent and free things also become contingent and free over against God, and indeed not only over against his praedestinatio but also over against his praescientia. For, just as with Origen, the things here are not because God knows them, but God knows them beforehand because they will be. The order is thus not: scientia necessaria, scientia visionis, decretum creandi etc., but scientia necessaria, scientia media, decretum creandi etc., scientia visionis, Jansen, Prael. II 110 sq. God does not know the free [166] acts of men from his own being, from his decrees, but from the will of the creatures, Schwane, D. G. IV 52. God thus becomes dependent on the world, receives knowledge from the world which He could not have or obtain from himself, and thus in his scientia ceases to be one, simple, independent, i.e. God. The creature conversely becomes for a great part wholly independent of God; it did indeed at one time receive the

esse and the posse from God, but it now has the velle wholly in its own hand. It decides wholly sovereignly and brings something to reality or not, without a decree of God preceding it. Something can thus come to existence without God's will; the creature is creator, autonomous, sovereign; and the whole history of the world is withdrawn from God's government and placed in the hands of man. This one decides and then God comes with his plan corresponding to that decision. If such a decision now occurred once, e.g. with Adam, then that was still conceivable; but such decisions of more or less serious nature occur thousands of times in every human life; what then is to be thought of a God who always waits upon all those decisions and has all possible plans ready for all possibilities; what even remains of the schema of the world-plan, whose Ausfüllung is left to man; and what is a government worth in which the King is the slave of his subjects? And that is the case here with God in the scientia media. God looks on and man decides. It is not God who makes a distinction among men; these distinguish themselves. Grace is distributed according to merits, predestination depends on the good works; what Scripture everywhere combats and Augustine rejected in Pelagius, is by Jesuitism stamped as orthodox, Roman doctrine, Billuart, I 479. For indeed the proponents of the scientia media appeal to many places of Holy Scripture, but wholly without right. For Scripture very certainly acknowledges that things are set by God in all kinds of connection to one another and that this connection is often also of a conditional nature, so that the one cannot happen unless something else is previously fulfilled. Without faith there is no salvation, without labor no food, etc. But all the texts which the Jesuits cited for the scientia media do not prove what had to be proved. They do speak of condition and [167] fulfillment, of obedience and promise, of supposition and consequence, of

what will happen in the one or in the other case. But none of them say that God, even if it is that He speaks to men in a human way and acts and negotiates with them in a human way, would not in each particular case have known and determined what certainly had to happen. Between the merely possible, which exists only as an idea in God and will never become actual, and the certainly actual, which is established by God's decree, there is no longer any domain that can be governed by the will of man.

Something always belongs either to the one or to the other. If it is only possible and never becomes actual, it is the object of the scientia necessaria; and if it indeed becomes actual once, it is the content of the scientia libera.

There lies nothing more between, there is no scientia media. But moreover, the scientia media also does not attain what it wants to attain. It wants to reconcile the freedom of the will in the sense of indifferentia with the praescientia. Now it says that this, conceived as scientia media, does not make the human actions necessary but leaves them wholly free. And that is also so, but then it also ceases to be praescientia. If God indeed certainly knows beforehand what a man in a given case will do, then He can only foresee this if the motives determine the will in one direction and this thus does not consist in indifference. Conversely, if this consists in indifferentia, then no knowledge, no calculation beforehand is possible, then there is only scientia post factum. God's praescientia and the will as arbitrariness exclude one another. Si enim scit, said therefore Cicero already, certe illud eveniet; sin certe eveniet, nulla fortuna est. Therefore the solution of the problem must with Augustine be sought in another direction. The freedom of the will does not consist, as will later appear, in indifferentia, in arbitrariness or chance, but in lubentia rationalis. And this is so little in conflict with the praescientia Dei that it is rather posited and maintained by it. The will with

its nature, its antecedents and motives, its decisions and consequences is included in the ordo causarum, qui certus est Deo ejusque praescientia continetur, Aug. de civ. V 9. In the knowledge of God the things among themselves lie precisely in that same connection in which they occur in reality. It is not the praescientia and not the praedestinatio that now and then falls in from above and compels, but every decision and action is motivated by what precedes it. And thus, in that connection, it is included in the scientia Dei. The contingent and free is, in accordance with its own nature known and willed by God, inserted into the ordo causarum, which in world history is gradually made manifest to us.

9. The knowledge of God, considered from another point of view, bears the name of wisdom. The distinction between the two is generally known.

Almost all languages have different words for these two concepts as well.

Everyone knows that erudition, science, knowledge, and wisdom are far from being the same and absolutely do not always go together. A simple man often excels in wisdom above a scholar. Both rest on distinct faculties in man. We obtain knowledge through study, wisdom through insight. The former comes about discursively, the latter intuitively. Knowledge is theoretical; wisdom is practical, teleological, it places knowledge in the service of an end. Knowledge proceeds apart from the will, wisdom is indeed a matter of the intellect but is made serviceable to the will.

Knowledge therefore often proceeds entirely apart from life, but wisdom is most closely connected with life, it is ethical in nature, it is "the art of living well," the quality, the act of him who makes a right use of his greater skill, and chooses the best means to the best ends. The etymology already points to this distinction. Wise (wijs) comes from wijzen, to show, and is the quality of him who indicates the direction; sapiens, from sapere, cf. σαφης,

to taste, indicates that someone through his own experience has obtained a correct independent judgment; σοφος probably also hangs together with σαφης and then has the same basic meaning. Also among the Eastern peoples we encounter this distinction, but with an important modification.

Just as in the West knowledge stands in the foreground; so in the East wisdom. The Eastern peoples live much more out of contemplation than out of abstract thinking; they do not work with concepts but with the images of the things themselves; they live subjectively closer to their heart and stand objectively nearer to the immediate reality of life. Not in the head, but in the heart, in the root of the personality, subject and object meet one another, and repel one another in the hardest way or attract [169] one another in the tenderest way. It is as if the substances of things overflow into one another through sympathy of life. We encounter that Eastern character intensely and deeply also in Israel. Here too, in its time, the chokma had to arise, ‎‏‏חכמה‎ from ‎‏‏חכם‎ to be firm, dense, solid, subst. soundness, Tüchtigkeit. But here it came into the service of revelation. Genuine, true wisdom is no fruit of man's intellect but is rooted in the fear of the Lord and consists in that moral Tüchtigkeit, which is directed according to the Lord's law and reveals itself in a moral life, Deut 4:6-8, Ps. 19:8, 111:10, Job 28:28, Spr. 1:7, 9:10.

And when later insight penetrated more deeply into the revelation of God in nature and in law, it obtained an independent place, it developed a literature of its own and rendered its thoughts in a form of its own, in the form of proverbs, ‎‏‏ְמ ָׁשלֹות‎. Alongside understanding and knowledge, wisdom is now also ascribed to God in Scripture. He has, speaking through the word, created the world, Gen. 1:3, Ps. 33:6, 107:20, 119:105, 147:15, 148:5, Jes.

40:8, 48:13. In the first period, in creation especially God's power and exaltedness are noticed. But gradually the Israelite spirit, nourished and

guided by the fear of the Lord, penetrates more deeply into nature and law, and admires in them his adorable wisdom. Both, the world and the revelation of God under Israel, are derived from that wisdom, Job 9:4,

12:13, 17, 37-38, Jes. 40:28, Ps. 104:24, Deut. 4:6-8, Jer. 10:12, Ps. 19:8, and in Spr. 8:22 ff., Job 28:23 ff., that wisdom, through and with which God has brought forth all things, is presented personally. The N. Test. carries this line further and not only ascribes wisdom to God in various places, Rom.

16:27, 1 Tim. 1:17, Judas 25, Op. 5:12, 7:12, but also says that the world has been created through the word of God, Joh. 1:2, Hebr. 11:3, and sees

God's wisdom especially revealed in the folly of the cross, 1 Cor. 1:18, in Christ, 1 Cor. 1:24, in the church, Ef. 3:10, in the whole guidance of God with Israel and the Gentiles, Rom. 11:33. Cf. Hooykaas, Wisdom among Hebrews 1862, J. F. Bruch, Die Weisheitslehre der Hebräer 1851. Burger art. Weisheit in Herzog2. Oehler, Die Grundzüge der altt. Weisheit 1854. Id.

Theol. des A. T. § 235 f. Schultz, Altt. Theol.4 548 f. Delitzsch, Comm. über das Salom. Spruchbuch, Einl. Cremer, Wörterbuch s. v. σοφος. König,

Der [170] Offenbarungsbegriff des A. T. 1882 I 194 f. Smend, Lehrb. der altt. Rel. S. 508 f. Schleiermacher, Chr. Gl. § 168, 169. Frank, Syst. der chr.

Wahrh. I 254 f.

This doctrine of Scripture concerning the Divine word and the Divine wisdom was in particular brought by Philo into connection with the ἰδεαι.

Thereby the foundation was laid for the doctrine of the Logos, which is discussed further in the locus de trinitate. But the doctrine of ideas of Plato later once again had a powerful influence on Christian theology, and now through neo-Platonism. Thus it came to Augustine, who assigned it a place in theology. But naturally he had to modify it on important points for that purpose. In the first place, the ideas are not a world of their own, κοσμος

νοητος, alongside and outside God, but they are in God and constitute the content of his thinking. Has autem rationes ubi arbitrandum est esse nisi in mente creatoris, 83 qu. qu. 46. Gen. ad litt. IV 6, 24, 29. V 13. They are

God's thoughts about all that is created, both before and after the creation and thus eternal and unchangeable, for there can be nothing in God except what is eternal and unchangeable, ib. en de trin. IV 1. de civ. XI 5. In Deo enim novum exstitisse consilium, ne dicam impium, ineptissimum est dicere, de ord. II 17. Yet those ideas in God's intellect are not one with his self-knowledge nor also with the Logos or the Son, as earlier patres had sometimes said. Augustine maintains the essential distinction between God and world and avoids pantheism. Aliter ergo in illo sunt, quae per illum facta sunt; aliter autem in illo sunt ea, quae ipse est, de Gen. ad litt. II 6. On the other hand, Augustine cannot think otherwise than that God has created all things according to ideas. In that his wisdom is manifested. Sic ergo sapientia Dei, per quam facta sunt omnia, secundum artem continet omnia, antequam fabricet omnia, tract. 1 in Ev. Joan. Omnia ratione sunt condita,

83 qu. qu. 46 n. 2. Non enim quidquam fecit ignorans. Nota ergo fecit, non facta cognovit, de Gen. ad litt. V 8. de trin. XV 13. de civ. XI 10. Creation is a realization of God's thoughts. Therefore there also exists between the ideas and the creatures a close connection. The ideas are the examples and forms of things, principales formae, rationes rerum, stabiles atque incommutabiles, 83 qu. qu. 46 n. 2; and therefore not only of the species but of all individual things. Cum omnia ratione sint condita, [171] singula igitur proprisis sunt creata rationibus, ib. en de civ. XI 10. de Gen. ad litt. III 12,

14. V 14, 15. But yet this view is not always maintained. Sometimes the ideas in Augustine also appear again as types and examples, which gradually realize themselves and are first perfectly realized in the new

heaven and the new earth, de Gen. ad litt. V 11. Nor is the connection clear, in which according to Augustine the ideas and the creatures stand. The ideas are in God not only as examples, but they are also active forces, immanent principia in the things. He therefore preferred the translation of ἰδεαι by rationes above that of Cicero by formae or species, 83 quaest. qu. 46. de

Gen. ad litt. I 18, II 16, IX 18. The ideas are, as it were, laid down in the things themselves. Ideas and creatures do not stand dualistically as παραδειγματα and ὁμοιωματα, as true and untrue, as unchangeable and changeable alongside and over against one another, but the ideas are the soul and the principle of things; the movement belongs to the creatures ex illis insitis rationibus, de Gen. ad litt IV 33. And furthermore the causality of the ideas is nevertheless always again mediated by the will of God; this is the proper and final cause of the being of things, de civ. XXI, 8, cf.

Gangauf, Metaph. Psych. des h. Aug. S. 77 f. Ritter, Gesch. der chr. Philos.

II 310 f. Dr. E. Melzer, Des Aug. Lehre vom Kausalitätsverhältniss Gottes zur Welt 1892 S. 5 f. Besides in Augustine, we also find this doctrine of ideas in Clemens Alex. Strom. IV c. 25, V c. 3. Tertull. de an. 18. Eusebius,

Praep. evang. l. 14 c. 44. Orig. op Joh. 1:1. Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 5. and later in Anselmus, Monol. c. 8 sq. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 35. Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 15. qu. 44 art. 3. S. c. G. 54. Sent. I dist. 36. Bonaventura, Sent.

I dist. 35. Petavius, Theol. dogm. IV c. 9-11. Scheeben, Kath. Dogm. I 657 f. Simar, Lehrb. der Dogm. 3e Aufl. Freiburg 1893 S. 147 f., and also in Reformed theologians such as Polanus, Synt. theol. p. 267. 268. Zanchius,

Op. II col. 201. Voetius, Disp. I 258 sq. Twissus, de scientia media 1639 p.

312 sq. Later this doctrine of ideas has almost entirely disappeared from dogmatics. The word idea has also changed in meaning in more recent philosophy. Formerly one understood by idea the example of things in the

creative spirit of God, while concept was the imprint of things in the knowing spirit. But [172] in the new philosophy idea has become the designation for those concepts which are obtained not from sensible perception but by pure thinking (Cartesius), of which there is no experience and thus no scientific certainty (Kant), which can be recognized only immediately in feeling or reason (Jacobi). Yet usage still often recalls, at least in our and in the German language, the old meaning. The word still always, especially in the field of art, includes the thought of an objective example, παραδειγμα, and therefore of an ideal perfection. One then speaks of the idea of God, freedom, art, science, the true, the good, the beautiful, etc. Applied to God, the idea expresses that God has made all things with wisdom, that wisdom is the firstling of his way, ἀρχη της κτισεως is, Spr.

8:22, Col. 1:15, Op. 3:14. God is no less than an artist. Just as this one realizes his idea in the work of art, so God creates all things according to the thoughts which he has formed. The world is a work of art of God. He is artist and builder of the whole universe. God does not work unconsciously, but in all his works is guided by wisdom, by his ideas. But there is also a difference between God and an earthly artist. God's thoughts are absolutely original, taken from his own being, eternal, unchangeable; indeed, they are one with his Divine being. The ideas in God are the essentia Dei itself, insofar as this is the example of created things and can be expressed and imitated in finite creatures. Every creature is a revelation of God and participates in the Divine being. The nature of this participation does not consist in this, that the creatures are modifications of God's being, or that the creatures have received that being of God realiter into themselves. But every creature has its own being, because in its existence it is an ectype of the Divine being. Because of the multiplicity and the richness of God's

ideas, realized in the created, the wisdom of God is to be called πολυποικιλος, Ef. 3:10. But nevertheless the wisdom of God is one and his idea of the world is one, gradually unfolding in the course of the centuries and leading the real onward to the intended goal. By reason of this archetypal character of the ideas in God there is also no proper idea of sin as such. Sin, after all, is not a proper being, but a diminution of being, a deformation; [173] it is indeed object and content of God's knowledge, it is indeed made serviceable by the wisdom of God to his glory; but it is in itself no idea of his wisdom, no ray of his light, Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 15 art.

3. Yet that wisdom does come to expression in the creation, the ordering, the guidance and government of all things. It is and remains the ‎‏‏ ָאמֹון‎, opifex, Spr. 8:30, ἡ των παντων τεχνιτις, Wijsh. 7:21, which creates, governs, and leads all things onward to their destination, i.e. to the glorification of God's name.

10. Among the virtues of God's intellect there finally belongs also the truthfulness of God. The Hebr. word ‎‏‏אמת‎, ‎‏‏אמונה‎, adi. ‎‏‏אמן‎ comes from the verb. ‎‏‏אמן‎ to make firm, build, support, intr. to be firm, hi. to hold fast to, trust in, be certain of something, and denotes, subj. the holding fast to something, faith, πιστις, and obj. the firmness, reliability, truth of the person or the thing on which one relies. The Hebr. words are in the LXX now rendered by ἀληθεια, ἐν ἀληθειᾳ, then by πιστοω, πιστευω, πιστις, πιστος, and thus in Dutch by true, truthful, faithful; the concept ἀληθεια had in ordinary Greek and thus also in LXX and N. T. too definite a meaning for it to be able sufficiently to render the Hebr. words, it therefore had to be supplemented by the words πιστος etc. Already the name Ihvh expresses that He remains who He is. He is truth and without injustice, ‎‏‏ָעֶול‎, wrongness, crookedness, Deut. 32:4, Jer. 10:10, Ps. 31:6, 2 Chron. 15:3.

There lies here both in it, both that He is the true, essential God over against the idols, which are ‎‏‏ֲהָבִלים‎, Deut. 32:21 etc., and that He as such at all times keeps and makes true His words and promises, so that He is perfectly reliable. For He is not a man, that He should lie or have regret, Num. 23:19,

1 Sam. 15:29. All that proceeds from Him bears the stamp of truth.

Repeatedly there is mention of His beneficence, ‎‏‏ֶחֶסד‎, and faithfulness, Gen.

24:49, 47:29, Joz. 2:14, 2 Sam. 2:6, 15:20, Ps. 40:11, of His lovingkindness, ‎‏‏ֶחֶסד‎, and truth, Gen. 24:27, Ex. 34:6, Ps. 57:4, 61:8, 89:15 etc. His words, ordinances, paths, works, commandments, laws, are all pure truth, 2 Sam.

