George Cross · 37 of 40

II. The Other Side of the Antithesis: Unfolding of the Consciousness of Grace (§§ 86-169) · APPENDIX: ETERNAL CONDEMNATION

It has usually been assumed that the figurative discourses of Christ which are supposed to refer to those who die out of fellowship with him represent them as in a state of permanent unhappiness. (See Matt. 25:46; Mark 9:44; John 5:29. ) But an examination of the connections (Matt. 24:30-34; John 5:24, 25) and of passages with an opposite representation (I Cor. 15:25, 26) throws doubt upon this view. Moreover, eternal condemnation cannot be conceived apart from such a condition as either implies spiritual progress on the part of the damned or unhappiness on the part of the blessed. Accordingly, the milder doctrine that through the power of the redemption at some time there will be a universal restoration of all human souls possesses an equal right.

NOTE.--All attempts to develop the idea of the individual future life and its relations to the present life out of the idea of the perfection of the church and its relation to the unperfected church, or to make a place for the perfected church by means of the idea of the future life, turn to myths, i.e., a historical presentation of the super-historical, or to visions, i.e., an earthly presentation of the super-earthly. “These were every where the forms of the prophetical, which in its higher meaning made no claim to produce a knowledge in the proper sense, but is only determined to shape principles already acknowledged into motives of action.”

Section 3. Those Attributes of God Which Are Related to Redemption (§§ 164-69)

For the Christian consciousness everything in the universe is viewed in relation to the redemption, either as organic to the self-expression of the awakened God-consciousness, or as material to be manipulated by it. From this same point of view the divine world-government requires to be described. But we are here to be on our guard against falling into the error of treating this divine government of the world as supervening upon the creation in the way of something additional or supplementary. They are at bottom the same thing. The Christian faith that all things were made with a view to the self-revelation of God in the flesh and the establishment of the kingdom of God by the extension of that revelation to the whole range of human nature, requires therefore that the divine world-government consist in no mere isolated acts of influence upon a world which pursues its own course in general independently of such interference; but rather the divine world-government and the course of Nature, the natural world and the kingdom of grace, fill the same sphere. That is to say, the whole ordering of Nature from the beginning would have been other than it is had not the redemption through Christ been determined for the sinning race. As for intelligences other than human, we have no such knowledge of their relation to us as would enable us to include more than our own human world--that realm in which redemption is effected--in our survey of the divine government.

Since, as has been already shown (§ 46, note), that element of our self-consciousness which we call the consciousness of sin cannot be referred immediately to the divine causality, but mediately only through the consciousness of grace, the latter element must be the determining one. We may say, then, that the nature of things and all the complexity of their relations have come to be what they are on account of the revelation of God in Christ which redeems men, or develops the human spirit to perfection. Consequently the whole course of human affairs and of natural events would have been other than it is, had not God decreed the union of the divine essence with human nature in Christ and with the communion of believers through the Holy Spirit.

Accordingly from the unity of the divine causality it follows that the church or the kingdom of God, in its whole extension and in the full effect of its development, is the one object of the divine world-government, and every individual object of the divine government is such only in relation to this one object and for this alone. Hence the absurdity of a division of God’s providence into general and special, and the inconsistency of eternal damnation with the divine world-government.

A distinction of attributes can appear in the divine world-government only by viewing the divine causality from human standpoints. As in our apprehension of human causality we distinguish inner intention from the mode of its execution, so also divine causality on its inner side as a unity may be described as will; but on its outer side in relation to its object as a manifold, it may be regarded as understanding. The redemption and the founding of the kingdom of God, in which there is a union of the divine essence with human nature, being the focal point of the divine world-government, the inner thought (disposition) exhibited in this is divine love, which is just the will to unite with and dwell in another. And the skill by which the totality of existences is subjected to this end of realizing the divine love is divine wisdom, which is just the perfect correspondence of processes with the end conceived in all its relations. But while in man will and understanding never perfectly correspond, in God they are one,

1. The Divine Love

The divine love, as the attribute by virtue of which the divine nature communicates itself, is made known in the work of redemption. If it be objected, on the one hand, that this view is mystical and overlooks the love of God in those courses of Nature and of human affairs that conserve and elevate the life; and, on the other hand, that it is too narrow because it fails to recognize that all spiritual development depends on the possession of reason which is the image of God in man, it may be replied to the first objection, that the highest elevation of life is in the God-consciousness, which is suppressed outside the sphere of the Christian redemption; and to the second, that while all men have the capacity for the God-consciousness, yet fear and not love pervades their minds before receiving Christ’s redemption, and no human good of any kind which is not brought into connection with the God-consciousness can relate itself properly to the divine love.

