ii PROOF OF THE TRINITY 145 



these in the One is one and the same. 1 In the universe, 

 the created world, there is also a Trinity, since it 

 is a copy or reflection of the Divine. (i) Pos- 

 sibility or Matter, the unlimited, indeterminate, but 

 capable of being limited and determined, corre- 

 sponds to the unity of the eternal ; (2) Actuality, or 

 Form, the limiting or determining something, that 

 which limits, corresponds to the sameness or equality 

 of the Eternal ; and (3) the unifying movement 

 by which the possible receives actuality, matter re- 

 ceives form, implying a spirit of union, of Love, 

 corresponds to the Absolute Union, the Holy Ghost. 2 

 At a later stage of his philosophy, however, the 

 Cusan gave a second deduction of the Trinity. 3 God 

 is both Absolute Possibility, Absolute Power or 

 Potency (the Creative Word, the Son), and the union 

 of both in Absolute Reality ; yet these are merely 

 different aspects or points of view of the Eternal Being. 

 Again, God is the identity of knowing, or intellect, 

 the knowable or intelligible (the Word), and love, as 

 the inter-relation of each with each, the striving of the 

 knowing after the knowable, its highest good. 4 Bruno 

 also adopts the Trinity of Possibility or Matter, 

 Potency or Form, and Reality, but it is applied at 

 once to God and to Nature as two sides of the same 

 thing. As the Divine potency is infinite, so is nature, 

 its expression, infinite ; matter and form do not in their 

 origin stand opposed to one another, as if separated 

 from one another, any more than power and possibility 

 are separate in God ; all that can be is realised ; matter 

 has in itself all possible forms, and produces these out 

 of itself in the successive moments of time ; the universe 



1 De docta ignorantia, i. 7. Alchoran, ii. 7, 8. 



2 Doct. ignor. ii. 7. 3 De Possest. 4 Alchoran, ii. 6. 



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