7:28, Ps. 19:10, 25:10, 33:4, 111:7, 119:86, 142, 151, Dan. 4:37. His truth and faithfulness reveals itself on earth [174] so richly and gloriously, that it reaches unto the clouds, Ps. 36:6, Ex. 34:6. He confirms His word repeatedly by swearing by Himself, Gen. 22:16 etc., Hebr. 6:13. Therefore

He is many times called a rock, which by His unchangeable firmness offers support to His favorites, Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 37 and in many proper names, Num. 1:5, 6, 10, 3:35, 34:28, and further in 2 Sam. 22:3, 32, Ps.

18:3, 32, 19:15, 28:1, 31:3, 71:3, 144:1, Jes. 26:4. And as such a God of truth and of faithfulness He keeps the covenant, Deut. 4:31, 7:9, Ps. 40:11,

Hos. 12:1 etc. and He is a perfectly reliable refuge for all His people, Ps.

31:6, 36:6 v., 43:3, 54:7, 57:4, 71:22, 96:13, 143:1, 146:6 etc. Likewise He is called in the N. T. the ἀληθινος θεος; i.e. only that God is the true, essential God, who has revealed Himself in Christ, Joh. 17:3, 1 Joh. 5:20.

And all that He reveals is pure truth. He is a θεος ἀληθης in contrast with all men, Joh. 3:33, Rom. 3:4. His word is the truth, His gospel is truth,

Christ is the truth, Joh. 14:6, 17:17, Ef. 1:13. Yes, He is now still, who He always was. The N. Test. is fulfillment and confirmation of His promises in the days of the O. V. He has thought of His covenant and oath, Luk. 1:68-

73. He is faithful, πιστος, in that He is and remains the God of the covenant and grants salvation completely, 1 Cor. 1:9, 10:13, 1 Thess. 5:24, 2 Thess.

3:3, Hebr. 10:23, 11:11, 1 Joh. 1:9. He cannot deny Himself, 2 Tim. 2:13.

All His promises are in Christ yes and amen, 2 Cor. 1:18, 20. Christ is ὁ μαρτυς ὁ πιστος, Openb. 1:5, 3:14, 19:11. And therefore He is and can be the unchangeable object of our πιστις, cf. Wendt, Der Gebrauch der Wörter ἀληθεια, ἀληθης und ἀληθινος im N. T., Stud. u. Krit. 1883 S. 511-547.

Cremer, Wörterbuch 1895 S. 109-126.

Scripture thus uses the word truth in different senses. And philosophy also usually distinguishes a threefold concept of truth, namely veritas in essendo

(in rebus), in significando (in verbis), in cognoscendo (in intellectu), or veritas metaphysica, ethica and logica, Liberatore, Inst. philos. ed. 8,

Romae 1855 I 70 sq. Schmid, Der Begriff des Wahren in Gutberlet's Philos.

Jahrbuch 1893 S. 35-48, 140-150. Mastricht, Theol. II, 14, 5. Moor, Comm. in Marck I 676. Metaphysical, ontological truth [175] consists in this, that some object, a person or thing, is all that which belongs to its essence. Thus gold, which not only looks like gold, but essentially is, is genuine, true, veritable gold. Truth in this sense stands over against falsity, spuriousness, vanity, non-being. It is a property of all being as being; it is one with the substance. Augustine in particular often spoke of truth in this meaning. All being is as such true and beautiful and good. There is indeed rich diversity in the measure of being; there is a difference of degree among creatures.

But all things have nevertheless received being from God pro suo modo and participate in the divine being, cf. e.g. de civ. XI 23, de nat. boni c. Manich. c. 19. But from this being of creatures Augustine ascends to God. In Scripture God is called the true one over against the idols, which are vanity.

And thus in Augustine God is the true, only, simple, unchangeable, eternal

being. Compared with his being, the being of creatures is to be regarded as a non-being. God is summum esse, summa veritas, summum bonum. He is pure essentia. He does not have, but he is the truth. O veritas quae vere es,

Conf. X 41. VII 10. XII 25. But further, God is also the truth in the second above-mentioned, i.e. in the ethical sense. By veritas ethica is to be understood the agreement between someone's essence and his revelation, in word or in deed. He who says otherwise than he thinks is untruthful, a liar.

Truth in this sense stands over against lie. Now in God there is perfect agreement between his being and his revelation, Num. 23:19, 1 Sam. 15:29,

Tit. 1:2, Hebr. 6:18. It is impossible that God should lie or deny himself.

And finally God is also the truth in the logical sense. This consists in agreement of thinking with reality, conformitas or adaequatio intellectus et rei. Our concepts are true when they are a pure imprint of reality. In this sense truth stands over against error. God is now also for that reason the truth, because he knows all things as they really are. His knowing is correct, unchangeable, adequate. Yes, in his knowing he is truth itself, just as in his being he is ontological truth. The knowledge of God is living, absolute, adequate truth. It is not obtained from investigation and reflection upon things, but is essential in God and precedes things [176]. It is one with the essence of God and is thus substantial truth. Therefore also his word, his law, his gospel are pure truth. They are all as they must be. Now these three meanings of the concept of truth are indeed distinct, but they are nevertheless also again one. This unity consists in this, that truth always in all three meanings is agreement of thinking and being, of ideal and real being. God is the truth in the metaphysical sense, for he is the unity of thinking and being. He is perfectly self-conscious. He is God in the true sense, fully corresponding to the idea of God, which is in himself. He is the

truth in the ethical sense, for he reveals himself, speaks, acts, appears as he truly is and thinks. And he is the truth in the logical sense, for he thinks things as they are, or rather, things are as he thinks them. He is the truth in the full, absolute sense. And therefore he is the prima veritas, the original truth, the source of all truth, the truth in all truth; the ground of truth, of the true being of all things, of their knowability and thinkability; the ideal and the archetype of all truth, of all ethical being, of all rules and laws according to which the essence and the revelation of all things must be judged and normed; the source and the origin of all knowledge of the truth in every domain, the light in which we alone can see the light, the sun of spirits. Te invoco Deus veritas, in quo et a quo et per quem vera sunt, quae vera sunt omnia, Aug. Solil. I 1. Cf. further Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 16 and 17. I, 2 qu. 3 art. 7. S. c. Gent. I c. 59-62. III c. 51. Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 8 art. 1. Scheeben, Kath. Dogm. I 578 f. 663 f. Gerhard, Loci Theol. II c. 8 sect. 16. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 27. Zanchius, Op. II col. 226-242. L.

Meyer, Treatises on the Div. attributes IV pp. 1-88.

D. God as the Holy One.

11. Among the ethical virtues the first place belongs to the goodness of God. This is also known from nature. With Plato the idea of the good was one with the Deity. But the word good has different senses. The original and first meaning [177] of good seems to indicate not an inner quality but a relation to something else. With Socrates the good was identical with the useful, with what was good, serviceable, useful for another, Xen., Memor.

IV 6, 8 v.; an absolute good therefore does not exist, there is only a relative

good; utility and harm are the standard of good and evil. Greek ethics remained at this standpoint; the question concerning the highest good coincides with that concerning happiness; good is that which all desire,

Plato, Symp. 204 E. v. Arist. Nic. Eth. I 2. Hence the common definition: bonum est id quod omnia appetunt, e. g. in Dionys., de div. nom. c. 4.

Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 5 art. 1. qu. 16 art. 1 en 3. S. c. Gent. I c. 38. 40.

Sent. I dist. 8 art. 3. Utilitarian morality adheres to this meaning of the word good, and bases its doctrine on it, cf. Paulsen, System der Ethik 1889 S. 171 f. Wundt, Ethik 1886 S. 18 f. And Fr. Nietzsche has built his whole revolution of morality on it; good originally meant as much as noble, strong, powerful, beautiful, and bad was the designation of the simple, common man, Zur Genealogie der Moral S. 6. Now the word good indeed often has this meaning, when we speak of a good house, a good friend, etc., and thereby indicate that a person or thing possesses certain properties and is good for something. Good then has no content of its own, but receives it from the end for which someone or something must serve, and therefore varies in meaning among the different peoples. The Greek thinks of beauty in it, καλοκαγαθια, the Roman of noble birth and wealth, the Germanic of what is fitting and tüchtig; and in connection with that the meaning of ἀρετη, virtus, virtue, also differs. This good in a general sense contains under itself the useful, the pleasant, the aesthetic and the ethical good, bonum utile, bonum delectabile and bonum honestum, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 5 art. 6, I 2 qu. 99 art. 5 etc. In all these meanings good is still a relative concept and denotes id quod omnia appetunt. But yet the word does not fit in this meaning. We also speak of a bonum in se. The meaning of good as bonum morale or honestum forms the transition to that. The moral good is good in itself, abstracted from all advantageous or disadvantageous

consequences; it has absolute value. According to Scripture God is the sum of all perfections. All virtues are present in Him in an absolute sense.

Scripture calls Him [178] only a few times good in an absolute sense, Οὐδεις ἀγαθος ει μη εἱς ὁ θεος, Mr. 10:18, Luk. 18:19; He is τελειος, Mt.

5:48. But whatever virtue it ascribes to God, it always proceeds from the presupposition that this belongs to Him in an absolute sense. Knowledge, wisdom, power, love, righteousness, etc. belong to Him in an entirely unique, i.e. divine, way. This His goodness is therefore one with His absolute perfection. In Him idea and reality are one. He is pure εἰδος, actus purissimus. He needs to become nothing, but is what He is eternally. He has no end outside himself, but is self-sufficient, ἐξαρκης, παναρκης, αὐταρκης, Ps. 50:9 v., Jes. 40:28 v., Hab. 2:20. He receives nothing but only gives. Everything has Him, He has need of nothing or no one. He always intends himself, because He cannot rest in something less than himself.

Because He himself is the absolutely-good, the perfect, He can and may love something else only in and for himself. He can and may not be satisfied with less than absolute perfection. Where He loves others, He loves in them himself, his own virtues, works, gifts. On the goodness of God, in the sense of perfection, cf. August., de nat. boni c. Manich. 1, de trin. VIII 3. Pseudodion., de div. nom. c. 13. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 4-6, c.

Gent. I 28. Petavius, de Deo VI c. 1 sq. Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 10. 17.

Zanchius, Op. II 138 sq. 326 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 9 etc. Therefore He is also absolutely blessed in himself, as the sum of all good, of all perfection. Aristotle already said that God was therefore the blessed one, because He was the unity of thinking and thought and above all desiring, striving, willing, completely exalted, Zeller III3 367 f. And at all times those who placed the primacy in the intellect have attached themselves to

Aristotle and sought blessedness in thinking, knowing, contemplation, cf.

Thomas S. Theol. I 2 qu. 3 art. 4. There was truth in this, insofar as absolute blessedness is a state of rest, is not compatible with any striving toward an end and also presupposes consciousness. Blessedness belongs only to rational beings. The unconscious in von Hartmann, just like the will in Schopenhauer, is absolute unblessedness, which itself needs redemption,

Hartmann, Philos. des Unbew. II9 434. Religionsphilosophie II 152 f.

Drews therefore also says that the property of perfection cannot be ascribed to God; a perfect God would be a totes Abstraktum [179] and would not be able to explain the world; a God who had everything, who was perfectly blessed and sufficient to himself, has no need of change, no world, Die deutsche Spekulation seit Kant, II 593 f. But precisely this doctrine of the absolute unblessedness of God makes one cautious about ascribing the primacy to the will in God and man, as Duns Scotus and many after him did. Much more correct therefore is the standpoint of Bonaventura, who placed blessedness in both, in intellect and will, Sent. IV dist. 49 pars 1 art.

1 qu. 4, 5. Just as the blessedness of man will encompass soul and body and all his faculties, so in God it consists not only in his perfect knowledge but likewise in his perfect power, goodness, holiness, etc. Beatitudo status est omnium bonorum aggregatione perfectus, Boethius, de cons. philos. 4. On the blessedness of God, August. de civ. Dei XII 1. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu.

26, Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 19. Zanchius, II 155 sq. Polanus, II c. 17. But what is good in itself is good also for others. And God as the perfect and blessed one is the highest good for his creatures, bonum summum quod omnia appetunt; fons bonorum omnium; bonum omnis boni; bonum unum necessarium et sufficiens, finis bonorum omnium, Ps. 4:7, 8, 73:25, 26. He alone is the bonum quo sit fruendum, but creatures are bona, quibus sit

utendum, August. de doctr. chr. I c. 3 sq. de trin. X 10. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 1. Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 1. Augustine in particular has often presented God thus as summum bonum, de trin. VIII 3, Enarr. in Ps. 26, de doctr. chr. I 7, cf. Anselmus, Prosl. c. 23-25. In Him is everything and in Him alone is what all creatures seek and need. He is the summum bonum for all creatures, though for these in different measure, according as they share more or less in his goodness, can enjoy Him more or less. He is the one toward whom all creatures consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly strive, the object of all desire. And the creature finds no rest except in God alone, August. Conf. I 1. Thus the highest good was at all times placed in God by Christian theology, and it did not occur to thought to seek that highest good in any moral act or virtue of the creature, in duty

(Kant), in the kingdom of God (Ritschl), in love (Drummond) or in any other creature. But further, as summum bonum God is also the abundant fountain of all goods, Ned. [180] Gel. art. 1. Deus, cum perfecte bonus sit, perpetuo beneficus est, Athenagoras, Leg. pro christ. n. 26. There is no good in any creature except from and through Him. He is the causa efficiens, exemplaris et finalis of all good, however distinct this may be in the creatures. All natural, moral and spiritual good has its origin in Him. Holy

Scripture is a hymn of praise to the goodness of the Lord. From it creation is derived, and all life and blessing for man and for beast, Ps. 8, 19, 36:6-8,

65:12, 147:9, Mt. 5:45, Hd. 14:17, Jak. 1:17. It extends over all his works, Ps. 145:9 and endures forever, Ps. 136. Time and again the whole creation is called upon to praise God's goodness, 1 Chr. 16:34, 2 Chr. 5:13, Ps. 34:9,

106:1, 107:1, 118:1, 136:1, Jer. 33:11 etc. Schultz, Altt. Theol. 545 f.

Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 4, who depicts the goodness of God in an exalted way and compares it to the sun, which illuminates everything, Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 6, especially art. 4. c. Gent. I c. 40, 41. Petavius, de Deo VI c.

3. Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 10. Polanus, Synt. Theol. II c. 20. Zanchius, Op. II col. 326-342 etc. This goodness of God appears in different forms, according to the objects to which it is directed. Closely related to it is lovingkindness, ‎‏‏ֶחֶסד‎ a. v. ‎‏‏חסד‎, stringere, to bind, χρηστοτης, related to πραυτης, 2 Cor. 10:1. Sometimes it is used in a general sense, 1 Chr. 16:34, but mostly it denotes God's special favor toward his people, the affection with which He is bound to his favorites, to Joseph, Gen. 39:21, Israel, Num.

14:19, David, 2 Sam. 7:15, 22:51, Ps. 18:51, 1 Chr. 17:13, the pious, Ps.

5:8. It is connected with God's covenant, Neh. 1:5, is the principle of forgiveness, Ps. 6:5, 31:17, 44:27, 109:26, Lam. 3:22, of grace, Ps. 51:3, of comfort, Ps. 119:76, endures eternally, Jes. 54:8, 10 and is better than life,

Ps. 63:4. In all its richness it has been revealed in Christ, Rom. 2:4, 2 Cor.

10:1, Ef. 2:7, Col. 3:12, Tit. 3:4 and now shows itself to believers, leading them to repentance, Rom. 2:4, 11:22, Gal. 5:22, cf. Delitzsch on Ps. 4:4.

Cremer s. v. ἐλεος. The goodness of God is called, when it is shown to the wretched, mercy, ‎‏‏ָרֲחִמים‎, σπλαγχνα, viscera, misericordia, N. T. ἐλεος, οἰκτιρμος. Of this mercy of God Scripture makes mention at every moment,

Ex. 34:6, Deut. 4:31, 2 Chr. 30:9, [181] Ps. 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 112:4, 145:8 etc., in contrast with men, 2 Sam. 24:14, Spr. 12:10, Dan. 9:9, 18. It is manifold, 2 Sam. 24:14, Ps. 119:156, great, Neh. 9:19, Ps. 51:13, without end, Lam. 3:22, tender as of a father, Ps. 103:13, is shown to thousands, Ex.

20:6 and returns after chastisement, Jes. 14:1, 49:13 v., 54:8, 55:7, 60:10, Jer. 12:15, 30:18, 31:20, Hos. 2:22, Mich. 7:19 etc. In the N. T. God, the Father of mercies, 2 Cor. 1:3, has revealed his mercy in Christ, Luk. 1:50 v., who is a merciful high priest, Mt. 18:27, 20:34 etc. Hebr. 2:17 and He further shows the riches of his mercy, Ef. 2:4 in the salvation of believers,

Rom. 9:23, 11:30, 1 Cor. 7:25, 2 Cor. 4:1, 1 Tim. 1:13, Hebr. 4:16, etc., cf.

Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 21 art. 3. Zanchius, Op. II 370 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 23. Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 11. The sparing goodness of God toward those deserving punishment is called longsuffering, ‎‏ַ‏רּו‎ or ‎‏‏ ֹאֶרך ַאַּפִים‎, μακροθυμια, ἀνοχη, χρηστοτης. More than once this virtue of God is also spoken of in Scripture, Ex. 34:6, Num. 14:18, Neh. 9:17, Ps. 86:15, 103:8,

145:8, Jon. 4:2, Joel 2:13, Nah. 1:3. It has shown itself in the whole time before Christ, Rom. 3:25, and is also now still, after the example of Christ,

1 Tim. 1:16, 2 Petr. 3:15, often shown to sinners, Rom. 2:4, 9:22, 1 Petr.

3:20, Polanus, Synt. Theol. II c. 24. Much richer is the goodness of God where it is shown to such as have deserved nothing good but all evil; then it bears the name of grace, ‎‏‏ֵחן‎, ‎‏‏ְת ִחָּנה‎ a. v. ‎‏‏ָחַנן‎ to bow, incline, χαρις, v. χαριζομαι

This word also denotes the favor which is found by one man with another or bestowed on another, Gen. 30:27, 33:8, 10, 47:29, 50:4 etc., Luk. 2:52.

