Now we may remark concerning these methods that there are three accepted ways of arriving at the divine attributes—the way of removal of limits (via eminentiæ), the way of negation or denial (via negationis), and the way of causality (via causalitatis). Now it is self-evident that these are by no means homogeneous or co-ordinate. For in the first two a something apart from. God must be posited as an attribute; and this, after it has been freed from all limitations, is ascribed to Him, or else its negation is ascribed to Him; while on the other hand causality stands in the closest connexion with the feeling of absolute dependence itself. And if the first two be viewed in their relation to each other, it is clear that negation by itself is no way to posit any attribute, unless something positive remains behind the negation. In that case the negation will consist simply in the fact that the limits of the positive are denied. But in the same manner the way of the removal of limits is a negation, for something is posited of God, but the limits which elsewhere would be co-posited are not posited of God. The identity of these two methods becomes quite obvious in the idea of Infinity, which is at the same time the general form of absence of limits, for what is posited as infinite is also freed from limitation; but at the same time it shows quite generally (by the fact that it is a negation in which nothing is immediately posited but in which everything may be posited which can be thought of as either limited or unlimited), that by negation we can only posit an attribute in so far as something positive remains behind the negation. Both these methods then can only be applied either haphazard with reference to the question whether something, which as such could only be absolutely denied of God, can be conceived as unlimited and posited as a divine attribute; or if this is to be avoided, the application of these methods must be preceded by a definition as to what kind of attribute-conceptions are rightly to be ascribed, to God in an unlimited fashion, and what kind simply must be denied of Him. The third method, on the contrary, is certainly an independent one. And even if we do not wish to maintain that all divine attributes corresponding to any modification of our feeling of dependence can equally be derived immediately from the idea of causality, but rather here at the start must premise for one thing that to this conception the other methods must first be applied, i.e. that the finitude of causality must be denied and its productivity posited as unlimited; and again, that in so far as a plurality of attributes is developed out of the idea of the divine causality, this differentiation can correspond to nothing real in God; indeed, that neither in isolation nor taken together do the attributes express the Being of God in itself (for the essence of that which has been active can never be known simply from its activity alone)—yet this at least is certain, that all the divine attributes to be dealt with in Christian Dogmatics must somehow go back to the divine causality, since they are only meant to explain the feeling of absolute dependence.

Finally, with regard to the divisions of the divine attributes, their great diversity shows how little certainty attaches to the whole procedure and how little any division has been able to count on general agreement; but of some of them we can here give only brief indications. Some³ put forward as chief division that into natural (also called metaphysical, which of course in the case of God must be the same thing) and the moral (which of course has a very objectionable sound, since it leads to the inference that the moral attributes do not belong to God in the same way).⁴ Others first of all divide all divine attributes into active and inactive; but this is difficult to understand if God cannot be represented otherwise than as living, for in the living as such all is activity. The one class may indeed be described as inhering in God as determinations of the most perfect Substance, which include no activity ad extra; yet even the inactive attributes can be thought as possessing a purely inward activity; and in that case this division coincides with another, into absolute and relative attributes. Apart, however, from the fact that the presupposition of a creation in time implies either that the active attributes first came into being along with time or must previously have been inactive (and on this assumption the division is meaningless), the result is always a duality in God—a purely inner life in virtue of the inactive attributes, and a life related to the world in virtue of the active attributes—and as in this way the two classes seem quite separated, still a third class of attributes might seem to be needed to combine them. Only if it be asked which are those inactive attributes, we find that there is really no inner life described by them; in part they are simply formal, as unity, simplicity, eternity; partly, like independence and unchangeability, they are merely negative; and partly, as infinity and immeasurability, they are only the measure and quality of the active attributes. In addition, these divisions turn out not to be exhaustive, since often outside the division isolated attributes are added as inferences, e.g. blessedness, glory, majesty, or even that God is the Highest Good. Hence to avoid this kind of thing it at first sight seems commendable that some should from the outset divide the divine attributes into original and derived; and although it is not easy to see how such a division could be made unless the attributes were themselves already given, it might be all the more genuinely dogmatic on that account. Yet, if it be generally conceded that the difference of the attributes is nothing real in God, each attribute is then only another expression for the whole Being of God, which remains always the same; and consequently all are original, and the derived are not attributes at all in the same sense. But if the attributes so divided be developed from the religious self-consciousness, and the division in this sense be dogmatic, then again there would be no original attribute, but all would equally be very much derived. In fact, however, the division has not arisen from any such view, but from the view which holds that in another respect the Divine Essence alone may be regarded as original, and all the attributes derived. Such a derivation of the divine attributes from the Divine Essence would presuppose the latter as known, and would be a purely speculative proceeding. True, even the purely dogmatic presentation of the attributes can take no other form, except that here nothing can be taken as fundamental save that in the Divine Essence which explains the feeling of absolute dependence. But if the simple expression that ‘everything depends upon God,’ is further supplemented by the negative ‘but He Himself upon nothing,’ at once a fresh opening is given for a division into positive and negative attributes. And since here in the basis of division the relationship between the highest Essence and all other being is presupposed, it is evident that here absolute or inactive or natural or metaphysical attributes can only be considered as negative, and therefore, strictly taken, without definite content.

