48 The Triunity of God [CH. 



His own powers of manifesting Himself for the sake of 

 His creation; begins to understand what that day, when 

 all that is in part shall be done away, will mean for God 

 as well as for Him ; begins to share God's joy beforehand. 

 In relation to Himself, then, God is Love; in relation 

 to His universe He is, or, strictly, approaches, Wisdom, 

 Power, Knowledge, Goodness as well. But we must 

 later inquire into the implications of the eternal fact of 

 Love as God's self-expression, and we shall find that it 

 is rooted in the inter-relation of persons. Indeed in the 

 three words ' God is Love ' the personality and plurality 

 of the Godhead are implicitly stated. In His creation, 

 too in the finite universe as soon as personality 

 comes into being, love has a meaning. Man becomes 

 able to realise something of the real nature of God's 

 Being when he begins to understand the word love, and 

 He begins to understand what love is only when he 

 reaches the stage of self-consciousness and becomes a 

 person. Understanding, however feebly, he comes into 

 personal contact and communion with God Himself; no 

 longer merely experiences the manifestation of His 

 attributes, which are His relations to the universe, in 

 so far as it is external to Him. For love, even faulty 

 human love, is not of time, but constitutes the bond of 

 union between eternal beings. Not until the transcend- 

 ent ego comes into being does love exist, and this love 

 expresses the realisation of the mutual penetrability of 

 persons, which lies at the root of eternal life. Man still, 

 of course, experiences the attributes of God, because he 

 is still becoming; but he learns to understand them; 

 learns their significance as the beams of love's radiance ; 

 and so learning he is beginning to understand God. God 

 is revealed in His attributes in the illumination of the 

 universe by the divine radiancy the source is made mani- 

 fest but man, because he is personal, as God is per- 

 sonal, is not content to rest in the knowledge of God's 



