Preliminary Considerations 29 



None the less, there are, as we have already been con- 

 strained to admit, degrees of reality, and the conscious- 

 ness of these different levels of Reality must itself lie on 

 different levels. We know this in ourselves. In certain 

 of our activities we treat the phenomenal as if it were 

 the absolutely real. This is right and necessary, since, 

 for the purpose we have in view at the moment, it is the 

 only reality that concerns us, and that we can use. 



At other times we see life steadily and whole, and 

 phenomenal reality takes its proper rank. We are using 

 our consciousness at the level of transcendence, and 

 higher, even absolute, reality is within our range. 



May we not imagine something of the same kind to be 

 true of God? Must not God be a Pragmatist in regard to 

 the reality of Process for Process is Real to Him even 

 while He sees the whole? Is not the problem of the 

 double consciousness of God simply another aspect of 

 the problem of degrees of Reality that is to say, is it 

 not a fact that He has the ' pragmatic ' consciousness of 

 immanence, even while He has, at the same time, the all- 

 embracing consciousness of the Whole; the Ultimately 

 Real? 



We shall find it very necessary to bear this question in 

 mind when we come to consider the nature of Christ's 

 consciousness, we shall set out some final conclusions 

 in the last chapter. 



Once more we are met with a new realisation of what 

 His self-limitation means, and gain a little more insight 

 into His love. For God's Transcendent Self process in 

 time and space is not absolutely Real, though it is real 

 for Him in the region of His immanence in exactly the 

 same degree in which His Immanence is real for Him. 



But can a thing be at the same time real and not real 

 A and not A ? What of the Principle of Identity ? 

 for this is the root of the problem. Logically, no, 

 actually, yes. For logic moves in one plane the plane 