Used of God, however, it never has the creatures in general nor the Gentiles either, but only his people as its object. It is shown to Noah, Gen. 6:8,

Moses, Ex. 33:12, 17, 34:9, Job, cap. 8:5, 9:15, Daniel, cap. 1:9, to the meek and wretched, Spr. 3:34, Dan. 4:27, and then especially to Israel as a people. His election and guidance, his deliverance and redemption and all the benefits which it received in distinction from other peoples, are due only to God's grace, Ex. 15:13, 16, 19:4, 33:19, 34:6, 7, Deut. 4:37, 7:8, 8:14,

17, 9:5, 27, 10:14 v. 33:3, Jes. [182] 35:10, 42:21, 43:1, 15, 21, 54:5, 63:9, Jer. 3:4, 19, 31:9, 20, Ezech. 16, Hos. 8:14, 11:1 etc. In history and law, in psalmody and prophecy, the ground tone is always: not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name give glory, Ps. 115:1. He does everything for his name's sake, Num. 14:13 v., Jes. 43:21, 25 v., 48:9, 11, Ezech. 36:22 etc. And therefore that grace is also time and again praised and glorified, Ex. 34:6, 2

Chron. 30:9, Neh. 9:17, Ps. 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 116:5, Jon. 4:2, Joel 2:13, Zach. 12:10. In the N. Test. that grace appears to be still richer and deeper in content. Χαρις means in an objective sense beauty, pleasantness, grace,

Luk. 4:22, Col. 4:6, Ef. 4:29, and subjectively favor, affection on the side of the giver and thanks, veneration on the side of the receiver. In God it denotes his voluntary, unowed, undeserved affection, which is shown to guilty sinners and in place of the sentence of death grants them the δικαιοσυνη and the ζωη. As such it is a virtue and attribute of God, Rom.

5:15, 1 Petr. 5:10, which shows itself in the sending of Christ, who is full of grace, Joh. 1:14 v., 1 Petr. 1:13 and further in the bestowal of all kinds of spiritual and bodily benefits, which are all gifts of grace and are themselves grace, Rom. 5:20, 6:1, Ef. 1:7, 2:5, 8, Phil. 1:2, Col. 1:2, Tit. 3:7 etc. and exclude all merits on man's side altogether, Joh. 1:17, Rom. 4:4, 16, 6:14,

23, 11:5 v., Ef. 2:8, Gal. 5:3, 4, Schultz, Altt. Theol. 425 f. Cremer s. v. The doctrine of grace was first developed in the Christian church by Augustine, but in doing so one usually did not think of grace as a virtue of God, but of the benefits which were bestowed by God out of grace in Christ upon the church. Among the attributes of God grace is usually not treated. Yet this concept of grace, namely as virtus Dei, is not lacking; Thomas says e. g. quandoque tamen gratia Dei dicitur ipsa aeterna dilectio, secundum quod dicitur etiam gratia praedestinationis, in quantum Deus gratuito et non ex meritis aliquos praedestinavit sive elegit, S. Theol. II 1 qu. 110 art. 1., cf.

Schwetz, Theol. dogm. cath. I 1851 p. 193. Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 sect. 11 qu.

4. Musculus, Loci Communes 1567 p. 317 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 21.

Zanchius Op. II 342-358, but immediately grace is nevertheless taken in a broader sense, as it must first later in dogmatics, in [183] the locus de salute, come up for discussion. Cf. also Lange, art. Gnade in Herzog2,

Dogm. II § 18. Further, the goodness of God appears as love, when it gives not only certain benefits, but itself. In the O. Test. this love as an attribute of God is not yet spoken of so often, but nevertheless it is absolutely not lacking, Deut. 4:37, 7:8, 13, 10:15, 23:5, 2 Chron. 2:11, Jes. 31:3, 43:4,

48:14, 63:9, Jer. 31:3, Hos. 11:1, 4, 14:5, Zef. 3:17, Mal. 1:2. And not only virtues and attributes, such as right and righteousness, Ps. 11:7, 33:5, 37:28,

45:8, but also persons are its object, Ps. 78:68, 146:8, Spr. 3:12, Deut. 4:37, 7:8, 13, 23:5, 2 Chron. 2:11, Jer. 31:3, Mal. 1:2. Much more clearly this love of God comes to light in the N. T., now that God has given himself in the Son of his love. The Hebr. ‎‏‏ַאֲהָבה‎ is not rendered by ἐρως, which is the usual name for sensual love, nor by φιλια, the word for love between blood relatives, but by ἀγαπη, which is foreign to ordinary Greek and also does not occur in Philo and Josephus but is precisely suited to denote the full, pure, divine love, just like the Latin caritas (dilectio) in distinction from amor. The relation of Father and Son is depicted as a life of love, Joh. 3:35,

5:20, 10:17, 14:31, 15:19, 17:24, 26. But in Christ, who himself loves and has shown his love in his surrender, Joh. 15:13, that love also reveals itself toward men, not only the world or the church in general, Joh. 3:16, Rom.

5:7, 8:37, 1 Joh. 4:9, but also individually and personally, Joh. 14:23, 16:27, 17:23, Rom. 9:13, Gal. 2:20. Yes, God does not love, but He is love, 1 Joh.

4:8, and his love is foundation, source, example of ours, 1 Joh. 4:10. Now one can indeed speak of God's love in general toward the creatures and toward men, φιλοκτισια, amor complacentiae and φιλανθρωπια, amor benevolentiae, but Scripture nevertheless mostly uses the word goodness for that, and as a rule speaks of God's love, just like of his grace, only in relation to the people or the church which He has chosen, ἐλεκτοφιλια, amor amicitiae, Oehler, Theol. des Alt. Test. § 81. Schultz, Altt. Theol. 545

f. Smend, Altt. Religionsgesch. 197 f. Cremer, s. v. This love is now indeed not in the sense the essence of God, that it constitutes the center and the heart [184] in it and the other attributes are its modes, Schleiermacher, Chr.

Gl. § 167. Schoeberlein, Princip u. System der Dogm. 1881 S. 129. Dorner, Glaub. I 437. Oosterzee, Dogm. § 50, for all attributes are his essence in an equal sense; in God there is no higher and lower, no less and more, Lange,

Dogm. II 203. Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, I3 S. 105. Doedes, Leer van God 231. But nevertheless love is most certainly identical with the divine essence. It is independent, eternal, unchangeable as God himself. It has in Him its origin and also returns through the creatures to Him again.

Pseudodionysius therefore spoke of divine love tamquam sempiternus circulus, propter bonum, ex bono, in bono, et ad bonum indeclinabili conversione circumiens, in eodem et secundum idem et procedens semper et manens et remeans, de div. nom. c. 4 § 14. Cf. Augustinus, de trin. VIII 6-12. IX 6. X 1. Conf. IV 12. Solil. I 2. de vera relig. c. 46. Lombardus,

Sent. III dist. 32, 1. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 20. S. c. Gent. I c. 91.

Scheeben, Dogm. I 692 f. Gerhard, Loci theol. loc. II c. 8 sect. 11 qu. 2.

Zanchius, Op. II 359 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 22.

12. Closely related to goodness is the holiness of God. Formerly it was defined as ab omni scelere libera et omnino perfecta et omni ex parte immaculata puritas, Pseudodion., de div. nom. c. 12 § 2, cf. further

Suicerus, s. v. ἁγιος. Often it is not treated separately alongside the bonitas, perfectio and pulchritudo Dei; neither Lombardus nor Thomas bring it up.

Among the Protestant theologians the definition of the holiness of God was essentially the same; it consisted in moralis perfectio, puritas, Polanus,

Synt. theol. II c. 28. Synopsis, VI 40. Mastricht, Theor. pract. theol. II c. 19.

L. Meyer, Treatise on the Divine attributes III 115 ff. and was now

connected more with righteousness, then with goodness, and also sometimes with the truthfulness and wisdom of God, Heppe, Dogm. der ev. ref. K. S. 73, cf. Bretschneider, Syst. Entw. 382 f. Hase, Hutt. Rediv. § 63.

The investigation of the biblical concept holy, however, has gradually caused another view to arise. All now acknowledge that the concept of holiness in O. and N. T. expresses a relation of God to the world. But there is disagreement about what kind and character that relation is. Menken

[185] thought in that connection, with an eye to texts such as Hos. 11:9, Jes.

57:15, Ezech. 20:9 ff., of God's condescending goodness and grace, Versuch einer Anleitung zum eigenen Unterricht in den Wahrh. der h. S. 3te

Aufl. 1833 cap. 1 § 9. Baudissin, however, held that in the holiness of God rather his absolute exaltation and power above all creatures was expressed,

Stud. zur semit. Religionsgesch., 2tes Heft, Leipzig 1878 S. 3-142, and in this opinion was supported by Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. II2 89 f., and also by Prof. H. P. Smith, Presb. and Ref. Rev. Jan. 1890 p. 42 etc. with appeal to passages such as Num. 20:13, Jes. 5:16, Ezech. 20:41, 28:25, 36:20-24, and the connection of glorious, exalted with holy in passages such as Jes. 63:15,

64:11, Jer. 17:12, Ezech. 20:40 etc. Related to that is the view of Schultz, who in the holiness of God thinks of God's consuming majesty, of his unapproachability and inviolability, of the infinite distance that separates him from every creature, and for that refers to Ex. 15:11, 1 Sam. 2:2, 6:20,

Jes. 6:3, 8:14, 10:17, Altt. Theol.4 554 f., cf. also Kuenen, G. v. Isr. I 47 ff.

Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I2 83, in the main also Smend, Altt.

Religionsgesch. 333 f. Because there was thus the greatest difference over which attribute of God was nevertheless indicated by holiness, others have thought that this concept indicates no inner, essential quality at all, but only a relation, and thus is purely and only a Verhältnissbegriff. First holiness

was understood in this way by Diestel, Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1859 S. 3-62, and since then it is accepted by many as the correct one, especially by Otto

Schmoller, Die Bedeutung von ‎‏‏קדׁש‎ im A. T., in Festgruss an Rudolf von Todt zum Dr. jubiläum, von seinen Freunden u. Schülern, Stuttgart 1893 S.

39-43, cf. also Delitzsch art. Heiligkeit in Herzog2. Cremer, Wörterbuch s. v. Issel, Der Begriff der Heiligkeit im N. T. Leiden, 1887. R. Schröter, Der

Begriff der Heiligkeit im A. u. N. T. Leipzig, Fock 1892. Hoekstra, Wijsg.

Godsd. II 260-280.

The stem ‎‏‏קדׁש‎, related to ‎‏‏הדׁש‎, is mostly derived from the root ‎‏‏קד‎ with the meaning of cutting, separating, and thus expresses: being cut off, being set apart. The verb occurs in ni. pi. hi. hithp., the adj. is ‎‏‏ָקדֹוׁש‎ and the subst. ‎‏‏ ֹקֶדׁש‎; the oppositum is ‎‏‏ ֹחל‎, κοινος of ‎‏‏ִחֵּלל‎, κοινον facere, Lev. 10:10, 1 Sam. 21:5,

6, Ezech. 48:14, 15. It is related to but yet also clearly [186] distinguished from ‎‏‏ָטהֹור‎, clean, which has as oppositum ‎‏‏ָטֵמא‎, Lev. 10:10. The word holy is now in the first place used of all kinds of persons and things, which are set apart from common use and are placed in a special relation to God and his service. Thus there is mention of holy land, Ex. 3:5, holy assembly, Ex.

12:16, holy sabbath, Ex. 16:23, holy people, Ex. 19:6, holy place, Ex.

29:31, holy anointing, Ex. 30:25, holy robe, Lev. 16:4, holy jubilee year, Lev. 25:12, holy house, Lev. 27:14, holy field, Lev. 27:21, holy tithe, Lev.

27:30, holy water, Num. 5:17, holy vessels, Num. 16:37, holy cow, Num.

18:17, holy camp, Deut. 23:14, holy gold, Jos. 6:19, holy bread, 1 Sam.

21:4, holy ark, 2 Chron. 35:3, holy seed, Ezra 9:2, holy city, Neh. 11:1, holy covenant, Dan. 11:28, holy word, Ps. 105:42, of the temple as sanctuary,

Ex. 15:17 with its holy and holy of holies, and also of the angels or the children of Israel as the holy ones, Deut. 33:2, 3, Job 5:1, 15:15, Ps. 16:3,

10, 32:6, 89:6, 8, 20, Spr. 9:10, 30:3, Dan. 4:17, 7:18, 22, 25, 27, 7:21, Hos.

12:1, Zach. 14:5. In all these cases the concept holy does not yet express an inward, moral quality, but only indicates that the persons or objects thus designated are consecrated to the Lord and stand in a special relation to his service, and thus are set apart from the common sphere. In this peculiar relation to God, however, the persons and things that are called holy do not stand of themselves. There is rather by nature a distance and estrangement, a distinction and opposition between God and his creature. In itself the whole world is ‎‏‏ ֹחל‎, profane, not standing in communion with God and not suited to his service. Nor can the persons and things sanctify themselves and place themselves in that special relation to God which is expressed by the word holy. Sanctification proceeds only from God. He is the one who sanctifies Israel, priesthood, temple, altar, special places, persons and objects, transfers them into his service and communion, and separates them from the unholy. I am the Lord, who sanctify you, Ex. 31:13, Lev. 20:8,

21:8, 15, 23, 22:9, 16, 32, Ezech. 20:12, 37:28. This sanctification of persons or things by the Lord now takes place in a twofold way: negatively by choosing a people, person, place, day, object and setting it apart from all others, and [187] positively by consecrating these persons or things according to definite rules and causing them to live. God sanctifies the sabbath, not only by setting it apart from the other days of the week but also by resting on it and blessing it, Gen. 2:2, 3, Ex. 20:11, Deut. 5:12. He has sanctified the whole people of Israel, by choosing it out of all peoples of the earth, by taking it up into his covenant and making his laws known to it, Ex

19:4-6. The holiness of God is the principle of the whole legislation, of the moral and of the ceremonial commandments, of the whole revelation of salvation to Israel, for this intends nothing other than that Israel be holy, Ex.

19:4-6, Lev. 11:44, 45, 19:2, 20:26. Israel is holy, because God takes it as

his possession, comes to the people, dwells among them and is to them a God, Ex. 19:4-6, 29:43-46. And within this circle he now again sanctifies in particular the firstborn, by appropriating them to himself, Ex. 13:2, the people, in that they wash themselves and thus prepare themselves to meet

God, Ex. 19:10, 14, the mountain, by marking it off, Ex. 19:23, the priesthood by anointing, offering, sprinkling of blood and special clothing,

Ex. 28:3, 41, 29:1 v. 21, the tabernacle and the altar by anointing, Ex.

29:37, 40:9 v. Lev. 8:10, 11, Num. 7:1, the anointing oil, by having it prepared in a special way, Ex. 30:22 v., the Nazirites, by causing them to live according to definite rules, Num. 6:2 v. etc. And what is thus holy shares in a life of its own, bears a character of its own, is distinguished from common life and the common law; it may e.g. not be touched, Ex. 19:23,

24, not be eaten, Ex. 29:33, not be used, Ex. 30:32 v., it sanctifies that which comes into contact with it, Ex. 30:29, Lev. 10:2 v., Num. 1:51, 53,

3:10, 38, Jes. 8:14. Now the positive act by which something becomes holy is not always expressed; sometimes the sanctification seems to consist in nothing other than separation, Lev. 25:10, 27:14, Joz. 7:13, 20:7, Rich.

17:3, 1 Sam. 7:1, 2 Sam. 8:11, 1 Chron. 18:11 etc. But to sanctify is nevertheless something more than only to separate; it is, by means of washing, anointing, offering, sprinkling of blood etc., to strip something of that character which it has in common with all things, and to impress upon it another, proper stamp, which it must bear and display everywhere. Now the ceremonies that were necessary for sanctification clearly indicate that the uncleanness and sinfulness of the creature also come into consideration here, which precisely in that way had to be removed. Washing, offering, sprinkling of blood, anointing served for de-sinning and dedication, Lev.

8:15, 16:16, Job 1:5 etc. Holy and clean are therefore synonyms, Ex. 30:35,

Lev. 16:19. But for that reason the concept holy does not amount to that moral purity. Indeed this is not excluded, but it is not the only nor even the first meaning. Holy in the O. T., especially in the law, is much broader in sense. The whole distinction and opposition of outward and inward purity etc. has been transferred from a later standpoint to that of the Mosaic legislation. But holy is that which is chosen and set apart by Ihvh, which by special ceremonies has been stripped of the common character and has received a character of its own, and now in this new condition lives according to the laws set for it. Israel is a holy people, because it has been chosen and set apart by God, has been taken up into a covenant and now has to live according to all his laws, also the ceremonial etc. Holy is that which in everything corresponds to the special laws which God has given for it; holiness is perfection, not in a moral sense only, but in that whole sense in which the peculiar legislation of Israel conceives it, in a religious, ethical, ceremonial, inward and outward sense.

