314 MAN AND GOD. 



nor consciousness, for they both depend on Hmlt- 

 ation. PersonaHty rests on the distinction of one 

 person from another, consciousness on the distinction 

 of Self and Not-Self.^ An all-embracing person, 

 therefore, is an utterly unmeaning phrase, and if it 

 meant anything, it would mean something utterly 

 subversive of all religion. For the infinite person- 

 ality would equally embrace and impartially absorb 

 the personalities of all finite individuals, and so 

 Jesus and Barabbas would be revealed as co-existent, 

 and the7^efore as co- equal incarnations of an infinite 

 God. 



The phrase infinite power Is, as has been stated 

 (§ i), equally meaningless. Not only is power a 

 finite conception, applicable only to a finite world 

 in which force implies resistance, but when used out 

 of its settinpf it becomes a contradiction. Power is 

 power only if It overpowers what resists, and it is 

 not infinite if anything resists It. Infi.nite power, 

 therefore, is as unmeaning as a round square. 



Neither can intelligence or wisdom be ascribed 

 to an infinite God. For such a God could have 

 neither personality nor consciousness, his intelligence 

 would have to be impersonal and his wisdom un- 

 conscious^ and to such terms our minds can give no 

 meaning. And moreover, what we understand by 

 wisdom is an essentially finite quality, shown in the 

 adaptation of means to ends. But the Infinite can 

 neither have ends nor require means to attain them. 



§ 4. Goodness, again, is doubly impossible as an 

 attribute of an infinite God ; in the first place, because 



1 Or perhaps we should rather say " distinctness," for it is as a 

 ratio essendi, and not as a ratio cognoscendi, that the distinction is 

 important. It is important that God should ^'^ distinct from the 

 world, but not that He should know Himself as such. 



