194 Immortality [CH. 



I believe that it is with the word like that doubt 

 creeps in. When Paul of Samosata contended that Christ 

 was like (o/uoto?) to the Father he was condemned. 

 Hosius of Cordova pleaded for the term 6fjioiovaio<t 

 the same in likeness; the wisdom of Athanasius later 

 supported the view; and it prevailed in spite of the 

 subtle arguments of Eastern metaphysicians. I would 

 make bold to say that we need an Athanasius to-day to 

 perform a like service on behalf of men in defining their 

 likeness to the Godhead, though certain reservations 

 must be made. It is not enough for us to be told that 

 we shall be like God one day, when we are made perfect. 

 If we are to share fully His perfect experience, which is 

 Reality, we must become of the same nature as He is. 

 If we are to become of the same nature as He, we must 

 now be of that same nature, since we are already per- 

 sons, capable of willing, of loving, of acting freely 1 . As 

 long as there is room for us to feel that our transcend- 

 ence is in any real way different from God's, so long will 

 the doubt haunt us that perhaps, after all, our persist- 

 ence through change, our perduring may have a time 

 limit set to it. Till we realise this we shall always doubt 

 the reality of our eternal life; we shall always fail to 

 understand Christ's teaching that the kingdom of 

 Heaven is within us now. 



Such an idea may sound startling, even blasphemous, 

 to some. We must therefore try not only to justify it, 

 but also to show its necessity. We must see too exactly 

 what we mean by it, for the fact that God is the cause 



1 The Genesis statement of the creation of man in God's image 

 and likeness, if it is to be taken in an ethical sense, as seems likely, 

 missed fire among the Jews, and its meaning was never appre- 

 ciated. Had it been understood the whole course of Christianity 

 as well as of Judaism might have been different. But we find 

 practically no further trace of it throughout the Old Testament. 

 Cf. Charles, Eschatology, p. 54. 



