i] The Triunity of God 45 



We see then that goodness postulated of the Godhead 

 opposes an unchanging moral standard to all the changes 

 and chances of humanity's vagaries. God is good in 

 relation to His creatures. Evil is not His creation, but 

 theirs. It is the misapplication of freedom; the refusal 

 to conform to the true standard. This we have worked 

 out at length elsewhere. 



But in what sense can we say that God is absolutely 

 good? for the goodness we have been describing, is in a 

 sense relative. The question can only arise from an in- 

 complete understanding of the problem. Absolute good- 

 ness is simply the expression of the nature of the God- 

 head ; for it is the expression of His Love, which we have 

 next to consider. Being absolute, it is not relative to 

 anything. It is not goodness-as-compared-with-evil- 

 ness, but simply the manifestation of eternal love. As 

 goodness it only comes to have a meaning when it 

 becomes normative; that is, when it is considered as 

 relative to that which is becoming to that which is not 

 in itself absolute. In other words, like the attributes of 

 Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, it is a mode 

 of manifestation of the Godhead to beings external to 

 Himself. It is not an attribute of God-for-Himself 

 alone. His internal activity is for Himself: His eternity, 

 and His love. These are included in the / Am. They 

 have a meaning apart from creative activity. The 

 others are expressions of His nature, to His creatures. 

 And since we shall see that God's activity is implicit in 

 His love, we find that the attributes of God for Himself 

 are summed up in the phrase "God is love"; the 'is' 

 being not of time but expressing His eternal simul- 

 taneity. The other attributes we may call, using the 

 word of the writer to the Hebrews, aTravyda-nara, beams 

 of His Radiance, made visible as they fall upon the 

 created world. 



A very striking fact now becomes apparent. We have 



