58 The Triunity of God [CH. i 



I am prepared to grant the need of postulating an inter- 

 nal manifold in the Godhead, in order to explain the 

 known fact of God's activity. But why hypostatise 

 these modes? And, why Three Persons? Why not two 

 or four or a dozen? Why even this apotheosis of Per- 

 sonality at all? Again why appeal to revelation, which, 

 after all, may merely represent man's own attempts to 

 reach an understanding of the Nature of God? In fact, 

 this is what revelation is ; if God were really and directly 

 revealing Himself He surely would not make so many 

 mistakes, give views of Himself so partial as to pro- 

 duce a totally erroneous impression. That such mis- 

 takes, such erroneous impressions, did historically 

 occur, not only among the less favoured nations of the 

 world, but also among the Jews, is abundantly clear 

 from the Bible itself. Why then claim anything divine 

 in this record of man's search after God? " 



Many such questions may be justly asked; and at 

 present we shall attempt no categorical answer. Instead 

 we shall examine certain aspects of human personality, 

 and argue from the known. By doing this we may 

 reasonably hope to find some indications of the meaning 

 of divine Personality, some foreshadowing of the eternal 

 answer to these questionings. The last however we may 

 dismiss with a word. The evolution of man's idea of 

 God, which is the salient feature that emerges from a 

 study of comparative religion, is only explicable on the 

 assumption that there is a God who is revealing Him- 

 self. Evolution implies Revelation, in the last resort 1 . 

 In the present study we shall devote little attention to 

 Revelation. This does not mean that we refuse to it its 

 proper place. We merely assume it as obviously under- 

 lying the whole of the questions we discuss. 



1 A fact which is admirably brought out in F. B. Jevons' little 

 handbook on The Idea of God in early Religions. 