This concept of holiness, however, only then becomes fully clear when we investigate in what sense it is applied to God. Cremer has rightly pointed out that holiness does not in the first place indicate a relation from below to above, but from above to below, and that it belongs in the first place to God and thereafter, in a derived sense, also to creatures. Creatures are not holy in themselves. Nor can they sanctify themselves. All sanctification and all holiness proceeds from God. Ihvh is holy, and therefore He wills a holy people, a holy priesthood, a holy dwelling, etc., Ex. 19:6, 29:43, Lev. 11:44,

45, 19:2, 20:26, 21:8, Deut. 28:9, 10. More than once this predicate is ascribed to Ihvh, Lev. 11:44, 45, 19:2, 20:26, 21:8, Joz. 24:19, 1 Sam. 2:2,

6:20, Ps. 22:4, 99:5, 9, Jes. 5:16, 6:3 etc. Isaiah often uses the name of the Holy One of Israel, cap. 29:23, 40:25, 43:15, 49:7, 62:12, cf. 2 Kon. 19:22,

Ezech. 39:7, Hab. 1:12, 3:3. And further there is also mention of God's holy name, Lev. 20:3, [189] 22:32, 1 Chron. 16:35, Ps. 99:3, 103:1, 111:9 etc., holy arm, Jes. 52:10, holy majesty, 2 Chr. 20:21. Now Ihvh is called so in the first place because He has placed Himself in a special relation to Israel; holy is also with God in the first place a Verhältnissbegriff. Jahveh's holiness reveals itself in this, that he has adopted Israel as his people, gave himself to Israel and went to dwell among them, Ex. 29:43-46, Lev. 11:44,

45, 20:26, Ps. 114:1, 2. But this relation is no abstraction, but is rich in content. God Himself has regulated this relation in the laws which He gave to Israel. The whole legislation of Israel has its principle in the holiness of Ihvh and its goal in the sanctification of the people. What the sanctification of Ihvh entails becomes manifest in the whole law; and the people is holy when it corresponds to that. As the Holy One He is the one who gave himself to Israel and dwells among Israel, but now also further holds to his word, remains faithful to his covenant, Ps. 89:35 v. and time and again rescues and delivers Israel. God is the Holy One of Israel, who belongs to Israel and who is such as his law makes Him known. From his holiness there flows forth for Israel: salvation, Ps. 22:4, 5, 89:19, 98:1, 103:1, 105:3,

145:21, the hearing of prayer, Ps. 3:5, 20:7, 28:2, comfort, Jes. 5:16, Hab.

1:12, trust, Ps. 22:4, 5, 33:21, Jes. 10:20. His holiness does not permit that He destroy Israel. As the Holy One He is the Creator, Redeemer and King of Israel, Jes. 43:14, 15, 49:7, 54:5, 62:12. And thus He is thanked and praised by his people, which has been redeemed, as the Holy One, Ps. 30:5,

71:22, 97:12, 1 Chron. 16:10, 35. But at the same time this holiness of God is also principle of punishment and chastisement. If Israel breaks his covenant, profanes his name, transgresses his laws, then it is precisely the holiness of God that urges Him to punishment; his holiness demands that

Israel be holy and sanctify Him, Lev. 11:44, 45, 19:2, 20:7, 26, 21:8. In case of disobedience, He chastises Israel, 1 Kon. 9:3-7, 2 Chron. 7:16-20. The same holiness which is principle of deliverance and object of praise is for the transgressors principle of destruction and object of fear. Holy is then synonymous with zealous, Joz. 24:19, great and fearful, Ex. 15:11, Ps. 99:3,

111:9, with glorious and exalted, Jes. 6:3, 57:15. No one is like Him as the Holy One, Ex. 15:11, 1 Sam. 2:2, Jes. 40:25. To sanctify Him is to fear

Him, Jes. 8:13, 29:23. When men profane his name and his covenant, then He sanctifies Himself through justice and righteousness, Jes. 5:16, Ezech.

28:22. But even then He does not forget his people. His holiness remains for Israel the cause of deliverance, Jes. 6:13, 10:20, 27:13, 29:23, 24, 43:15,

49:7, 52:10 etc. Jer. 51:5, Hos. 11:8, 9, and will finally reveal itself in this, that He will make the Gentiles know that He is the Lord, Jer. 50:29, Ezech.

36:23, 39:7 and delivers and cleanses Israel from all iniquities, Ezech.

36:25 v., 39:7. This latter now leads directly onward to holiness in the NewTestament sense. Already the choice of the Greek word is of significance.

Σεμνος from σεβομαι, denotes what is venerable, Phil. 4:8, 1 Tim. 3:8, 11, Tit. 2:2; ἱερος expresses only a relation to the Deity, 1 Cor. 9:31, 2 Tim.

3:15, Hebr. 8:2, 9:8 etc.; ἁγνος has the meaning of pure, chaste, 2 Cor. 11:2, Tit. 2:5 etc. These words are never used of God. God in the N. T. is only called ὁσιος, Op. 15:4, 16:5, cf. Hebr. 7:26 and especially ἁγιος, Luk. 1:49,

Joh. 17:11, 1 Joh. 2:20, 1 Petr. 1:15, 16, Op. 4:8, 6:10. In the O. Test. the holiness of God is not yet clearly determined alongside and in distinction from all other perfections of God. There it still denotes the whole relation in which the Lord stands to Israel and Israel to the Lord. Therefore Ihvh can be called the Holy One of Israel, who has given himself wholly and entirely to Israel and maintains and preserves it as his possession by all manner of

ways. Therefore also on the side of the people the sanctification is not only religious and ethical but also ceremonial, civil, political in nature. Just as holiness in God is not yet delimited alongside other virtues, so it is also on the side of Israel comprehending the whole people in all respects. But when in the N. T. ὁ ἁγιος του θεου appears, Mk. 1:24, Luk. 4:34, Hd. 3:14, 4:27, who forms with the world the deepest antithesis, Joh. 15:18 and sanctifies and consecrates himself to God in an absolute sense, Joh. 17:19, then the holiness of God ceases to be principle of punishment and chastisement, and it becomes in the Holy Spirit, who in the O. T. is so called only a few times,

Ps. 51:13, Jes. 63:10, but now regularly bears that name, the principle of the sanctification of the church. This is now the ἐθνος ἁγιον, 1 Petr. 2:5, 9, Ef.

2:19, 5:27, consisting of ἐκλεκτοι, ἁγιοι, ἀμωμοι, Ef. 1:1, 4, [191] Col. 1:2, 22, 3:12, 1 Cor. 7:24, wholly and entirely freed from sin and cleansed and eternally with soul and body consecrated to God. The holiness which Ihvh causes himself to be given to Israel and wholly and entirely claims Israel for his service, finally reveals itself in the highest degree in this, that God gives himself in Christ to the church and delivers and cleanses it from all iniquities.

13. To the holiness of God belongs also his glory. Scripture uses for this the words ‎‏‏ָּכבֹוד‎ and δοξα; ‎‏‏ָּכבֹוד‎ from the verb ‎‏‏כבד‎, to be heavy, weighty, is the appearance of him who is weighty, eminent; alongside this there is also in use ‎‏‏הֹוד‎, which denotes the glorious appearance of him whose name is widely spread, and ‎‏‏ָהָדר‎, which denotes that appearance in its radiance and beauty, Delitzsch on Ps. 8:6. The Greek word for this in LXX and N. T. is δοξα, the recognition that someone enjoys or to which he has a claim, subjectively therefore the recognition that is due to someone or is in fact bestowed, the fame or honor in which he shares, syn. with τιμη and

εὐλογια, Op. 5:12, opp. ἀτιμια, 2 Cor. 6:8; and objectively the appearance, form, the aspect, the splendor, radiance, glory of a person or thing, which presents itself, or the person or thing itself in their glorious appearance, and then related to εἰδος, εἰκων, μορφη, Jes. 53:2, 1 Cor. 11:7. The ‎‏‏ָּכבֹוד יהוה‎, δοξα του θεου therefore makes known the radiance and glory that is inseparable from all the virtues of God and from his entire self-revelation in nature and above all in grace, the glorious form in which He everywhere appears over against creatures. This glory and majesty with which God is clothed and which marks all his doing, 1 Chron. 16:27, Ps. 29:4, 96:6,

104:1, 111:4, 113:4 etc., reveals itself in the whole creation, Ps. 8, Jes. 6:3, but is nevertheless especially seen on the terrain of grace. It appears to Israel, Ex. 16:7, 10, 24:16, 33:18 v. Lev. 9:6, 23, Num. 14:10, 16:19 etc.

Deut. 5:24. It filled the tabernacle and the temple, Ex. 40:34, 1 Kon. 8:11 and communicated itself to the whole people, Ex. 29:43, Ezech. 16:14 etc.

Above all it is beheld in Christ, the Only-begotten, Joh. 1:14 and through Him in the church, Rom. 15:7, 2 Cor. 3:18, which expects the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and of its Savior Jesus Christ,

Tit. 2:13. [192] More than once it is brought into connection with the glory of God. Ex. 29:43, Jes. 6:3 and therefore also described as a fire, Ex. 24:17,

Lev. 9:24 and as a cloud, 1 Kon. 8:10, 11, Jes. 6:4. Without doubt Scripture, with that cloud and that fire, thinks of sensibly perceptible, creaturely forms under which God's presence made itself known, cf. deel I 249. It is, however, something else with the light with which the glory of God is often compared and under which it is repeatedly represented. Light is in Scripture the image of truth, holiness, and blessedness, Ps. 43:3, Jes. 10:17, Ps. 97:11.

This comparison is so simple and natural that truly the supposition is not needed for it that Ihvh originally was a sun-god, Kuenen, G. v. I. I 48 v. 240

v. 249. 267, just as little as the designation rock needs to point to an earlier period of stone-worship, Kuenen, I 392-395. The light of the sun and the fire of heaven provide the Israelite the material for the description of the virtues of Iahveh, but he is clearly conscious in doing so of speaking in image. Just as the thunder is his voice, Ps. 104:7, Am. 1:2, Jes. 30:30, so the light of nature is his garment, Ps. 104:2. What light is in nature, source of knowledge, of purity, of joy, that God is in the spiritual. He is the light of the pious, Ps. 27:1, his countenance, his word spreads light, Ps. 44:4, 89:16,

119:105, in his light alone they see the light, Ps. 36:10. He himself is pure light, without darkness and father of all that is light, 1 Joh. 1:5, 1 Tim. 6:16,

Jak. 1:17, and is according to the promise, Jes. 9:1, 60:1, 19, 20, Mich. 7:8, in Christ appeared as the light, Mt. 4:16, Luk. 2:32, Joh. 1:4, 3:19, 8:12, 1

Joh. 2:20, so that now his church is light in Him, Mt. 5:14, Ef. 5:8, 1 Thes.

5:5, and goes to meet the full light, Op. 21:23 v. 22:5, Col. 1:12. The Jews later thought with this ‎‏‏ָּכבֹוד יהוה‎ of a created, visible radiance, of a Lichtleib, by which He made his presence known in the creation and even conceived it in the schechina as a personal subject, Weber, System der altsyn. pal.

Theol. 1880 S. 160, 179-184. From Jewish theology this opinion passed over into theosophy. Böhme describes the glory of God as a Leib des

Geistes, as a Reich der Herrlichkeit Gottes, das ewige Himmelreich, worin die Kraft Gottes wesentlich ist, tingiert vom [193] Glanz und Kraft des

Feuers und des Lichts, as an uncreated heaven, a paradise, Joh. Claassen, Jakob Böhme, sein Leben und seine theos. Werke I 157, II 61, and so also

Baader, Joh. Claassen, Fr. v. Baaders Leben u. theos. Werke II 90 f.

Oetinger, Die Theol. aus der Idee des Lebens, herausgeg. von J. Hamberger 1852 S. 113 f. 117 f. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psych2. S. 49 f. Keerl, Der Mensch das Ebenbild Gottes II 17 f. 113. Id. Die Lehre des N. T. von der

Herrlichkeit Gottes, Basel 1863. Among the Lutheran theologians there was earlier already dispute about whether God in a proper (Dannhauer,

Chemniz) or indeed in an improper (Musaeus e. a.) sense was called light, M. Vitringa, Doctr. chr. relig. I 139. In the Eastern church even the council of Constantinople in 1431 attached its approval to the doctrine of an uncreated, divine light that was distinct from the essence of God, Kurtz,

Lehrb. der Kirchengesch. § 69, 2. Yet this opinion cannot be approved.

Scripture clearly teaches the spirituality and the invisibility of God. The assumption of a glory of God as a place, ‎‏‏מקום‎, form, ‎‏‏תמונה‎, εἰδος, μορφη, as a ‎‏‏פנים‎, of a body, a realm, a heaven, which, even if it were uncreated, would nevertheless be distinct from his essence, is in conflict with the abovementioned attributes and likewise with the simplicity of God. Also when

Scripture speaks of God's countenance, glory, and majesty, it speaks in image. But just as all perfections, so also this one comes out in his creatures. It is communicable. There is in the created a weak radiance of the inexpressible glory and majesty that God possesses. Just as the creatures lead us to speak of God's eternity and omnipresence, of his righteousness and grace, so they make us know something of the glory of God. Yet here too the analogy is not identity. Already in language this comes out. With the creatures we speak of beautiful, fair, fine; but Scripture has for the beauty of God a proper name, that of glory. Therefore it also deserves no recommendation to speak, with the church fathers, scholastics, and Roman

Catholic theologians, of the pulchritudo Dei. Augustine already spoke in that sense. He proceeded from the fundamental proposition: Omne quod est, in quantum est, verum, bonum, pulchrum est. Now there is in being and thus also in the true, good, and beautiful distinction, ordering of rank, ascent. In proportion as something has more being, it also has [194] more

truth, goodness, and beauty. Everything is beautiful in its kind. Singula opera Dei.... inveniuntur habere laudabiles mensuras et numeros et ordines in suo quaeque genere constituta, de Gen. c. Manich. I 21. Inest enim omnibus quoddam naturae sui generis decus, de Gen. ad litt. III 14. All creatures therefore contribute to the beauty of the whole. But all beauty of the creatures is perishable and changeable; they are not beautiful through themselves, but through participation in a higher, absolute beauty. Question all creatures: Respondent tibi omnia: ecce, vide, pulchra sumus. Pulchritudo eorum, confessio eorum, Serm. 241. That highest beauty, to which all creatures point, is God. He is summum esse, summum verum, summum bonum and also the highest unchangeable beauty. Ista pulchra mutabilia quis fecit, nisi incommutabilis pulcher? ib. God is the highest beauty, because in his being there is absolute unity and measure and order. Nothing is lacking to Him, and there is nothing superfluous in Him, de ord. I 26. II 51. de beata vita 34. c. Acad. II 9. Ritter, Gesch. der christl. Philos. II 289 f.

Also in this conception of Augustine the influence of neoplatonism is not to be denied, which likewise regarded the Godhead as the highest beauty and the cause of all that is beautiful, Zeller V2 483 f. But thus this thought of Augustine nevertheless found entrance with Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 4 §

7. Bonaventura, Breviloquium Pars I c. 6. Petavius, Theol. dogm. VI c. 8.

Scheeben, Kath. Dogm. I 589 f. etc. In contrast, the Prot. theologians preferred to speak of the majestas and gloria Dei, Gerhard, Loci theol. I c. 8 sect. 18. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 31. Mastricht, Theor. pract. theol. II c.

22. Synopsis pur. theol. VI 43. In the glory of God his greatness and exaltedness comes out, as it is so many times depicted in the psalms and prophets, Ps. 104, Jes. 40, Hab. 3. It is called greatness and exaltedness, insofar as it awakens in the creature reverent admiration and worship. It is

called glory, insofar as it prompts to thanks and praise and honor. It is called majesty, insofar as it stands in connection with his absolute dignitas and demands subjection from every creature.

14. To God as the Holy One there finally also belongs the virtue of righteousness. The words ‎‏‏ַצִּדיק‎, ‎‏‏ֶצֶדק‎, ‎‏‏ְצָדָקה‎ denote [195] the state of someone who conforms to a law. The first meaning seems to be a forensic one; ‎‏‏ַצִּדיק‎ is he who in a lawsuit is in the right before the judge and therefore must be acquitted, ‎‏‏ִהְצִּדיק‎ oppos. ‎‏ַ‏ִהְר ִׁשי‎ Deut. 25:1. It is also the word for him who is in the right in a dispute or war of words, Job 11:2, 33:12, 32, Isa. 41:26; and the substantive can therefore also denote the correctness or truth of an assertion or utterance, Ps. 52:5, Prov. 16:13, Isa. 45:23. Subsequently it then in general means that someone is in the right, even if no lawsuit and no court is involved; that he has the right on his side, is righteous and good and conforms to the law, Gen. 30:33, 38:26, 1 Sam. 24:18, Ps. 15:2. From here it is also transferred to the religious sphere and applied to God. In the Pentateuch God is still only twice called ‎‏‏ַצִּדיק‎, Ex. 9:27, Deut. 32:4. God's righteousness first comes to expression in history, in his government of the world and in his guidance of Israel, and is therefore also developed most by the psalmists and prophets. It reveals itself over the whole world, even in the beasts of the field, Ps. 36:7. God is a Judge of the whole earth, Gen.

