HARMONY OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM 329 



directly from without by any other, — brings us 

 to a fresh and greater difficulty. For it requires 

 us to suppose every spirit, the human, for instance, 

 as well as the Divine, to have " life in itself " ; 

 that is, to be in a very profound sense underived, 

 self-subsistent, or, in the technical language of 

 the deeper philosophical schools, eternal. But this 

 coeternity of man with God appears to conflict 

 directly with the two most essential attributes of 

 God — Creation and Regeneration. To be sure, this 

 self-activity of the human soul is prefigured in that 

 highest symbol of the Christian Faith, the Fourth 

 Gospel, where it is declared^ that "as the Father 

 hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son 

 also to have life in himself : and gave him author- 

 ity to execute judgment, because he is a son of 

 man,'' — though how it can hQ given to have life in 

 oneself, has hitherto been left aside as "the mys- 

 tery of grace"; and so long as "giving" is taken 

 to mean transfer or endowment, and so to imply /w- 

 diictive action from God toward men, it must con- 

 tinue a perplexity — not to put the case too rudely 

 — to confront at once Divine causative authorship 

 and human spontaneous action. Yet without this 

 last, let us repeat, there can be for man no divine 

 living, his own, sincere and whole, coming from the 

 springs of his inmost being and penetrating him 



^ John V, 26, 27, Revised Version, 