When we assert that “God is love,” meaning there by that love is the sole attribute which can be equated with the being or essence of God, we are not to be understood as accepting any conception of God which has been obtained in a speculative way, but we have only to show why this attribute of God is thus differentiated from the others which have been presented already.

While, as has been said already, the divine omnipotence is that attribute by virtue of which all finite things exist, this entire divine act is thereby posited without motive. The same is true of the other divine attributes treated above. None of these can be by themselves original expressions of the divine essence. Righteousness and holiness imply the antithesis between Good and Bad which cannot exist for God in himself. These attributes act in a limited sphere and they are subordinate to love and wisdom, that is, in the work of redemption they are to be reckoned as preparatory.

Again, while both love and wisdom express the very essence of God, we cannot say that God is wisdom as we say that God is love, because we have the immediate consciousness of love only in the consciousness of redemption and it is the ground of the representation of all the other divine attributes. It is when we extend our personal and our race-consciousness to the whole complex of forces in the universe that we see that wisdom is the perfection of love. Where almighty love is, there must absolute wisdom be (§§ 166, 167).

2. The Divine Wisdom

According to our position in an earlier portion of this work, wisdom and omniscience in God are the same, only the former corresponds to the antecedent view of his operations and the latter to the consequent view. Wisdom is the divine work regarded as producing such a world as if it were an absolutely coherent divine work of art; that is, such a work as, after the analogy of the human, constitutes a simple and originally perfect self-presentation or, rather, communication of the Supreme Being. The development of our consciousness of the wisdom of God consists in this, that this communication in its temporal progress becomes to us ever increasingly a perfect presentation of the almighty love of God.

We do not thereby admit the antithesis of end and means in the world, except in the sense that the means is embraced in the end, as a part in the whole.

To the Christian the redemption is the key to the understanding of the divine wisdom, and the whole divine economy is interpreted in the light of the revelation of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit. But this by no means implies a desire to find in individual occurrences a particular relation to the kingdom of God. This would degenerate into an opposition to scientific investigation. Nay, such occurrences as, presumably, are unconnected with the world-system and yet can not be separated from human concerns, must turn to the damage of the progress of the redemption and must also be excluded from the provisions of the divine wisdom. All things in the world that can be ascribed to the divine wisdom must also be referable to the redeeming new-creating revelation of God. Thus the peculiar work of the wisdom of God is just the extension of the redemption. This means, of course, that the most minute investigation of the facts of nature and the effort to penetrate into the hidden depths of the divine purpose are to be commended (§§ 168, 169).

Conclusion: The Divine Trinity (§§ 170-72)

Our whole apprehension of Christianity stands or falls with the union of the Divine Being with human nature, This union appears first in the person of Christ, and by virtue of it the idea of redemption is concentrated in his person. It appears also in the common spirit of the church, and by virtue of this, the church bears and propagates the redemption through Christ. These are the essential elements of the church doctrine of the Trinity. The defense of the doctrine has been moved by the religious interest--the concern to conserve the absolute character of the redemption by rejecting the idea of subordinate divinities in Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is confirmed by the fact that those parties in the church which have denied the Trinity have held an entirely different view of the redemption on all sides of it.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the keystone of the whole structure of Christian doctrine with respect to this essential point: the equivalence of the divine nature in Christ and in the spirit of the church with the divine nature in itself.

