vin] The Evolution of Transcendence 233 



the sun's light visible. So for God, the temporal series is 

 real, and contains contingency, even while reality is con- 

 ditioned by something more absolutely real; even while 

 in a higher plane He sees the whole. 



Moreover, His transcendent consciousness is really 

 saved from pure passiveness, which would be nothing- 

 ness, by the coexistence of His immanent consciousness. 

 Transcendent consciousness alone could not be self- 

 existent unless it were substantiated by immanence, for 

 both are parts of one active whole. That whole is Love 

 or Fellowship, and Love is active; cannot rest content 

 with pure self-experience, but must ever be creating 

 something new. If it could rest content and self-ab- 

 sorbed it would not be Love. Self-surrender, renuncia- 

 tion, and so immanence, are part of Love's Being. God 

 must be eternally creative, or He would not be Himself; 

 and our eternal life is to participate in that creative 

 activity through perfect communion. The creative- 

 series is absolute and eternal for Him; even though 

 change and duration are real, and His experience is 

 receiving addition in time, in order that it may be sub- 

 stantiated as itself and retain its eternal character as 

 being simply whole and perfect. 



In His transcendent experience the stress is on the 

 Whole; but the Whole is only a whole because the ex- 

 perience of self -surrender, and of the immanence and 

 time-series this connotes, is real too, on a lower plane. 



What do we mean by "on a lower plane"? Simply 

 that immanence is derivative, however true it be to say 

 that it is essential to the substantiation of Transcendent 

 Love. Because of Transcendent Love, immanence ex- 

 ists love's work. Transcendence preserves its character 

 by, but does not owe it to, immanence, while immanence is 

 solely conditioned by the higher reality of transcendence, 

 apart from which it has no point of contact with the absolute 

 and unconditioned. 