4. From this discussion it follows: (a) that the presupposition on which the idea is based that those attributes which express God’s relation to the world have the appearance of mere additions and accidents, i.e. the presupposition of a separation between what God is, in and for Himself, and what He is in relation to the world, is also the source of the idea that the purely internal (innerlichen) attributes can only be conceived negatively; (b) that the rules laid down to secure the collection of all the divine attributes in one locus evoke conceptions which are quite foreign to the interests of religion, and result in a confusion of what it was intended to distinguish. We may hope, therefore, to solve our problem equally well without this apparatus and apart from any such collection if only we treat each individual part of our scheme as adequately as possible. Still, we too shall be able to make use of many of these formulas in our own way. For instance, since we have not to do as yet with the actual manifestation of religious self-consciousness in the form of pleasure and pain, but only with what lies uniformly at the root of these phenomena, i.e. with the inner creative disposition towards God-consciousness apart from the consideration whether it is hindered or encouraged, we may call those attributes which come up here ‘original’ in so far as the tendency itself is original, and we may call ‘derived’ those which will come to our notice in the Second Part. And in considering the manifestations of the religious self-consciousness, if we find that everything which would destroy His presence in us must specially be denied of God, and everything which favours His presence in us specially be affirmed of Him, we can say in our own way that thus divine attributes are formulated by the methods of removal of limits and negation; but those which arise from present observation, and there will be such, are reached by the method of causality. Still, this diverges fairly widely from the general usage of those formulæ, which rather betrays an analogy with speculation.

§ 51. The Absolute Causality to which the feeling of absolute dependence points back can only be described in such a way that, on the one hand, it is distinguished from the content of the natural order and thus contrasted with it, and, on the other hand, equated with it in comprehension.

1. We experience the feeling of absolute dependence as something which can fill a moment both in association with a feeling of partial and conditional dependence and also in association with a partial and conditioned feeling of freedom; for self-consciousness always represents finite being as consisting in this mingling of conditioned dependence and conditioned freedom or of partial spontaneity and partial passivity. But whenever dependence or passivity is posited in a part of finite existence, then spontaneity and causality is posited in another part to which the former is related, and this condition of mutual relation of differently distributed causality and passivity constitutes the natural order. It necessarily follows that the ground of our feeling of absolute dependence, i.e. the divine causality, extends as widely as the order of nature and the finite causality contained in it; consequently the divine causality is posited as equal in compass to finite causality. And further, the feeling of absolute dependence stands in exactly the same relationship with the partial dependence-feeling as with the partial freedom-feeling, and so in that relationship the antithesis between these two last disappears; but finite causality is what it is only by means of its contrast with finite passivity, so it is to be inferred that the divine causality is contrasted with the finite. The divine causality as equivalent in compass to the sum-total of the natural order is expressed in the term, the divine omnipotence; this puts the whole of finite being under the divine causality. The divine causality as opposed to the finite and natural is expressed in the term, the divine eternity. That is, the interrelationship of partial causality and passivity makes the natural order a sphere of reciprocal action, and thus of change as such, in that all change and all alteration can be traced back to this antithesis. It is therefore just in the relationship in which the natural causality is set over against the divine, that the essence of the former is to be temporal; and consequently, so far as eternal is the opposite of temporal, the eternity of God will also be the expression of that antithesis.

In regard to what both terms according to general usage appear to imply as to something more than, and transcending, divine causality or the range of finite being—of this we shall speak in our further elucidation of both concepts. Here it is to be noted generally, that since these two ideas—omnipotence and eternity—are here related only to the divine causality, it may at once be proved in their case also that the individual attributes in their differences correspond to nothing real in God. It is always an inexactitude, which as such must be pointed out when we present these as two different attributes. For the divine causality is only equal in compass to the finite in so far as it is opposite to it in kind, since if it were like it in kind, as it is often represented as being in anthropomorphic ideas of God, it too would belong to the sphere of interaction and thus be a part of the totality of the natural order. In the same way, if the divine causality were not equal in compass to the finite, it could not be set over against it without at the same time disrupting the unity of the natural order; because otherwise for some finite causality there would be a divine causality, but not for some other. Instead, therefore, of saying God is eternal and almighty, we should rather say He is almighty-eternal and eternal-almighty, or God is eternal omnipotence or almighty eternity. Still, in view of unavoidable comparisons with the more exact definitions of both attributes hitherto current, we must treat of each by itself.

