i] Tke Triuntty of God 47 



that Good is merely a normative principle. God is 

 Dot Good for Himself He is simply Love. But Love, 

 in its manifestation to beings who are incomplete and 

 becoming, must impose a norm ; and this norm is good- 

 ness. Man, moreover, by importing mistaken mean- 

 ings into the term, confuses the issue, and creates for 

 himself an artificial but insoluble problem of pain. 



As far as the Immanent God, then, is concerned, His 

 attributes are ideals rather than realities. They repre- 

 sent what would be if men's wills were completely free, 

 and wholly aligned with His, and were yet becoming. 

 In other words the attributes become true at the mo- 

 ment when they cease to be. For when they became true 

 God would cease to be immanent; all change would be 

 swallowed up in transcendence. Thus Omnipotence, 

 Omniscience, Omnipresence, Goodness, are ideals of the 

 Immanent God; divine, far-off events to which the 

 whole creation moves together with Him. Though these 

 are His attributes, He achieves neither the one nor the 

 other, as Immanent ; as Transcendent He can have no 

 attributes, for transcendent knowledge of Him must be 

 immediate. We shall know Him as I AM : as Eternal 

 Love. Viewed from this angle, the self-limitation of 

 God in creation acquires fresh meaning, becomes fresh 

 marvel. We seem to get behind God's attributes to 

 His real Being, which is Love. We get behind difficulties 

 ethical, difficulties spiritual, difficulties natural into a 

 blinding dazzle of the eternal Truth that is so over- 

 whelming that we have to get used to it before we can 

 see at all. But one of the great realities the light brings 

 out seems to be that man realises the relation between 

 the immanence of God and of himself, seeing both as 

 aspects of the great Whole of God's love, as Ground and 

 Consequence; that he recognises the event to which 

 both move; recognises the love of God that is content 

 to accept even self-limitation of His own attributes 



