108 
Absolute. He is the Infinite. He is the Unconditioned. But 
the Absolute is “ independent of all relation/' Dean Mansel 
tells us.* The Infinite is that which is “ free from all possible 
limitation" (p. 80). The Unconditioned is that which stands 
apart from all conditions of existence whatsoever. 
18. In the face of these metaphysical difficulties, it is some 
consolation that the God in whom we are asked by Christianity 
to believe is neither the Infinite nor the Absolute nor the 
Un conditioned. f And, therefore, in whatever metaphysical 
difficulties we may be plunged by believing in Him, we are at 
least not compelled by our faith in Christ to embrace the 
conception that He is non- entity. Whether it be possible or 
right to conceive of Him metaphysically as “the sum of all 
reality" (p. 30), and therefore, as Hegel asserts, of necessity 
containing evil within Himself, or not, such is not the con- 
ception which is placed before the Christian. God is not “the 
Infinite," i.e ., the unlimited, for He cannot die, and therefore 
death is no part of His Being. He “cannot lie."J He cannot 
deny Himself. § He cannot do evil, for evil is that which is con- 
trary to His Will ; and some schools of theology even conceive 
of Him as setting bounds to His knowledge by his own Will.|| 
God is not the Absolute, for the Absolute consists in the 
absence of all relation. But relation to other beings, accord- 
* Page 51. This is the strict meaning of the word. So says Sir W. 
Hamilton, who derives it from absolutum, i: what is freed or loosed,” and 
hence it means “ what is aloof from relation, comparison, limitations, con- 
dition, dependence,” &c. Dean Mansel, finding this sense of the word 
unsuitable to his argument, modifies its meaning in Lecture III. There it 
means “ free from necessary relation,” and so includes some of the ideas 
ordinarily connected with the nature of God. But in addition to the con- 
fusion generally caused by using a word in two different senses, we have here 
the additional perplexity that the “ absolute ” in this sense is sometimes 
absolute in the proper sense of the word, and sometimes not. What is 
“ aloof from all relation ” can never, under any circumstances, be related. 
In entering into relation of any kind, the Absolute ceases to be Absolute. 
Dean Mansel speaks in pp. 136, 137, of “ absolute morality.” What does 
morality become when “ independent of all relation,” or even of “ all neces- 
sary relation” ? To the idea of infinite morality (p. 134), according to the 
definition above, there are equal objections. Can there be a morality 
without limitations ? 
f Even Plato had got beyond this. His idea of God was not the Infinite 
or the Absolute, but the Eternal Good (see above). Even Canz’s doctrine, 
that God is to be discerned by an infinite power of action, is superior to our 
modern conceptions of Him as the Infinite and the Absolute. 
% Titus i. 2. § 2 Tim. ii. 13. 
|| The theory of Free-will can hardly be maintained except on the 
hypothesis that God, by the fiat of his own will, parted with His power to 
determine absolutely the actions of those creatures to whom He had given 
the gift of freedom. 
