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much enlarged, though it is indispensable to the Theistic defence. The 
points of the inquiry must be, as to 
1. The Self-existent “Being,” — as He exists in Himself ; the Eternal, 
the Prsephenomenal, the Absolute and Unconditioned, yet Ever-conscious 
Being. 
2. The “Nature ” of that Being in His relation with the Phenomenal. 
3. The “ Personality ” of that Being, as essential Consciousness, and Life. 
4. The Koivwvia of Consciousness and Reason in the Infinite, and in 
the finite. 
5. The Supernatural in relation with the Natural. (See the Bampton 
Lectures of 1870, “ On Christianity as taught by St. Paul,” pp. 150-160.) 
Note B. 
On the Controversy as to Volition, as a Cause in the “ Unseen.” 
(§ 33.) 
The Predestinarian controversialists of the last century inherited the 
intellectual position bequeathed by ages of speculation, and neither re-ex- 
amined the data, nor carried on their argument to its ultimate conclusions. 
In this they were even less disposed to be philosophical and logical than 
the materialists who to a certain extent felt with them. 
With some, the argument began with the assumption of the Divine 
knowledge, as essential to the Governor of the Universe, who could not be 
thought to rule supremely without knowledge of His Universal Dominion. 
As the phenomenal Universe was not supposed to be co-eternal with its 
Creator — for that would be a contradiction — it was concluded that the 
Divine knowledge was Fore-knowledge. It preceded all phenomenal 
being ; and as all phenomenal being was originated by the Supreme, He 
first determined what He would originate. His choice preceded His 
creative act, and was equivalent to predestination. 
With other reasoners, Predestination was put as the first thought of the 
Supreme Governor, and Fore-knowledge as the consequence of the 
Eternal Design as to the future of the Universe. There were a few more 
subtle thinkers who declined to acknowledge either “ before or after ” in 
the Eternal mind. These were dazzled by the old Eleatic ontology, and 
without thinking thoroughly to the end of the old theory that the Eternal 
has no continuity, were content with the apparent sublimity of the old 
philosophy of the Absolute ; and they soon subsided into the use of the 
common terminology of Predestination and Fore-knowledge. All the sub- 
divisions of the party of “ Divine decrees ” conceived that the honour of 
God was concerned in the vindication of the certainty beforehand of all 
the phenomenal future ; and they all popularly spoke of it as “ ordered ” 
and governed by a fixed plan from Eternity. 
None would face the fact, that if the so-called “predestining” had 
always been, and so had been co-eternal in the mind of the Eternal — never 
