Preliminary Considerations \ I 



of the difficult question of whether the whole universe is 

 the individual body of God (which really lands us again 

 in Box-immanence and also in a contradiction) ; and of 

 the host of enigmas that present themselves in regard 

 to the relation of this body of God to the bodies of men. 



It will be well, therefore, to avoid this term, in spite 

 of its obvious suggestiveness. Now I am well aware that 

 a good many of the problems that present themselves 

 are in the last resort problems of terminology. The 

 word body has such a very definite connotation that any 

 extension of its meaning however justifiable, however 

 really implicit in the very conception of a body, as 

 ordinarily understood, must bring many quite needless 

 difficulties; just as the conceptions of idealism bring us 

 up against all the apparent objections that everyday, 

 phenomenal existence presents. If therefore another 

 expression can be found less ' polarised ' in its meaning, 

 and at the same time freer from the objections that 

 obtrude themselves when we are driven to speak of a 

 body which is common to many beings, and of which 

 different parts have different degrees of mediateness in 

 their relation to different beings, it will be desirable to 

 use it. Such a term, I think, may be found in the phrase 

 Work-Immanence, and to this term we shall adhere, 

 even though it will involve a consideration of the rela- 

 tion between the body and the work. 



What, then, do we mean by Work-Immanence, and 

 what is the radical unsoundness of the conception of 

 Box-Immanence? Very simply, we mean by Work- 

 Immanence, that the phenomenal and noumenal uni- 

 verse is not wholly within God a part or even a mani- 

 festation of His Being 1 but is rather something which 



1 The Universe, as His creation, must be a manifestation of His 

 Nature and His Being, but it is primarily the medium created for 

 self-manifestation of the created, finite centres of being we call 

 men. The implications of this fact will be discussed later. 



