v] Some Implications of the Incarnation 1 79 



however not overlook the fact that the idea of an addi- 

 tion involves time a before in which the added material 

 of experience was not there and that such a temporal 

 conception is inadmissible when we are dealing with 

 transcendent being. In fact, on such a view, we are 

 driven to conclude that Eternal Love, which is the 

 Nature of God, is always satisfied in an outpouring, 

 realising its own completion and satisfaction of return 

 from created beings as actual, even while the incoming 

 tide of reciprocating love is delayed, in the temporal 

 sphere, by the process of immanent becoming. That is 

 to say, the whole process would seem to be in truth 

 eternally now, though to men who inhabit duration a 

 virtual image of before and after floats between them 

 and the timeless light of Eternal Being. Reality is, so 

 to speak, refracted by duration, which acts as a concave 

 lens, and an image of the source is thus seen in a position 

 different from the true one. 



There is no addition. The Love of God is simply 

 perfect and satisfied, in outpouring and return, in ex- 

 ternal and internal activity. That is its nature, and 

 creation is but the projection of its activity into the 

 sphere of becoming. 



On this view the end is, even before process, for 

 the end is not of time. The activity of God is eternal, 

 purposive activity: Love's series, not Time's. To this 

 it may be objected that any such doctrine is Predes- 

 tinarian; irreconcileable with our doctrine of freedom; 

 definitely opposed to our view, so often stated, that if 

 the freedom of men is real, God cannot know any step 

 till it is accomplished. I think the objection is partly 

 superficial. It unquestionably is true that God cannot 

 know any step till it is accomplished, for the step is 

 process, and God cannot know process except by ex- 

 perience which means that He must share man's 

 experience of duration; a conclusion to which we have 