18:25. It consists in this, that God recompenses each according to his work, treats the righteous and the wicked differently, Gen. 18:25. But now it is remarkable that the one side of this righteousness, viz. that according to which God punishes the wicked, the justitia vindicativa, comes much less to the foreground in Scripture than that other, according to which He confirms the righteous. Diestel in his article, Die Idee der Gerechtigheit vorzüglich im A. T., Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. V 1860, 2tes Heft, S. 173-253 has rightly

drawn attention to this and has found agreement with many, especially with Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. II2 102-119. The matter itself, which later in dogmatics was expressed as justitia vindicativa, is not absent. On the contrary, God by no means holds the guilty innocent, Ex. 20:7, Nah. 1:3. He does not spare, Ezek. 7:4, 9, 27, 8:18, 9:10. He accepts no person and no gift, Deut. 10:17, and judges impartially, Job 13:6-12, 22:2-4, 34:10-12,

35:6, 7. He is righteous and all his judgments are right, Ps. 119:137, 129:4; also the punishing of the wicked is more than once connected with his righteousness, Ex. 6:5, 7:4, Ps. 7:12, [196] 9:5-9, 28:4, 62:13, 73, 96:10, 13,

2 Chron. 12:5-7, Neh. 9:33, Lam. 1:18, Isa. 5:16, 10:22, Dan. 9:14, Rom.

2:5, 2 Thess. 1:5-10. But yet it is true that the punishing of the wicked is mostly derived from the wrath of God and that righteousness in Scripture especially appears as a principle of salvation for the people of God. The wrath of God is in the Hebrew indicated by many words, ‎‏‏ַאף‎, ‎‏‏ָהרֹון‎, ‎‏‏ַּכַעס‎, ‎‏‏ַזַעם‎,

‎‏‏ ֹרֶגז‎, ‎‏‏ֶקֶצף‎, mostly translated by wrath, wrathfulness, ‎‏‏ֵחָמה‎ mostly rendered by fury, ‎‏‏ֶעְבָרם‎ mostly translated by indignation, LXX and N. T. by θυμος, the inward, and ὀργη, the outwardly manifesting wrath, connected together,

Rom. 2:8. This wrath, whose root-words partly are connected with the concept of burning, partly express a violent, not-to-be-restrained movement of the mind, is often compared to a fire, Lev. 10:6, Deut. 32:22, Ps. 21:10, a conflagration, Deut. 32:22, 2 Kings 23:26, Ps. 2:12, Isa. 30:27, Jer. 15:14,

17:4, and is therefore called hot, burning, Ps. 58:10, Deut. 13:17, 2 Chron.

28:11, Job 20:23, Isa. 13:9, 13, and smoking, Deut. 29:30, Ps. 74:1. It is aroused and kindled by Israel's theocratic sins against the covenant of God, such as perjury, Josh. 9:20, profanation of the service of God, Lev. 10:6,

Num. 1:53, 16:46, 18:5, idolatry, Deut. 9:19, the sin of Manasseh, 2 Kings 23:26, David, 1 Chron. 27:24, and especially by the sins of which the

people made themselves guilty and by which it has deserved all kinds of punishments, Isa. 42:24, 25, Jer. 7:20, 21:5, 32:31 etc. Lam. 2:2 f., 3:43,

Ezek. 5:13 f., 7:3, 13:13 etc. Zech. 7:12 f. This wrath is dreadful, Ps. 76:8, and works terror, Ps. 2:5, 90:7, pain, Job 21:17, Ps. 102:11, punishment, Ps.

6:2, 38:2, Jer. 10:24, devastation, Jer. 42:18, 2 Chron. 29:8 etc. cf. Job 9:5, Ps. 21:10, 56:8, 85:5. According to Deut. 6:15, 29:20, 32:21, Job 16:9, Nah.

1:2, with that wrath hatred, vengeance, and zeal are related. Hatred has almost always the sinful deeds, Deut. 16:22, Ps. 45:8, Prov. 6:16, Jer. 44:4,

Hos. 9:15, Am. 5:12, Zech. 8:17, Rev. 2:6, and only a few times the sinful persons, Ps. 5:6, Mal. 1:3, Rom. 9:13, as object. The vengeance ‎‏‏ְנָקָמה‎, ἐκδικησις, which is ascribed to God, Nah. 1:2, 1 Thess. 4:6 and is expressly reserved to Him, Deut. 32:35, Rom. 12:19, Heb. 10:30, now also sometimes reveals itself in judgment and judicial sentence, Num. 31:2, 3, Judg. 5:2,

[197] 11:36, 16:28, 2 Sam. 4:8, 22:48, Ps. 18:48, 99:8, but will nevertheless first reveal itself in all its power in the future, in the day of vengeance,

Deut. 32:41, 42, Ps. 94:1, 149:7, Isa. 34:8, 35:4, 59:17, 61:2, 4, Jer. 46:10, 50:15, 28, 51:11, Ezek. 25:14v., Mic. 5:14. The zeal of God, ‎‏‏ִקְנָאה‎ ζηλος, which occurs repeatedly, Ex. 20:9, 34:14, Deut. 4:24, 5:9, 6:15, Josh. 24:19,

Nah. 1:2 is aroused by the fact that Israel, the bride of Ihvh, violates his rights as bridegroom and husband by whoring after other gods, Deut. 32:16,

21, 2 Kings 14:22, Ps. 78:58, Ezek. 8:3, 5 and reveals itself in this, that Ihvh now on his part also provokes Israel to jealousy by choosing another people, Deut. 32:21, Ps. 79:5, Ezek. 5:13, 16:38, 23:25, Rom. 10:19.

Alongside all these virtues, the righteousness of God is now for the most part taken in bonam partem and described according to that side according to which it puts the righteous in the right and elevates them to honor and salvation. In that especially consists the ‎‏‏ְצָדָקה‎ of Ihvh, that He recognizes the

righteousness of the righteous, brings it to light and makes it triumph. He is righteous because He decrees salvation for the pious, confirms them, Ps.

7:10, helps out, 31:2, answers, 65:6, hears, 143:1, delivers, 143:11, makes alive, 119:40, acquits, 34:23, does justice, 35:23 etc., while the wicked do not come to his righteousness, 69:28, 29. The righteousness of Ihvh therefore forms no antithesis with his lovingkindness, as wrath does, Ps.

69:25v., but is related to it and synonymous, Ps. 22:32, 33:5, 35:28, 40:11, 51:16, 89:15, 145:7, Isa. 45:21, Jer. 9:24, Hos. 2:18, Zech. 9:9. The manifestation of the righteousness of God is at the same time manifestation of his grace, Ps. 97:11, 12, 112:4, 116:5, 119:15-19. Even the forgiveness of sins is due to that righteousness of God, Ps. 51:16, 103:17, 1 John 1:9. The manifestations of that righteousness, ‎‏‏ִצְדקֹות‎, are therefore saving benefits, deeds of rescue and deliverance, Judg. 5:11, 1 Sam. 12:7, Ps. 103:6, Isa.

45:24, 25, Mic. 6:5. Especially with Isaiah this soteriological character of the righteousness of God comes strikingly to expression. Israel is indeed a sinful people and is therefore also severely punished, 43:26, 48:1, 53:11,

57:12, 59:4, 64:5, but nevertheless Israel is in the right over against the Gentiles; it has, in spite of all its transgressions, a righteous cause, it nevertheless in the end has the right on its side. [198] When it then also has been chastised enough, God's righteousness will awaken and recognize

Israel in this its right and deliver it from all its misery, 40:1v., 54:5, 7v., 57:15v., 61:1v. etc. And so it is with all the pious. Personally they are sinners, they stand guilty of all kinds of unrighteousness and they are a poor and miserable people. But they stand for a righteous cause, they trust in the Lord, and they count on it that God will do them justice, will plead their cause and will crown them with his salvation, Ps. 17:1v. 18:21, 22, 34:16,

103:6, 140:13. And also in the N. Test. God's δικαιοσυνη consists

specifically in this, that in Christ it offers a means of atonement, by which He both himself appears δικαιος and also can δικαιουν τον ἐκ πιστεως, and further grants to his own forgiveness, 1 John 1:9 and decrees salvation, John

17:25, 2 Tim. 4:8. Still more, finally even wrath and zeal, hatred and vengeance are made serviceable to the rescue and deliverance of his people.

His wrath is accomplished after a little time, Ps. 30:6, 78:38, 85:4, 103:9, Isa. 10:25, 48:9, 51:22, 54:8, Jer. 3:12v. 32:37, Ezek. 43:7-9, Dan. 9:16,

Hos. 14:5, Mic. 5:18, and his zeal against Israel comes to an end, Ezek.

16:42, 36:6v. Zech. 8:2v. Then his wrath and zeal and vengeance will turn against the enemies of his people in the great day of wrath and vengeance,

Deut. 32:41, 42. Isa. 13:2v., 26:11, 30:27v., 34:8, 35:4, 42:11, 59:17, 61:2, 4, 63:3v., Jer. 10:25, 46:10, 50:15, 28, 51:11, Lam. 3:66, Ezek. 25:14v.,

38:19, 39:25, Mic. 5:14, Nah. 1:2, Hab. 3:12, Zeph. 1:15v., 2:2 etc., and thereby serve for Israel as blessing and for deliverance, 2 Kings 19:31, Isa.

9:6, 37:32, Joel 2:18, Zech. 1:14, 8:2. And likewise the N. T. says that, although God's wrath already now rests on the wicked, John 3:36, Eph. 2:3,

1 Thess. 2:16, yet that wrath in all its dreadfulness will first be revealed in the future, Mt. 3:7, Luke 3:7, 21:23, Rom. 5:9, 1 Thess. 1:10, 5:9, Eph. 5:6,

3:6, Rev. 6:16, 17, 11:18, 14:10, 16:19, 19:15. On the righteousness of God in Scripture, cf. besides Diestel and Ritschl t. a. p., Ortloph in a treatise on the righteousness of God, Zeits. f. luth. Theol. u. Kirche 1860. Kautzsch,

Ueber die Derivata des Stammes ‎‏‏צדק‎ im altt. Sprachgebrauch, Tübingen 1881. Koenig, De vi vocis ‎‏‏צדקה‎ in libris prophetarum, Paris 1894. Cremer, s. v. Köstlin, in Herzog2 5, 311 and Stud. u. Krit. 1892, 3tes Heft S. 423425. [199] Oehler, Theol. des A. T. § 47. Schultz, Altt. Theol.4 S. 540 f.

Smend, Altt. Religionsgesch. 363 f. 410 f. Kuenen, G. v. Isr. I 65v. A.

Fricke, Der paulin. Grundbegriff der δικαιοσυνη θεου, erörtert auf Grund

von Rom. 3:21-26. Leipzig Böhme 1888. H. Beck, Die δικ. θεου bei Paulus, Neue Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1895, 2tes Heft S. 249-261, and further literature later in the locus de justificatione. On the wrath of God:

Lactantius, de ira Dei. Tertull. de ira Dei. Bartholomäi, Vom Zorne Gottes, Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1861 v. 256-277. Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes 1862.

Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. II2 S. 119-156. Diestel, t. a. p. S. 193 f. Lange art. in Herzog1, Kübel in Herzog2. Oehler § 48. Schultz, S. 560 f. Smend S. 99 f. Cremer s. v. etc.

In dogmatics the concept usually acquired a broader sense. Sometimes it was taken so broadly that it also included the perfection or holiness of God; righteousness was then virtue itself and the sum of all virtues; in God consisting in perfect agreement with himself, justitia divina. But usually, in imitation of Aristotle, it was nevertheless conceived in a narrower sense. He defined it in his ethics as ἀρετη, δι' ἡν τα αὑτων ἑκαστοι ἐχουσιν; it is only possible in a society of beings who can possess a greater or smaller quantity of goods; among the gods it does not exist, because there is no measure for their possession, and among irrational creatures neither, because among them there is no question of property. The justitia therefore presupposes, first of all, that there are rights, which have been bestowed by the lawgiver, justitia dominica, legislativa, dispositiva; next, that those rights are mutually respected by treaties, contracts, justitia commutativa; and finally that those rights which exist are maintained, justitia distributiva, and indeed by reward, justitia remunerativa, or by punishment, justitia vindicativa; in all those parts righteousness was constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi. All this was transferred to God; and thus the concept of righteousness in dogmatics acquired a much broader sense than in Scripture. Now there is no overriding objection to this, provided only that

the difference in usage is kept in view, for the matters themselves, which in dogmatics are treated under the justitia Dei, all occur clearly in Holy

Scripture. Indeed, there is even an advantage connected with it, because it offers opportunity to maintain the righteousness [200] of God in its whole extent against its opponents. The Gnostics in general and especially

Marcion made a sharp antithesis between law and gospel, works and faith, flesh and spirit, and thus also between the God of wrath, of vengeance, of righteousness, who revealed himself in the O. T., and the God of love and of grace, who in the N. T. in Christ had made himself known, Harnack, D. G. I 228 f.; and later, essentially in the same sense, righteousness, specifically punitive righteousness, as in conflict with his love, was denied of God by many. Now, with the justitia Dei many difficulties present themselves; with God there is, after all, no right conceivable that stands above him and to which he has to adhere, for his will is the highest law; creatures have no rights over against him, for they have received everything from him and have repaid him nothing; they can lay no claim to reward, for even when they have done everything they were obliged to do, they are unprofitable servants; and also nothing in his nature seems to compel him to punish; why should he, who is the Almighty, not be able to forgive without satisfaction or punishment? In order, however, not to stray too far from the biblical concept of righteousness, it is preferable to bring all these questions up not here but presently under the will and the freedom of God. Righteousness in Holy Scripture is not an attribute of the dominium absolutum of God but rests on a moral foundation. Even though it is the case that a creature of course cannot have any rights over against God, Rom. 11:35, 1 Cor. 4:7 and even though there is no question of a justitia commutativa, Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 21 art. 1, it is nevertheless God himself who, as it were, gives

rights to his creatures. Every creature has received in creation its own nature; there are laws and ordinances for all created things; there are rights which lie enclosed in the existence and in the nature of all that is. Above all, such rights have been given to rational creatures, and among these again for all the domains in which they move, for intellect and heart, soul and body, art and science, family and society, religion and morality. And when those rights have been forfeited and sinned away by man, then God establishes with Noah a foedus naturae and with Abraham a foedus gratiae, in which he again out of grace grants to his creatures all kinds of rights [201] and binds himself by oath to the maintenance of those rights. Thus, by God's grace, a whole legal order has been established, both in nature and grace, with all kinds of institutions, ordinances, and laws, which he himself maintains and causes to prevail. These institutions and rights, however, are not derived in Scripture from God's righteousness,—would any righteousness also oblige him to that?—but from his holiness and grace. And certainly this is more correct than that they are designated with the name of justitia legislativa.

Yet this is not wrong, provided only that it is not thought thereby that God by virtue of some righteousness or other gave and had to give all those rights to his creatures. This, however, is precisely what is involved, that God is the Highest Lawgiver, and that the whole legal order in every domain is rooted in him. All right, whatever it may be, has its ultimate and deepest ground, not in a contrat social nor in an independent natural law, nor in history, but only in the will of God, and in that will, not conceived as dominium absolutum, but as a will of goodness and grace. God's grace is the source of all right. But further, God also maintains that legal order in every domain of life; he, who is righteousness itself and the source of all right, is also the judex, the vindex justitiae. His justitia legislativa includes

the justitia judicialis. Right is no right when it is not maintained, if need be with coercion and punishment. To be sure, this is not given of itself with the legal order. Without sin the legal order would nevertheless have existed; but it would have been obeyed without coercion by every creature voluntarily and out of love. It is sin which necessitates right, in accordance with its nature, to have itself respected with force and coercion. Not right in itself but indeed the character of coercion, which it now must bear, has become necessary through sin. But so little is this character of coercion accidental or arbitrary, that now no right is conceivable without that character and our own conscience itself bears witness to it. The moral order is so little in conflict with the legal order, that it rather bears, demands, and supports it.

Right is an important part of morality. Righteousness is precisely the way in which the grace and love of God are maintained and raised to triumph.

Those who with Marcion assume an antithesis between righteousness and grace, fail to recognize the connection between moral and legal order, [202] and do not understand the majesty and the glory of right. The justitia Dei must therefore by virtue of its nature be a justitia judicialis and thus on the one hand a justitia remunerativa and on the other hand a justitia vindicativa.

Not as though the creature could ever of itself lay claim to any reward or could in itself receive forgiveness without punishment; but God is obligated by his covenant, by the right once instituted by him, by his name and honor, to bring his people to salvation and to punish the ungodly. Thus alone can right come to dominion and triumph. There is truth in the fiat justitia, pereat mundus; but Scripture nevertheless more beautifully places this thought in the foreground, that right must be done, in order that the world may be saved. Cf. Irenaeus, adv. haer. III 25 IV 39 sq. Tertullianus, adv. Marc. passim. Orig. de princ. II 5, 3. Pseudodion. de div. nom. 8 § 7. Anselmus,

Prosl. c. 9 sq. Lombardus, Sent. IV 46 en de comm. van Thomas en Bonaventura, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 21. Gerhard, Loc. II c. 8 Sect. 12.

Quenstedt I 292. Hollaz 268. Zanchius, Op. II 394 sq. Polanus, Synt. II c.

26. Voetius, Disp. I 339-402. Owen, on div. justice, Works 1862 X 481-624.

Ex. v. h. Ontw. v. Tol. V. Moor I 674 sq. 996 sq. Meijer, De Godd. eigensch.

IV 89v.

E. God as Sovereign.

15. Along with all the virtues discussed, there finally come also those which are proper to God as Sovereign. God is the Creator, and thus the Owner,

Possessor, Lord of all; nothing exists or possesses anything outside of Him; He alone has absolute authority; His will always decides and over everything. Of that sovereign will, ‎‏‏ֵחֶפץ‎, ‎‏‏ְצבּו ָרצֹון‎, Dan. 4:35, 6:18, θελημα, βουλημα, there is therefore also continual mention in Holy Scripture. That will is the final cause of all things, of their being and their being-such. From it everything is derived, creation and preservation, Op. 4:11, government,

Spr. 21:1, Dan. 4:35, Ef. 1:11, the suffering of Christ, Luk. 22:42, election and reprobation, Rom. 9:15 v., regeneration, Jak. 1:18, sanctification, Phil.

2:13, the suffering of believers, 1 Petr. 3:17, our life and lot, Jak. 4:15, Hd.

18:21, Rom. 15:32, even the smallest and most insignificant things, Mt.