2. It is however natural that, as people always started with a comparison of the divine causality with the finite, these two ideas should, in religious poetry as well as in religious speech, have been associated with two further ideas—the idea of eternity with that of omnipresence, and the idea of omnipotence with that of omniscience. If the two terms just dealt with completely corresponded with the two members of the relationship set forth in our proposition, we should not have to deal in the same manner with the two ideas just mentioned; it would only be necessary to set forth precautionary rules to ensure that nothing should be included in the thought of them contrary to the two principal ideas and to our proposition. The situation, however, is not quite like that. The idea of eternity does, of course, express a contrast to the causality contained in the natural order, but primarily only as far as this is conditioned by time; and actually it is conditioned just as much by space, and this no less in the case of the spiritual than of the corporeal. True, if we think of their equality in compass or comprehension, this itself implies that the finite causality everywhere in space is dependent upon the divine; but the conception which expresses contrast is obscured by this relationship, and the complete expression of it is found only in eternity and omnipresence taken together.

Further, with regard to the conception of omniscience, it perhaps arose in the first place in the sphere of popular, poetical, and religious teaching, to indicate the relationship between God and that which goes on in man’s inner life. In Dogmatics, however, it is always dealt with at this point, and taken in its widest application it belongs here; for we are accustomed to make an antithesis in the sphere of finite causality between living and ‘dead’ forces, and notwithstanding that in the doctrine of preservation even conscious finite causality is brought under the divine, the possibility is still not excluded (if once, rightly or wrongly, ‘dead’ forces are assumed) of conceiving the idea of omnipotence itself after the analogy of ‘dead’ forces. Since consciousness is the highest form of life known to us, this danger is averted by the idea of omniscience. Naturally, however, these additional attributes can just as little each for itself denote anything special and distinct in God as those set forth at the beginning; and as with reference to that pair it appeared that the most correct expression was to say that God, in His causality, was eternal omnipotence or the almighty-eternal, so this other pair of ideas also would best be included in a similar compound expression. But each of these two ideas also must in itself be an expression for the Divine Essence, because neither can betoken anything different in God; and thus omnipresence too, when ascribed to the divine causality, is itself eternity, and omniscience is itself omnipotence. But to express the identity of all these attributes in the briefest manner, still another usage may be chosen. If, that is, time and space everywhere represent externality, and we here always presuppose a something which, by extending itself in time and space, becomes an external object, in the same way the antithesis to time and space may be described as the absolutely inward. In the same way, if the term ‘omniscience’ well emphasizes the fact that omnipotence is not to be thought of as a ‘dead’ force, the same result would be reached by the expression ‘Absolute Vitality.’ And this pair, inwardness and vitality, would be just as exhaustive a mode of presentation, and one perhaps even more secure against all admixture of alien elements.

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Footnotes

1. As we can only deal here with Christian speculation it may be sufficient to refer to Dionys. Areop., de myst. theol. cc. iv. and v.: Λέγομεν οὖν ὡς ἡ πάντων αἰτία καὶ ὑπὲρ πάντα οὖσα οὔτε ἀνούσιός ἐστιν οὔτε ἄζωος … οὔτε ποιότητα, ἢ ποσότητα ἢ ὄγκον ἔχει … οὔτε ψυχὴ ἐστιν οὔτε νοῦς … οὔτε λόγος ἐστιν, οὔτε νόησις … οὔτε ζῇ οὔτε ζωὴ ἐστιν … οὐδέ τι τῶν οὐκ ὄντων, οὐδέ τι τῶν ὄντων ἐστιν, and to Augustin., de Trin. v. 1: ut sic intelligamus Deum, si possumus, quantum possumus sine qualitate bonum sine quantitate magnum, sine indigentia creatorem sine situ praesidentem sine habitu omnia continentem sine loco ubique totum sine tempore sempiternum, sine ulla sui mutatione mutabilia facientem. And Hilary, de Trin. ii. 7: Perfecta scientia est sic Deum scire, ut licet non ignorabilem tamen inenarrabilem scias. Cf. Anselm, Proslog. cc. xviii. and xxii. ↩

2. Mosheim, Theol. dogm. i. p. 232: Si essentia Dei vere differet ab attributis, et si attributa realiter inter se differrent, Deus esset natura composita. Nevertheless many theologians come very near to admitting such differences in God; e.g. Endemann, Instit., p. 51, who distinguishes ea attributa sine quibus Deus nequit esse Deus and determinationes internas Dei, quae salva eius essentia et actualitate abesse possunt, which he therefore calls analoga accidentium. ↩

3. Particular passages are not quoted, but the reader is referred to the doctrine of the divine attributes in Mosheim, Reinhard, and Schott. ↩

4. It would belong to the locus which some designate as analogon accidentium. ↩