Preliminary Considerations 23 



Transcendent Being : God is Love ; the whole doctrine of 

 unity in reciprocity, of the Holy Trinity, of creative 

 activity, of self-abnegation are implicit in this one sen- 

 tence; and the present book, with its predecessors, may 

 claim to be a brief and feeble commentary on this one 

 little statement of all the Christian creed. 



Our point at present is, that the Reality of Immanence 

 is for God (and as we shall see, for man also) not merely 

 of a different degree, but of a different kind from the 

 Absolute Reality of Transcendence. But inasmuch as 

 His Immanence is continuously passing back into His 

 Transcendence, with the removal of the limitations set 

 by the opposition of men's wills and their lack of reci- 

 procity, immanent Reality is constantly passing over 

 into absolute Reality. 



This conception involves the problem of whether 

 absolute Reality is receiving addition, and if so, whether 

 the term absolute is applicable at all. The consideration 

 of this we will postpone for a few pages. 



Turning to man, we find the same passing of imma- 

 nence into transcendence with the coming of full self- 

 consciousness, and we see that an internal reciprocity 

 is involved in the self-consciousness of man as well as in 

 that of God, since man too thinks himself as his own 

 object 1 . Again we find the material, which for man, too, 

 is a limitation for freedom can only be won, as we have 

 repeatedly insisted, out of limitations. Again we find 

 the work, the creative shaping of life's plan, which is the 

 moulding of the spirit in time and space. Again there 

 is the growing self-experience which leaves time and 

 change behind ; the / that simply is. Thus at first sight 

 all appears the same as for God. 



But it is not so. The limitation of the immanent stage 

 in man is not a self -limitation, but primarily a limita- 

 tion that comes from without. Only with growing self- 

 1 Vide infra, ch. iii. 