10:29 etc. And correspondingly, in Christian theology [203] and binds himself under oath to the maintenance of those rights. Thus, by God's grace, an entire legal order has been established, both in nature and in grace, with all kinds of institutions, ordinances, and laws, which He

Himself maintains and causes to rule. These institutions and rights,

however, are not derived in Scripture from God's righteousness,—which righteousness would also obligate Him thereto?—but from his holiness and grace. And certainly this is more correct than that they are designated with the name of justitia legislativa. Yet this is not wrong, provided only that it is not thought thereby that God, by virtue of some or other righteousness, gave and had to give all those rights to his creatures. This, however, precisely consists in the fact that God is the Highest Lawgiver, and that the whole legal order in every domain is rooted in Him. All right, whatever it may be, has its final and deepest ground, not in a contrat social nor in an autonomous natural law, nor in history, but only in the will of God, and in that will, not conceived as dominium absolutum, but as a will of goodness and grace. God's grace is the source of all right. But further, God also maintains that legal order on every terrain of life; He, who is righteousness itself and the source of all right, is also the judex, the vindex justitiae. His justitia legislativa includes the justitia judicialis. Right is no right when it is not maintained, if need be with coercion and punishment. Indeed, this is not given of itself along with the legal order. Without sin the legal order would nevertheless have existed; but it would have been obeyed without coercion by every creature voluntarily and out of love. It is sin which compels right, in accordance with its nature, to have itself respected with force and coercion. Not right in itself, but rather the character of coercion which it now must bear, has become necessary through sin. But so little is this character of coercion accidental or arbitrary, that now no right is conceivable without that character and our own conscience itself bears witness to it. The moral order is so little in conflict with the legal order, that it rather bears, demands, and supports it. Right is an important part of morality. Righteousness is precisely the way in which the grace and love of

God are maintained and raised to triumph. They who, with Marcion, assume an antithesis between righteousness and grace, fail to recognize the connection between moral and legal order, [204] these over to the kabbalah and neoplatonism. Here Plotinus had already taught that God, causa sui, product was of his will and power and that thus the will was the ultimate being and preceded the intellect. And likewise now Schelling made the will into the ultimate principle both of the existence of the infinite and of finite being. Already in his philosophical investigations on the essence of human freedom of the year 1809 he adopted this standpoint. Es gibt, said he, in der letzten und höchsten Instanz gar kein anderes Seyn als Wollen. Wollen ist

Urseyn und auf dieses allein passen alle Prädicate desselben:

Grundlosigkeit, Ewigkeit, Unabhängigkeit von der Zeit, Selbstbejahung.

Die ganze Philosophie strebt nur dahin, diesen höchsten Ausdruck zu finden, Werke I 7 S. 350. In God and in creatures a distinction must be made between the essence, insofar as it exists, and the essence, insofar as it is only ground of existence, ib. 357. God has the ground of his existence in himself, i.e. in a nature distinct from God himself, ib. 358. This nature is, as it were, that Sehnsucht, die das ewige Eine empfindet, sich selbst zu gebären; it is will, aber Wille in dem kein Verstand ist, und darum auch nicht selbständiger und vollkommener Wille, indem der Verstand der Wille in dem Willen ist. Dennoch ist sie ein Willen des Verstandes, nämlich

Sehnsucht und Begierde desselben; nicht ein bewusster, sondern ein ahnender Wille, dessen Ahndung der Verstand ist, ib. 359. But thus it is now also with all things. They are something other than God and yet cannot be outside God. This contradiction is only to be solved thus, dass die Dinge ihren Grund in dem haben, was in Gott selbst nicht Er selbst ist, d. h. in dem, was Grund seiner Existenz ist, ib. 359. Things have their ground in

this dark nature, in this unconscious will of God. Indeed, in the world rule, order, and form are now to be observed, just as in God also out of the dark nature the light of spirit and of personality has arisen. Aber immer liegt noch im Grande das Regellose, als könnte es einmal wieder durchbrechen, und nirgends scheint es, als wären Ordnung und Form das Ursprüngliche, sondern als wäre ein anfänglich Regelloses zur Ordnung gebracht worden, ib. 359. The whole world-process is derived by Schelling from the antithesis of nature and spirit, of darkness and light, of the real and the ideal principle, which together from all eternity are present in God himself [205]

. By this standpoint Schelling has gone beyond the rationalism of Hegel and has become of the greatest significance for later philosophy. The thoughts which he had already expressed in his investigation on human freedom, he did indeed further elaborate in his later writings, Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen of 1812, Werke I 7 S. 417 f., Denkmal der Schrift von den göttlichen Dingen des Herrn F. H. Jacobi of 1812, Werke I 8 S. 19 f. and especially in his Philosophie der Offenbarung, Werke II 3ter u. 4ter

Band, in a more detailed and theistic sense. But he remained faithful to his primacy of the will and in this was followed by Schopenhauer and von

Hartmann. Now it is true that the will in these philosophers is no will in the proper sense, but nothing but an unconscious desiring, a blind impulse, a dark nature. But in part this was acknowledged by themselves. Schelling says expressly that the will without intellect is no independent and perfect will, indem der Verstand der Wille in dem Willen ist, Werke I 7, 359.

Schopenhauer did indeed reckon consciousness to the appearance of the will and considered it bound to individuality and brains, Die Welt als Wille u. Vorst. II6 370, but nevertheless interposed between the will and the world of appearance the ideas, which were the eternal forms and exemplars of

things, ib. I 154. And von Hartmann speaks of the Unconscious again as subject and as überbewusst, Philos. des Unbew. II9 186. The existence of things is determined by the will, but the essence by the intellect, Schelling,

Werke, II 3 S. 57-62. Hartmann, Philos. des Unbew. I 100 f. II 435 f. 446 f.

Yet even apart from this acknowledgment, their philosophy is of great significance for theism. It has demonstrated the untenability of rationalistic and idealistic pantheism. God is not to be conceived without will, freedom, and power. Indeed, it has been objected against this that all willing was a desiring and striving and thus a proof of imperfection, of dissatisfaction, of unrest, which cannot occur in God. And mysticism has therefore sung: Wir beten, es geschehe, mein Herr und Gott, dein Wille; Und siehe, Er hat nicht

Wille, Er ist eine ewige Stille (Angelus Silesius). But this objection rests on an incorrect conception of the will. Certainly, willing is often a striving after something that is not possessed; but when the will has now obtained that desired thing and rests [206] and enjoys in it, then that resting and enjoying is also an act and activity of the will, indeed the highest and most powerful activity, cf. later the doctrine of the will. Such a will now, which rests and enjoys in what has been obtained, also exists in creatures and is nothing but love, which embraces its object and is blessed in it. If such a resting and enjoying is not reckoned to the will, it is either unattainable for the creature, i.e. then no blessedness is possible for the creature; or if that blessedness will nevertheless once be bestowed on the creature, it cannot exist otherwise than in destruction of the will, in stupefaction of consciousness and in complete suppression of personality. In pantheistic mysticism, therefore, blessedness is conceived as a sinking, a merging, a being swallowed up of the soul in God, i.e. in a nirvana. But Scripture and Christian theology do not teach thus. Blessedness does not kill the will but

brings it to its highest activity; for love is the richest, most powerful energy of the will. Thus now there is also a will in God. His willing is not a striving after a good that He would lack and without which He cannot be blessed.

For He is the All-sufficient and the All-blessed in himself. He is himself the highest good, for his creatures and also for himself. He can rest in nothing else than in himself; because He is God, He cannot be blessed except through and in himself. His love is self-love and therefore absolute, Divine love. And that absolute self-love is nothing other than a willing of himself, the highest, absolute, Divine energy of his will. The object of God's will is therefore God himself. Not in that sense, as if He were product of his will, as if He had caused himself and were causa sui, cf. above p. 124, for that would again introduce becoming and striving and thus the imperfect into God. But rather thus, that God eternally wills himself with a voluntas complacentiae, that He eternally loves himself with Divine love and is perfectly blessed in himself. His will is sapientissima ejus propensio in se ipsum tanquam summum bonum; it is also no faculty or power in God, but subject, action and object of that will is one with God's essence; θελημα θελητικον, θελησις and θελημα θελητον] coincide with his essence,

Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 45. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 19 art. 1. c. Gent. I 72 sq.

Zanchius, Op. II 246. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 19 etc. [207] Scripture, however, also speaks of a will of God in relation to the created.

Just as the knowledge of God is twofold, scientia necessaria and libera, so also the will of God is to be distinguished as propensio in se ipsum and as propensio in creaturas. But just as the scientia libera does not make God dependent on the creatures but is known to Him from His own being, so also the will of God, which is directed to the creatures, is not to be set dualistically alongside the will which has His own being as its object.

Scripture teaches expressly that God wills alia a se and repeatedly speaks of His will in relation to the creatures, but it adds, as in one breath, that God does not will those creatures out of need, but only for His own sake, for His name's sake, Spr. 16:4. Creation, therefore, is not to be conceived as an object that stands outside and over against Him, which He lacks and after which He strives in order to possess it, or by which He hopes to obtain something which He does not have. For from Him and through Him and also to Him are all things. He does not find His end in the creatures, but these find their end in Him. Quae extra se vult, ea etiam quodam modo sunt in Deo, in quo sunt omnia, Zanchius, II 246. He does not will the creatures for something that they are or that is in them, but He wills them for His own sake. He remains His own end. He never directs Himself to the creatures as such but through these to Himself. Going forth from Himself, He returns to Himself again. It is one propensio in se ipsum tanquam summum finem et in creaturas propter se ut media; His love for Himself takes that for the creatures up into itself and through these returns again to Himself.

Therefore His willing, also in relation to the creatures, is never a striving after any good still to be obtained, and thus also no sign of imperfection and unblessedness; but His willing is always, also in and through the creatures, absolute self-enjoyment, perfect blessedness, Divine rest. Rest and labor are one in God; His self-sufficiency is at the same time absolute actuositas,

Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 19 art. 2. c. Gent. I 75, 76.

16. Although, however, God by one and the same simple act wills himself and the creatures, nevertheless the will of God must by us be distinguished with a view to the different objects. In pantheism this distinction is impossible, because the [208] world there is the very essence of God himself. But Scripture ascribes to the creatures a being which, though not

independent, is nevertheless proper, distinguished from God's essence; and therefore the creatures cannot in the same sense and in the same way be the object of his will, as he himself is that with his essence. The will of God, whereby God wills himself, is propensio in se tanquam finem; the will, which has the creatures as object, is propensio in creaturas tanquam media.

The former is necessaria just as the scientia simplicis intelligentiae; God cannot do otherwise than love himself; he delights in himself eternally and with divine necessity. This will of God is therefore elevated above all arbitrariness, but yet not unfree and compelled; freedom and necessity here coincide. Quite otherwise, however, is it with the will of God, which has the creatures as object. Scripture speaks of this will as absolutely as possible.

God does all that pleases him, Ps. 115:3, Prov. 21:1, Dan. 4:35. He is accountable to no one and justifies none of his deeds, Job 33:13. Men are in his hand as clay in the hand of the potter, Job 10:9, 33:6, Isa. 29:16, 30:14,

64:8, Jer. 8:1v., nations are as a drop, a speck of dust, regarded as nothing, Isa. 40:15v. It is just as foolish for a man to exalt himself against God, as for an axe to boast against him who hews with it, or for a saw to vaunt against him who draws it, Isa. 10:15! There is no right of man with God; no one can ask him: What doest thou? Shall the clay also say to its former:

What makest thou, Job 9:2v., 11:10, Isa. 45:9? So let man then be silent and lay the hand upon the mouth, Job 39:37. And the N. T. teaches no otherwise. God can do with his own what he will, Mt. 20:15. Being and thus-being depends solely on God's will, Rev. 4:11. This is the ultimate ground of all. Mercy and hardening have therein their cause, Rom. 9:15-18.

In the church the H. Spirit distributes gifts, as he will, 1 Cor. 12:11. And a man has nothing to object against God's free dispositions, Mt. 20:13v.,

Rom. 9:20, 21. On these grounds, in Christian theology, as the scientia

visionis, so also the voluntas Dei, which had the creatures as object, was always called libera. Augustine said that the will of God was the last and deepest ground of all things, de civ. XXI 8. de trin. III 7. 19; a deeper [209] ground there is not. To the question why God created the world, there is but one answer: quia voluit; whoever then still asks further for a cause for that will, majus aliud quaerit, quam est voluntas Dei; nihil autem majus inveniri potest, de gen. c. Man. I 2. de civ. V 9; and thus spoke with him the whole

Christian church and theology, e.g. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 19 art. 5. Calvin, Inst. III 23, 2. All taught, indeed not that God could act plus and melius than he did, for he always acts in a divine, perfect manner; but that he nevertheless could have made the things plura and majora and meliora than he has made them, Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 44. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 25 art. 5 and 6. Zanchius, Op. II 184-187. Voetius, Disp. I 426. 564. V 151.

Burmannus, Synopsis I 41, § 41. The moral law was by some indeed called eternal and natural, and regarded as expression of God's essence; but there was therein nevertheless again a distinction made between the essential and the accidental, and from many commandments in special circumstances dispensation could be granted, Voetius, Disp. I 347 sq. Moor II 614 sq. The incarnation and satisfaction was according to many not absolutely necessary; God could also, if he had willed, have forgiven without satisfaction and need not necessarily punish sin, Athan. c. Ar. III. Gregorius

Naz. Or. 9. Damasc. de fide orth. III 18. Aug., de trin. XIII 10. Lombardus, Sent. III dist. 20. Thomas, S. Th. III qu. 1 art. 2. Petavius, de incarn. II c.

13. Calvin, Inst. II 12, 1. Comm. on John 15:13. Zanchius, VIII 144-146.

Martyr, Loci, cl. 2 c. 17. Pareus on Rom. 5. Twissus, Vindic. gr. 1652 I 153 sq. e. a. such as Vossius, Roell, Vogelsang, B. S. Cremer, cf. M. Vitringa I 170. Schultens, Waersch. on the catech. of Comrie, pp. 198-222. Still more

strongly this wisdom of God came out in election and reprobation, for which no single ground is to be given and which rests only in the sovereign good pleasure of God. Of a right of any creature over against God there can be no question; a justitia commutativa there is not, Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 21 art. 1. Polanus, Synt. II c. 26. Voetius, Disp. II 358. Since a creature can have no merits with God, there is also no justitia remunerativa in the proper sense, Thomas, I qu. 21 art. 1. Ned. Geloofsbel. art. 24. Conf. Westm. c. 16.

Ex. v. h. Ontw. v. Tol. X 288. Some even maintained that God, although he never makes use of this right, could punish the innocent temporally [210] or eternally, Perkins, Works I 772. Twissus, Vind. I 165. 179. 324 sq.

Amyraldus, Synt. thesium I 237. Thus many theologians, proceeding from the absolute freedom of God, came onto the line of medieval nominalism. It was Duns Scotus who consistently applied the Pelagian concept of freedom of the will as absolute indifference to God. In Sent. I dist. 8 qu. 5 he argues against Aristotle and Avicenna, that besides God nothing is necessary. The world in its whole and in its parts is contingent, it is unnecessary for God.

To the question why God has now willed this and has willed the one rather than the other, Scotus answers: indisciplinati est quaerere omnium causas et demonstrationem.... Principii enim demonstrationis non est demonstratio; immediatum autem principium est voluntatem velle hoc ita quod non est aliqua causa media inter ista; sicut immediatum est, calorem esse calefactivum, licet hoc sit naturalitas, ibi autem libertas, et ideo hujus, quare voluntas voluit hoc, nulla est causa, nisi quia voluntas est voluntas. Sicut hujus, quare calor est calefactivus, nulla est causa, nisi quia calor est calor, quia nulla est prior causa, Sent. I dist. 8 qu. 5 n. 24. One must stop at this word: Voluntas Dei vult hoc; there is no cause prior ratione voluntatis, ib.

To this principle Scotus remains faithful in all that is and happens in time. If

the whole world is accidental, then this its character can only be preserved thereby, that God, the first cause, causes it accidentally. Now God causes the world through intellect and will. The accidental, however, cannot lie in God's intellect, insofar as it precedes the will, for this intellect intelligit mere naturaliter et necessitate naturali. It must therefore lie in the will, Sent.

I dist. 39 qu. 5 n. 14. This divine will nihil aliud respicit necessario pro objecto ab essentia sua; ad quodlibet igitur aliud contingenter se habet, ita quod posset esse oppositi, ib. n. 22. Now Scotus indeed acknowledges that the knowledge of God precedes the will and that the ideas in God, although distinguished from his essentia, are before his decree, Sent. I dist. 35 qu. unic. n. 7 sq. But it is nevertheless the will which out of all those possible ideas chooses and determines which will attain reality. The will is the cause of all actuality. And only as a consequence of this volitional decision does the intellect also know what will become actual, ib. dist. 39 qu. 5 n. 23 sq.

God has thus [211] created the world with absolute freedom, even if it is the case that he has taken the decision thereto from eternity, ib. II dist. 1 qu. 2 n. 5. Naturally human freedom of the will was therefore by Scotus also conceived as absolutely as possible; the will is free ad oppositos actus and ad opposita objecta, ib. I dist. 39 qu. 5 n. 15 sq.; it is determined by nothing, it can just as well choose a lower as a higher good, it is itself alone the complete cause of its actions; non autem bonitas aliqua objecti causat necessario assensum voluntatis sed voluntas libere assentit cuilibet bono et ita libere assentit majori bono sicut minori, ib. I dist. 1 qu. 4 n. 16. Nihil aliud a voluntate est causa totalis volitionis in voluntate, II dist. 25 qu. 1 n.

