44 The Triunity of God [CH. 



making something new; beings who are centres of 

 activity external to Himself, yet comprehended within 

 the circle of the perfect experience. His omnipotence is 

 manifested in self-limitation a kenosis eternally des- 

 tined to fulfilment as a pleroma. 



All His activities are determined by His Goodness. 

 In perfect wisdom and in perfect righteousness He pro- 

 mulgates His self-determined fiat. It is hard at first to 

 see what can be meant by the goodness of God, His 

 righteousness and His wisdom. Surely, a man may say, 

 goodness implies choice, and the possibility of evil. If 

 you postulate goodness of God you at once introduce 

 the possibility of evil; you return to the cosmogony of 

 the Zend Avesta; the opposing principles of good and 

 evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman, come into being. 



Let us first consider the point in relation to the uni- 

 verse. Righteousness and wisdom supply a norm 

 whereby the fluctuating standards of mankind may be 

 regulated. They correct the mutability of human 

 thought. In relation to the created universe then, the 

 postulation of these attributes is in fact an affirmation 

 of the freedom of man to choose as he will. He can 

 choose whether he will be like God or no ; he is truly free. 



for God when His creatures are united with Him ; enfolded in the 

 union of perfect love. Then there can be no more becoming, even 

 though there is a certain measure, not of externality, since there 

 is perfect interpenetration, but of otherness due to the absence of 

 fusion or absorption of personalities into one impersonal essence. 

 The otherness will be the same in kind as the otherness which differ- 

 entiates the Persons of the Godhead, though differing in degree, 

 since men are caused, God uncaused. But as all will be complete 

 and transcendent there can be no change, and so no becoming. 

 The activity will be mutual, interpenetrative. (The cessation of 

 becoming for the Timeless and Absolute Being, only suggests a 

 difficulty how anything can cease for the Absolute God when 

 the origin of the experience of becoming in self-limitation is for- 

 gotten. See Preliminary Considerations.) 