But to the further elaboration of this dogma in the creeds and confessions the same value cannot be as signed. In these the union of the divine with the human in Christ and in the Spirit of the church is referred back to an eternal separation within the Supreme Being in dependently of these two acts of union. Then the member of this separated Being who was designated to the union with Jesus is named Son; and the same process taking place in reference to the Holy Spirit, the other member is called Father. In this way arose the description of God as a unity of essence with a trio- of persons. But such a separation within the Supreme Being is no expression of a religious consciousness and never could be.

Such a doctrine of the Trinity cannot be made to rest upon the Logos-doctrine of John’s Gospel, for this logology has seemed to afford support to the Arian and Athanasian formulae alike, and its interpretation is not settled. If such a doctrine was in John’s mind, why did he not set forth a similar statement concerning the Holy Spirit, especially since he mentions the Spirit so frequently in his gospel, and why did he offer no caution against polyolatry?

Nor can this doctrine be framed from the statements of Christ and his apostles as a combination of authoritative testimonies concerning a supersensuous fact. That would be just as little a doctrine of faith (Glaubenslehre) in the original and proper sense of the word as are the doctrines of the resurrection and the ascension. Moreover this supposedly transcendental fact does not affect our faith in Christ or our fellowship with him.

NOTE.--A doctrine of the Trinity derived from universal conceptions, or a priori, could have no place in Christian doctrine, even if there were a verbal coincidence, and could render no service to it. Such a doctrine in itself would not be of a religious character for its source is different.

The difficulty of conceiving each of three persons as equal to two others and to the divine essence is beyond the compass of thought. If the Godhead of all three DC less than the one supreme Essence, then our life-fellowship with Christ and our participation in the Holy Spirit are no fellowship with God, and all that is most valuable in Christianity is altered. If each be equal to the others, the difficulty is to find the rule for the distinction of the persons without the introduction of some elements that involves inequality. This is manifest in the Catholic statements of the doctrine. Similar contradictions appear in the canons which have been offered for the representation of the relation of the triplicity of persons to the unity of the Essence. If we assume triplicity we do not reach the unity, and if we assume the unity there is no room for triplicity. We possess no analogies whereon to base such a representation. The ecclesiastical doctrine, therefore, can furnish no support to the fundamental truth of Christianity.

The same difficulty arises when we attempt to relate each and all of the three persons to the divine causality. The dogmaticians have felt this, for they all assume the divinity of the Father and attempt to prove that of the Son and the Spirit, which shows that notwithstanding formal orthodoxy they actually follow Origen in holding that the Father alone is absolutely God and that Son and Spirit are God only by participation.

The traditional trinitarian formulae come to us from a time when the great mass of Christians were recently recruited from heathenism. It was a very easy matter for echoes of heathen thought to steal in when the question of plurality or distinction in God was discussed, and it is just as natural to find that the definitions presented in those earlier times should be quite unsuited to later times when a mingling of heathen elements is no longer to be feared. If the value of the doctrine lies in the affirmation that God is in Christ and in the common spirit of the church, then there arises the problem how to relate the peculiar existence of God in another to his existence in and for himself and in relation to the world in general. But there is no prospect of obtaining a formula which will be sufficient for all time inasmuch as, since we have to do only with that God-consciousness which is given in our self-consciousness and with the world-consciousness, we have no available formula for the expression of the existence of God in himself as distinct from his existence in the world, and we are driven to borrow the desired formula from speculation; but that is to be untrue to the nature of dogmatics. And inasmuch as all our dogmatical expressions for the relation of God to the world are unavoidably anthropomorphic, how can we expect to avoid the same defect when we approach the complicated problem of distinguishing the peculiar (personal) existence of God in Christ as an individual and his existence in the church as a historical whole from the omnipotent presence of God in the world in general, of which the other two are yet only parts?

It is evident that the solution of the problem of the Trinity can be only approximate and progressive. Interest in it must rise ever afresh. We can expect no final statement. It will remain a problem. The customary placing of the doctrine of the Trinity at the head of the dogmatical system gives the misleading impression which, nevertheless, the history of the church contradicts, that the acceptance of this doctrine is the indispensable condition of faith in the redemption and in the founding of the kingdom of God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Such a procedure results in making speculation rather than the Christian consciousness the basis of Christian doctrine.