22. The will even precedes the intellect, for although the intellect offers to the will the object of its striving, the will nevertheless directs the intellect to the object; and blessedness lies formally not in the intellect but in the will,

IV dist. 49 qu. 4. Further, Scotus indeed acknowledges that love to God, prescribed in the first table of the law, is necessary and natural, but the commandments of the second table are positive and could also have been otherwise, III dist. 37 qu. unica. In relation to the incarnation Scotus teaches that the Logos, if he willed, could also assume another nature than the human, e.g. that of a stone, III dist. 2 qu. 1 n. 5 sq. The incarnation would probably also have taken place apart from sin and was also in the state of sin not absolutely necessary; God could also have redeemed in another way,

III dist. 7 qu. 3 n. 3. III dist. 20 qu. unica. The merits of Christ were not sufficient in themselves, but were as such accepted by God, III dist. 19 qu. unica. Considered in itself, reckoned according to God's potentia absoluta,

God could also have granted salvation to the sinner apart from the merits of Christ, and the sinner could also have satisfied for himself, if only God had willed to reckon his works as sufficient, IV dist. 15 qu. 1 n. 4 sq. cf. also IV dist. 1 qu. 6 n. 4 sq. Transubstantiation is possible, quia una substantia potest totaliter incipere et alia totaliter desinere, IV dist. II qu. 1 n. 4. God can even cause a person or thing during a tempus intermedium to cease in its existence, without thereby identity being lost, IV dist. 43 qu. 1 n. 4. Yet Scotus did not go so far as some Mohammedan [212] theologians, who let all things from moment to moment be created by the will of God without mutual connection, without laws of nature, without substances and qualities, Ritter, Gesch. der christl. Philos. III 732 f. He acknowledges ideas in God, which precede the will; deems love to God necessary and natural; believes in a natural knowledge of God, in a world order and natural law, and also says that incarnation and satisfaction according to the potentia Dei ordinata were necessary. But nevertheless Scotus elevates freedom and omnipotence so much, that at least the means, which must lead to the end,

become wholly arbitrary, Ritter, Gesch. d. christl. Philos. IV 388 f. Stöckl, Gesch. der Philos. des M. A. II 832 f. Baur, Dreiein. u. Menschw. Gottes II 642 f. Ritschl, Jahrb. f. d. Th. 1865 S. 298 f. Dorner, in Herzog2 3, 735 f.

By others this principle of the freedom and omnipotence of God was developed still further. Entirely in the spirit of Scotus, Occam, e.g., asserted that God according to his potentia absoluta can grant salvation without regeneration and can damn the regenerate; that he can forgive without satisfaction and can regard works of sinful man as sufficient; that the Father could have become man in place of the Son, and that the Son could also have assumed the nature of a stone or a donkey; that God can grant dispensation from all commandments of the moral law etc., Stöckl, Philos. des M. A. II 1018 f. This nominalistic standpoint was later adopted in the first place by the Jesuits but then further by the Socinians, Fock, Der Socin.

416 f., the Remonstrants, Apol. Conf. c. 24. Episc., Instit. theol. V sect. 5 c.

3, by Cartesius, Resp. sextae, Amst. 1654 p. 160 sq., by Cartesian theologians, such as Burmannus, Synopsis I c. 20 § 6. c. 21 § 19 sq., and in this century among others still by Charles Sécrétan, Philosophie de la liberté 1849 I 305 S. On this standpoint the will in God is wholly detached from his essence and from all his virtues; it consists in nothing other than formal arbitrariness. Creation, incarnation, satisfaction, good and evil, true and untrue, reward and punishment, everything could just as well have been otherwise than it in fact is. There is nothing natural any more, everything is positive. But precisely this nominalism caused Christian theology to be on its guard. Even if it also said with Augustine that the will of God was the ultimate ground of all things, it nevertheless guarded itself against stripping this will of all nature [213] and letting it dissolve into pure arbitrariness.

First of all it took, in the doctrine of God, its point of departure not in the

voluntas but in the essentia Dei. The scientia simplicis intelligentiae logically preceded the scientia visionis, just as the voluntas necessaria preceded the voluntas libera. Self-knowledge and self-love in God was absolutely necessary; and the knowledge and the will, which have the creatures as object, are not dualistically separated from that, but stand with it in the closest connection. The scientia visionis is bound to the scientia simplicis intelligentiae and the voluntas libera to the voluntas necessaria.

According to consistent nominalism not only the existence but also the essence of things is exclusively determined and fixed by the formal will in God; properly speaking there is thus in God no scientia simplicis intelligentiae, in which all possibilities are comprised, there is only in him a scientia visionis, which follows upon the will. But according to Christian theology all possibilities lay enclosed in the scientia simplicis intelligentiae, and from that the scientia visionis draws and the will brings them to reality.

The existence of things thus does indeed depend on the will of God, but the essence on his intellect. Leibniz built further on this and said that God was indeed free to create or not to create the world, man, the animals, the plants, but if he created them he had to create them according to the idea which his consciousness had formed of them without and before the will. Given the will of God to create, the world must be precisely as it is. It is therefore the best possible and hangs together in all parts so intimately, that qui unum bene novit, omnia novit, Theod. I 7. 52 II 169 s. Pichler, Die Theol. des

Leibniz I 239 s. cf. also Schelling, Werke II 3 S. 57-62. Hartmann, Philos. des Unb. I9 100 f. II 435 f. 446 f. Weisse, Philos. Dogm. I § 460 f. Further,

Scripture taught everywhere that God created and sustained the world by the word, by the Logos. It thus rested on thoughts of God. God did not act arbitrarily and contingently but with the highest wisdom. Even if therefore

by us the reasons for his acting could not be traced, they were nevertheless present for him. And for those reasons Christian theology then also sought.

Creation had its cause in his goodness or love; for the permission of sin all kinds of reasons were given; incarnation and satisfaction were perhaps not absolutely necessary [214] but this way of redemption was nevertheless the most suitable and excellent, Petavius, de incarn. II c. 5 sq.; and even if many did not dare to limit the potestas absoluta, all nevertheless acknowledged that he made no use of this absolute right and thus in the potestas ordinata again wholly agreed with one another. And finally on concrete points nominalism was decisively rejected; the moral law can have no other content than it has, Thomas, S. Theol. I 2 qu. 100 art. 8. Becanus, de lege naturae III c. 3 qu. 4. Suarez, de lege I c. 15. Voetius, Disp. I 364402. Maresius, Syst. theol. VII 4. Turretinus, Theol. El. III qu. 18 and XI qu. 2. Heidegger, Corp. Theol. III 89, 90; the punishment of sin is necessary, Can. Dordr. II 1. Voetius, Disp. I 358 sq. II 240 sq. Moor I 683 sq. 996-1034, and likewise the incarnation and satisfaction, Iren. adv. haer.

III 20. Anselmus, Cur Deus homo. Heid. Cat. q. 11. 40. Lord's Supper form of the Ned. Ger. Kerken. Trigland, Antapol. c. 4. Voetius, Disp. II 238 sq.

Turretinus, de satisf. Christi II § 16 sq. Owen, de justitia divina. Ex. v. h.

Ontw. v. Tol. V etc.; and the power of God was so defined, that it excluded the doing of contradictory things, see presently at n. 18.

In this way nominalism in Christian theology has, if not been overcome, then at least been pushed back and limited. If the voluntas libera was defined as propensio in creaturas propter se ut media, then in that there was already enclosed a principled resistance to the will of God as absolute arbitrariness, for the character of the means is determined by the nature of the final end. Hence it is also the case that theology, although placing the

will of God in the foreground and continually returning to it, has nevertheless always again sought motives for that will. Realism strove to understand the world as one harmonious whole, in which nothing was arbitrary and everything had its place, even sin, and which as a whole was serviceable to the glorification of God's name. If the nature of a science consists in the rerum cognoscere causas, theology too cannot withdraw itself from such an investigation. Only, for every practitioner of science, and especially for the theologian, humility and modesty are a first duty. He may not be wise above what one ought to be wise. All science is bound to its object; it may not, for the sake of any preconceived theory [215] falsify or deny the phenomena which it observes. Thus theology too is most strictly bound to the facts and testimonies which God makes known to it in nature and Scripture. It must let these stand, unweakened and unmutilated. If it cannot explain them, it has to confess its ignorance. The will of God, which expresses itself in those facts, is for it the end of all reasoning. It finally rests in his sovereignty. In that sense the word of Augustine remains true: voluntas Dei cujusque creaturae natura est. It allows itself to be seduced neither by pantheism, which makes the world necessary, for there is a distinction between God and world, between his voluntas necessaria and voluntas libera; nor also by deism, which makes the world into a product of chance, for that whole world is a revelation of God's wisdom. And it maintains against both, that the world is an act of God's free, sovereign will and that God for this will has had his wise and good reasons. For us something is good solely and only because God wills it; God himself can never will anything, except because it is in itself or for something else good,

Voetius, Disp. I 387. We almost never see why God has willed the one and not the other, and we must therefore represent it thus, that He could have

willed the one just as well as the other. But in God there actually falls no choice, which after all always presupposes uncertainty, wavering, deliberation. He knows eternally, firmly, unchangeably what He wills. In his will there falls no arbitrariness, no chance, no uncertainty, but only eternal determinateness and unchangeableness. The contingent is proper to the creature, and, said with reverence, it is not even possible for God, to take this character away from the creature. In God alone are existentia and essentia one; every creature as such, by virtue of its own nature, includes the possibility that it did not exist. But God has with eternal and unchangeable will willed all creatures as contingent. Therefore it is not possible for us and is even also not permitted, to climb higher than to the will of God. For every attempt thereto results in this, to seek for the creature a ground in God's being, thus to make it necessary and eternal and divine, and to strip it of its creaturely, i.e. contingent character. In so far the will of God, which has the created as object, is called free. But this freedom does not exclude the other virtues of God, his wisdom, goodness, righteousness etc. [216] For, that is also among creatures not the true freedom of will, which needs a long time of doubt, deliberation and decision; but that is the highest freedom, which at once, uno intuitu, determines both the end and the means and knows of no hesitation. And such a freedom is also in God; a freedom which is not to be thought of as bound by the other virtues of God or as independent of them in nominalistic fashion, but such a freedom, which therefore in an absolute sense is free because it is the freedom of a wise, righteous, holy, merciful and almighty God. When Augustine,

Thomas, Calvin etc. therefore said that there was no causa for the will of God, then by that they meant that the will of God, as one with his being, has no causa behind or above itself, on which that will would be dependent. But

by that they by no means wished to say that that will was without ratio, that it in the sense of Schopenhauer was a blind, alogical will. On the contrary, the will of God is one with his being, with his wisdom, goodness and all his virtues, Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 19 art. 5. And therefore heart and head of man can rest in that will, for it is the will, not of a blind fate, of an incalculable chance, of a dark power of nature, but the will of an almighty God and of a gracious Father. His sovereignty is a sovereignty of unbounded power, but also a sovereignty of wisdom and grace. He is King and Father at the same time. Cf. Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorz. I 452-585. Scheeben I 681 f. Dorner I 410 f. Id. Gesammelte Schriften 341 f. Müller, Lehre v. d. Sünde II5 180 f.

Ebrard, Dogm. § 71 f. Frank, Syst. d. chr. Wahrh. I2 283 f. Hodge, I 402.

17. Creation, however, presents still more and still other difficulties for the doctrine of the will of God. Just as God and world are distinct and therefore the will of God for us falls apart into propensio in se and in creaturas, so there is also in the world among the creatures again all manner of distinction. And that distinction rests on a different relation in which God, with his being, his knowing and willing, places himself toward the creatures. God does not will everything in the same way, in the same sense, with the same energy of his being; for then no diversity among the creatures would be possible, then everything would be a uniform sameness. But while

He wills all creatures propter se ut media, He wills these more [217] than those, according to the measure as they are more direct and suitable media to his glorification. God is a Father for all his creatures, but He is so in a special sense for his children. His affection for all that He created stands below that for the church, and for this below that for Christ, the Son of his good pleasure. A providentia generalis, specialis and specialissima is distinguished. And so also we make in the will of God, which is directed to

the creatures, again as much distinction as there are creatures. For as rich as that whole world is, so rich is the voluntas Dei libera. This therefore is not to be conceived as an indifferent potency, as a blind force, but as rich, full, living, divine ενεργεια, artery of all that rich life which creation gives us to behold. But now there is in that world one thing that causes special difficulty for the doctrine of the will of God, and that is evil, both as malum culpae and as malum poenae, in an ethical and in a physical sense. However much evil may stand under God's government, it nevertheless cannot in the same sense and in the same way be object of his will as the good. With a view to those wholly different and directly opposed objects we must in the will of God itself again make distinction. Scripture leads us in this. There is a great difference between the will of God, which prescribes to us what we have to do, Mt. 7:21, 12:50, Joh. 4:34, 7:17, Rom. 12:2, and the will of God, which says what He does and will do, Ps. 115:3, Dan. 4:17, 25, 32, 35,

Rom. 9:18, 19, Ef. 1:5, 9, 11, Op. 4:11. The petition that God's will may be done, Mt. 6:10, has a wholly different sense than the childlike resigned: Thy will be done, Mt. 26:42, Hd. 21:14. And so we see in history time and again that will of God appear in a twofold sense. God commands Abraham to offer his son and yet does not let it happen, Gen. 22. He wills that Pharaoh let Israel go and yet hardens his heart, that he thus does not do it, Ex. 4:21.

He has it announced to Hezekiah that he will die and yet adds fifteen years to his life, Jes. 38:1, 5. He forbids condemning the innocent and yet Jesus has been delivered up according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Hd. 2:23, 3:18, 4:28. God does not will sin, He is far from godlessness, He forbids and punishes it severely, and yet it exists and stands under his government, Ex. 4:21, Joz. 11:20, [218] 1 Sam. 2:25, 2

Sam. 16:10, Hd. 2:23, 4:28, Rom. 1:24, 26, 2 Thess. 2:11 etc. He wills the

salvation of all, Ezech. 18:23, 32, 33:11, 1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Petr. 3:9, and yet has mercy on whom He will, and hardens whom He will, Rom. 9:18. Already soon in theology the distinction arose between this twofold will of God.

Tertullian already speaks of a hidden, higher and a lower or lesser will, de exhort. 2 sq. Augustine points out that God many times accomplishes his good will through the evil will of men, Enchir. c. 101. Later this twofold will received the name of voluntas εὐδοκιας, beneplaciti, arcana, decernens, decretiva and voluntas εὐαρεστιας, signi, revelata, praecipiens. The name voluntas signi is derived from the fact that this will significat quid Deo gratum sit et nostri sit officii and is known by us from the five signa: praeceptio, prohibitio, consilium, permissio, operatio. Worked out at length by scholasticism, Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 45. Hugo Victorinus, de Sacram.

Lib. 1 Pars 4. Id. Summa Sent. tract. 1 cap. 13. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 19 art. 11, 12 etc., it was generally adopted by Roman theology, Petavius, de

Deo lib. V c. 4, 6, Theol. Wirceb. III 160. Perrone, II 199. C. Pesch, Prael. dogm. II 156 etc. But with special predilection it was nevertheless treated in Reformed theology, Calv. Inst. I c. 18 § 3, 4. Musculus, Loci Comm. p. 978 sq. Martyr, Loci Comm. p. 63 b. sq. Ursinus, Tract. theol. p. 237 sq.

Zanchius, Op. II 251 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 19 etc. cf. Schweizer, Gl. der ev. ref. K. I 359-368. Heppe, Dogm. der ev. ref. K. 68 f. Alongside this there came still other distinctions of the will of God, especially that in voluntas antecedens and consequens, which already occurs in Tertullianus, adv. Marc. II 11, Chrysostomus, Ep. ad. Eph. 1:5 and Damascenus, de fide orth. II c. 29, and that in voluntas absoluta and conditionata, efficax and inefficax, which is already found in Augustine, Enchir. c. 102 sq. de civ.

XXII c. 1 and 2. These distinctions too can be well understood, in this sense namely that God antecedenter and conditionate wills many things, e.g. the

salvation of all men, which He nevertheless consequenter and absolute does not will and therefore does not let happen. Zanchius t. a. p. therefore also says that all these distinctions come down to the same thing; and Hyperius,

Meth. theol. p. 155-159 judges likewise. Walaeus, Op. I 180. Voetius, Disp.

V 88. etc. But although Luther in his [219] book de servo arbitrio had made a very sharp distinction between the Deus absconditus and revelatus, the Lutherans rejected this distinction in voluntas beneplaciti and signi, at least in a Calvinistic sense, Gerhard, loc. 2 c. 8 sect. 15. Baier, Comp. theol. pos.

I c. 1 § 22. Buddeus, Instit. theol. dogm. II c. 1 § 29. The Arminians followed that example, Episcopius, Instit. theol. IV sect. 2 c. 21. Limborch,

Theol. Christ. II c. 9 § 9. And the Roman theologians did indeed retain the distinction in name, but explained it in such a way that the will of God was always voluntas beneplaciti, divided into voluntas antecedens and consequens and that the voluntas signi was nothing but a partial revelation of that will, Theol. Wirceb. III 160. C. Pesch, Prael. II 156. Kleutgen,

Theol. d. Vorz. I 564 f. Thus it has happened that on the one hand the Romanists etc. have in fact retained only the distinction in voluntas antecedens and consequens (absoluta and conditionata), and the Reformed only that in voluntas beneplaciti and signi (decernens and praecipiens, arcana and revelata) with rejection of that of the voluntas antecedens and consequens, Maccovius, Collegia theol. disp. 1-8. Nic. Gurtler, Instit. theol.

1732 cap. 3 § 105. Moor I 576. Mastricht, Theor. pract. theol. II c. 15 § 24 and 27 sq. Turretinus, Theol. El. III qu. 15, 16. The difference comes down to this, that the Romanists, Lutherans, Remonstrants etc. proceed from the voluntas signi; this is the proper will, consisting in this, that God does not will sin but only wills to permit it, that He wills the salvation of all, offers grace to all etc.; and when man has then decided, God accommodates

himself to that, determines what He wills, the salvation of him who believes, the perdition of him who does not believe. The voluntas consequens follows upon the decision of man, and is not the proper, essential will of God but the action of God on the occasion of the conduct of man. In contrast, the Reformed proceeded from the voluntas beneplaciti and held this to be the proper, essential will of God; that will always goes on, always reaches its goal and is eternal and unchangeable; the voluntas signi, on the other hand, is the prescription of God, in law and gospel, which applies as rule for our conduct.

