1 82 Some Implications of the Incarnation [CH. 



Let us then seek the solution on the lines of personal 

 relationship. Now the doctrine of the Trinity furnishes 

 us with just the element of personal intercourse in the 

 transcendent sphere that makes the activity and love 

 which Perfect Experience connotes, possible and in- 

 telligible. Surely the solution lies here that Perfect 

 Experience just means the activity of love. This, when 

 perfect, cannot be added to, yet others may enter in 

 and share it. For them this constitutes an addition to 

 experience, but not for God. They share God's experi- 

 ence, but God does not share theirs in any new sense, 

 for the experience was His all along. The only new point 

 is that they are there to share it. The experience is not 

 however made more perfect thereby, for it is perfect 

 eternally. The question therefore narrows itself to this; 

 does the entry of A, B and C into a sharing of the Per- 

 fect Experience constitute an addition for God, or is the 

 existence of a potentiality for such entry as a result of 

 creation equivalent to its actuality in the transcendent 

 sphere? Is the end really there before process? If so, 

 what is the use of process? we may ask. The end is real 

 before process, but it could not be so but for the fact 

 that process was to intervene, because the end the 

 creation of free personal beings involves the existence 

 of a durational series in which those beings win their 

 personality. 



But such a conclusion seems still to involve the idea 

 of before and after in Transcendent Experience, though 

 I think this is a difficulty in the main due to our taking 

 the series which we perceive as temporal as being truly 

 temporal even when we have carried over the rest of our 

 thought into the eternal. We must no doubt be content 

 to leave the difficulty unsolved, or partly so. But it is 

 worth noting that this before and after has reference only 

 to A , B and C's participation in the Perfect Experience, 

 and not to the Experience itself. And A, B and C are 