Now it is the continuous doctrine of Scripture, both in O. and N. Test., that the will of God is eternal, unchangeable, independent, efficacious. Not now and then is this expressed, e.g. Ps. 33:11, [220] 115:3, Dan. 7:25, Isa.

46:10, Mt. 11:26, Rom. 9:18, Eph. 1:4, Rev. 4:11 etc., but the whole of Scripture testifies to it; all the virtues of God require this; the whole history of church and world furnishes proof for it. And accordingly Christian theology taught, especially since Augustine, that the will of God is simple, eternal, unchangeable, because it is one with his essence, Aug. Conf. XII 15. The voluntas antecedens is properly no will in God, magis potest dici velleitas quam absoluta voluntas, Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 19 art. 6. The voluntas signi is called voluntas in God only in a metaphorical sense, sicut cum aliquis praecipit aliquid, signum est quod velit illud fieri, ib. art. 11.

The proper will in God is the voluntas beneplaciti, and this is one with God's essence, is unchangeable and is always accomplished, ib. art. 6 and 7. c. Gent. I 72 sq. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 45-48 and the comm. Thomas,

Bonaventura e.a. Pelagianism has wrongly abandoned this line, and elevated a powerless desire, an unfulfilled wish in God to will. Thereby it has done injustice to the whole being, to all the virtues of God. For if the

velleitas is the proper and essential will of God, then He is deprived of his omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, unchangeableness, independence etc.; the whole government of the world is then withdrawn from his providence; an irreconcilable dualism is created between God's intention and the result of world history; the outcome is then for God an eternal disappointment; the world-plan has failed, and Satan celebrates triumph at the end. Now

Pelagianism does indeed assert that it acts thus in the interest of God's holiness, and that it maintains this better than Paul and Augustine, than

Thomas and Calvin, because in their system God becomes the author of sin.

But this is no more than appearance; sin remains from the standpoint of Pelagius just as inexplicable as from that of Augustine; indeed, holiness comes into its own much better here. For it is more in accordance with Scripture and the whole Christian faith to assume that God, for wise reasons, though unknown to us, has in a certain sense willed sin, than that He, willing it in no respect, nevertheless tolerates and permits it. This latter, after all, does precisely detract from his holiness and omnipotence, cf. later in the doctrine of sin. In addition, Scripture, though theologically placing the voluntas beneplaciti in the foreground, nevertheless [221] at the same time maintains in the voluntas signi how and in what way He does not will sin. In the signa of prohibition, admonition, warning, chastisement, punishment etc. He descends to us, and says what He requires of us.

Because man is a rational, moral being, God does not deal with him as with a stick and a block, but speaks and acts with him in accordance with his nature. Just as a father forbids a child the use of a sharp knife, and yet himself handles it without harm, so God forbids to his rational creatures the sin, which He himself nevertheless can use and in fact uses to the glorification of his name. The voluntas beneplaciti and the voluntas signi

therefore also do not conflict with each other, as the common objection runs. For in the first place the voluntas signi is properly not the will of God, but only his command and prescription, which holds as a rule for our conduct. In the voluntas signi He does not say what He will do; it is no law for his acting; it does not prescribe what God must do; but in it He says what we have to do; it is a rule for our conduct, Deut. 29:29. It is therefore called voluntas Dei only in a metaphorical sense. Indeed it is objected against this that the voluntas signi is nevertheless so called because it is a signum voluntatis in Deo, and thus must correspond with his voluntas beneplaciti. Secondly, it should therefore be remarked that this is indeed so; the voluntas signi is an indication of what God wills that we shall do. The voluntas beneplaciti and the voluntas signi do not stand directly opposite each other, so that God according to the former does will sin and according to the latter does not will sin, according to the former does not will the salvation of all and according to the latter does, etc. For even according to the voluntas beneplaciti God takes no pleasure in sin, it is no object of his good pleasure, He does not torment out of lust for tormenting. And conversely He wills just as little according to the voluntas signi as according to the voluntas beneplaciti that all men, head for head, be saved; that cannot, with a view to history, be taught in earnest by anyone; in fact it is by everyone in 1 Tim. 2:4 restricted to a greater or smaller circle. Both stand so little over against each other that the voluntas signi is precisely the way in which the voluntas beneplaciti is accomplished. In the way of admonitions and warnings, prohibitions and threatenings, conditions and demands God carries out his counsel. And the voluntas beneplaciti maintains [222] only that man, transgressing God's command, does not become independent of God for a single moment, but in that same moment

serves the counsel of God and becomes, even if unwillingly, an instrument of his glory. Not the voluntas signi alone, but also the voluntas beneplaciti is holy and wise and good, and will precisely in the way of the law and of righteousness at the end be revealed as such. Therefore, finally, the distinction of both also ought to be maintained. It is the problem of right and fact, of idea and history, of the moral and the actual, of what ought to happen and of what indeed happens, that here confronts us. Whoever denies the voluntas signi does injustice to the holiness of God, to the majesty of the moral law, to the seriousness of sin. Whoever, on the other hand, denies the voluntas beneplaciti comes into conflict with the omnipotence, the wisdom, the independence, the sovereignty of God. On both standpoints one runs the danger either with a superficial optimism to close the eyes to reality, and to call all the actual rational, or with a one-sided pessimism to curse existence and to despair of world and lot. Theism, however, seeks no solution in striking out one of both terms of the problem, but acknowledges and maintains them both; it sees the lines of the rational and the actual at every moment in history intersect and cross each other; it traces both back to the sovereignty of God and has of this the lofty thought that it also through the irrational and sinful will bring his holy and wise counsel to execution to the glory of the Lord's name. Herein indeed his divine sovereignty shines forth brilliantly, that He in men's folly glorifies his wisdom, in their weakness his power, in their sin his righteousness and grace.

18. The sovereignty of God finally reveals itself in his omnipotence, which, however, after what has already been said, requires less extensive treatment. In Scripture never and nowhere is a limit set to the power of God. Already in the names El, Elohim, El Schaddai, Adonai the idea of power comes to the foreground. Further, He is called ‎‏‏ֵאל ָּגדֹול ְונֹוָרא‎, before

whose face no one can stand, Deut. 7:21v., ‎‏‏ָאִביר ִיׂשָרֵאל‎, Jes. 1:24, ‎‏ָהֵאל ַהָּגדּול

‏ַהִּגּבֹור‎, whose name is Ihvh Zebaoth, Jer. 32:18, ‎‏ַ‏ַאִּמיץ ֹּכ‎ Job 9:4, ‎‏‏ַּכִּביר‎, Job

36:5, ‎‏‏ִעּזּוז ְוִגּבֹור‎, Ps. 24:8, ‎‏‏ָאדֹון‎, κυριος, [223] Mt. 11:25, Op. 1:8, 22:5, i.e. the Lord, the Owner, the Ruler, who possesses authority and supremacy; the King, who reigns in eternity over all things, Ex. 15:18, 29:10, 93-99, 2 K.

29:15, Jer. 10:7, 10 etc., but above all is King over Israel and as such rules it, protects it, and leads it to salvation, Num. 23:21, Deut. 33:5, Richt. 8:23,

1 Sam. 8:7, Ps. 10:16, 24:7, 48:3, 74:12, Jes. 33:22, 41:21, 43:15 etc., and likewise in the N. T. the μεγας βασιλευς, Mt. 5:33, 1 Tim. 1:17, the βασιλευς των βασιλευοντων και κυριος των κυριευοντων, 1 Tim. 6:15, cf.

Op. 19:16; παντοκρατωρ, 2 Cor. 6:18, Op. 1:8, 4:8, 11:17; μονος δυναστης, 1 Tim. 6:15; who both possess the ἐξουσια, ἀρχη, potestas, the right, the authority and the competence, Mt. 28:18, Rom. 9:21 and the δυναμις, κρατος, potentia, the fitness and the power to act, Mt. 6:13, Rom. 1:20. But further the omnipotence of God appears from all his works. The creation, the preservation, the redemption of Israel from Egypt, nature with its ordinances, the history of Israel with its miracles proclaim loudly and clearly the omnipotence of God. Psalmists and prophets return to these great deeds time and again and apply them to humiliation for the proud and to comfort for the believer. He is strong in power, Jes. 40:26, creates earth and heaven, Gen. 1, Jes. 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 18, 48:13, 51:13, Zach. 12:1, maintains their ordinances, Jer. 5:22, 10:10, 14:22, 27:5, 31:35, forms rain and wind, light and darkness, the good and the evil, Am. 3:6, 4:13, 5:8, Jes.

45:5-7, 54:16. He makes mute and speaking, dead and living, saves and destroys, Ex. 4:11, Deut. 32:39, 1 Sam. 2:6, 2 Kon. 5:7, Ex. 15, Deut. 26:8,

29:2, 32:12, 1 Sam. 14:6, Hos. 13:14, Mt. 10:28, Luk. 12:20. He has absolute power over all things, so that nothing can resist Him, Ps. 8, 18, 19,

24, 29, 33, 104 etc. Job 5:9-27, 9:4v., 12:14-21, 34:12-15, 36:37. Nothing is too wondrous for Him, all things are possible for Him, Gen. 18:14, Zach.

8:6, Jer. 32:27, Mt. 19:26, Luk. 1:37, 18:27; He can raise up children for Abraham from stones, Mt. 3:9. He does all his good pleasure, Ps. 115:3, Jes.

14:24, 27, 46:10, 55:10, and no one can summon Him, Jer. 49:19, 50:44.

And above all his δυναμις comes forth in the works of redemption, in the raising of Christ, Rom. 1:4. Ef. 1:20, [224] in the working and strengthening of faith, Rom. 16:15, Ef. 1:19, in the distribution of grace above asking and thinking, Ef. 2:20, 2 Cor. 9:8, 2 Petr. 1:3, in the resurrection on the last day, Joh. 5:25v. etc. And this power of God is finally also the source of all power and authority, of all force and strength in the creatures. From Him is the dominion of man, Gen. 1:26, Ps. 8, the authority of government, Spr. 8:15, Rom. 13:1-16, the strength of his people, Deut.

8:17, 18, Ps. 68:36, Jes. 40:26 v. the strength of the horse, Job 39:22, the violence of the thunder, Ps. 29:4, 68:34 etc. In one word, his is the strength.

Ps. 62:12, and to Him belong the power and the strength, Ps. 96:7, Op. 4:11, 5:12, 7:12, 19:1.

In complete agreement with their doctrine of the will and the freedom of God, cf. above p. 210f., the nominalists now described the omnipotence of God in such a way that God by it can do everything that He wills, not only, but also can will everything. Distinguishing between the potentia absoluta and ordinata, they judged that God according to the former could also sin, err, suffer, die, become a stone or an animal, could change bread into the body of Christ, could do contradictory things, could undo what had happened, could make false what was true and true what was false, etc.

According to his potentia absoluta God is thus sheer arbitrariness, pure potency without any content, which is nothing and can become everything,

cf. Chamier, Panstr. Cath. II l. 2 c. 3 § 5. Voetius, Disp. I 411, 427. In principle this is the standpoint of all who uphold the primacy of the will, and therefore this opinion has later repeatedly returned and it occurs not only in Christianity but also among other religions, especially with Islam.

On the other side stand those who say that God can only what He wills and that He, what He does not will, also cannot. The possible coincides with the actual. What becomes no actuality is also not possible. God has fully exhausted his power in the world. This was already the opinion of Plato and Plotinus, Zeller, Philos. d. Gr. II 928 V 496 f., and further of some church fathers, Petavius, de Deo V c. 6, but in the Middle Ages was especially taught by Abaelard, Deus non potest facere aliquid praeter ea quae facit,

Introd. theol. III c. 5. And thus later the Cartesian theologians judged, Burmannus, Synopsis I c. 21 § 24, 26 c. 25 [225] § 10, 11. Braun, Doctr. foed. I 2 c. 3 § 7 sq. Wittichius, Theol. pacif. § 199 sq. further Spinoza,

Cogit. metaph. II c. 9. Eth. I prop. 16, 17. Schleiermacher, Gl. § 54. Strauss, Gl. I 582 f. Schweizer, Chr. Gl. I 246 f. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm. 403-406.

Hoekstra, Wijsg. Godg. II 112 f. etc. Scripture condemns both the one and the other standpoint. It says on the one side expressly that God cannot do many things; He cannot lie, have regret, change, be tempted, Num. 23:19, 1

Sam. 15:29, Hebr. 6:18, Jak. 1:13, 17, ἀρνησασθαι γαρ ἑαυτον οὐ δυναται, 2 Tim. 2:13; for his will is after all one with his being, and the potentia absoluta, which detaches the power of God from his other virtues, is nothing but a vain and unlawful abstraction. On the other hand Scripture declares just as decisively that the possible extends much further than the actual, Gen. 18:14, Jer. 32:27, Zach. 8:6, Mt. 3:9, 19:26, Luk. 1:37, 18:27.

And to this Christian theology held fast. Augustine says on the one hand that God's will and power are not distinguished from his being. Homo aliud

est quod est, aliud quod potest.... Deus autem cui non est aliud substantia ut sit, et alia potestas ut possit, sed consubstantiale illi est quidquid ejus est et quidquid est, quia Deus est, non alio modo est et alio modo potest; sed esse et posse simul habet, quia velle et facere simul habet, tract. 20 in Ev. Joan. n. 4. Conf. XI 10, XII 15. Indeed God's omnipotence consists in this, that He can what He wills, certe non ob aliud vocatur omnipotens, nisi quoniam quidquid vult potest, de civ. XXI 7. But God cannot will everything, He cannot deny himself. Quia non vult non potest, quia et velle non potest. Non enim potest justitia velle facere quod injustum est, aut sapientia velle quod stultum est, aut veritas velle quod falsum est. Unde admonemur Deum omnipotentem non hoc solum, quod ait apostolus: negare se ipsum non potest, sed multa non posse.... Deus omnipotens non potest mori, non potest mutari, non potest falli, non potest fieri, non potest vinci, Serm. 214. But then further Augustine argues that this is no lack of power, but precisely true, absolute omnipotence. It would precisely be impotence, if He could err, sin, etc. Serm. 213, 214, de civ. V 10. Augustine especially clarifies that in relation to the proposition, which is often brought against the omnipotence of God, that [226] God cannot undo what has been done. This statement can after all have a twofold sense. First, one can mean by it that God nullifies the fact that has happened; but this is no sense, for a fact that has happened is no longer and cannot and need not be nullified. But second, one can mean by it that God would undo the fact that has happened in human consciousness, so that this now comes to think that it has not happened. But this too has no sense, for God who is the truth would then have to make what is true untrue. Other theologians have spoken in a similar sense about God's omnipotence and have only repeated what

Augustine had said. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 42-44. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu.

25. S. c. Gent. II c. 6-10. Bonaventura, Breviloquium I c. 7. Petavius, de Deo V c. 7. Gerhard, II c. 8 sect. 9. Buddeus, Instit. theol. dogm. II c. 1 §

30. Musculus, Loci Comm. p. 952 sq. Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 29.

Zanchius, Op. II 159 sq. Voetius, Disp. I 403 sq. V 113 sq. Alsted, Theol. schol. did. p. 93-96. Mastricht, Theor. pract. theol. II c. 20. Chamier, Panstr.

Cath. II l. 2 c. 1-3. Leydecker, Fax Veritatis p. 163 sq. 233 sq. etc.

Specifically, by the Reformed theologians the distinction in potentia Dei absoluta and ordinata was only acknowledged up to a certain point. The nominalists had misused this, in order to assert that God according to the first could do everything, also what was in conflict with his nature, and thereby they also especially argued the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Against that Calvin rose up and he rejected such a commentum potentiae absolutae as profane, Inst. III c. 23 § 1, 5, cf. I 16, 3, II 7, 5, IV 17, 24.

Comm. in Jes. 23:9, Luk. 1:18. The Roman Catholics therefore accused Calvin that he limited and thus denied the omnipotence of God,

Bellarminus, de gratia et lib. arb. III c. 15. But Calvin did not therefore deny that God could do more than He in fact did, but he only contested such a potentia absoluta, which would not be bound to his being and virtues and thus could also do all kinds of contradictory things. Thus conceived, in the sense of Augustine and Thomas, the said distinction was also generally accepted by the Reformed theologians, Polanus, Synt. theol. II c. 29. Alsted,

Theol. schol. did. p. 96. Heidegger, Corpus theol. III 109. Synopsis pur. theol. VI 36. Mastricht, II 20, 13. And thus understood, this distinction is also to be approved. The [227] pantheism does indeed say that God and world are correlata, and that God has no own being and life, no own consciousness and will in distinction from the world. But it thus mixes everything together in a hopeless way, and also brings about a boundless

confusion in thinking. God and world, eternity and time, infinity and finitude, being and becoming, the possible and the actual, the necessary and the contingent, etc., are not words of the same content and the same meaning. The world is of such a nature that our thinking cannot take from it the character of contingency. The thought of its non-existence includes not the least logical contradiction. There can be motives why God has called the world into being; the cosmos can in its whole and in each of its parts be embodiment of divine thoughts; but it is impossible to explain the origin of the world logically, without the will of an almighty God. And therefore alongside the actual there remains a domain for the possible. God is not absorbed in the world, eternity does not pour itself out empty into time, infinity is not identical with the sum of all the finite, omniscience does not coincide with the content of thought of rational creatures. And thus the omnipotence of God is still infinitely exalted above the unbounded power which comes to manifestation in the world. Cf. Weisse, Philos. Dogm. §

499 f. Dorner I 441 f. Ebrard § 179 f. Philippi II3 59 f. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm.

S. 503-506. Frank, Syst. d. chr. Wahrheit I2 249 f. Grétillat III 256 s. Hodge I 406 f. Shedd I 358 f.

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