DIVINE PREDICABLES -- NOT DISTINCTIVELY ATTRIBUTES

Many important truths may be affirmed of God, which do not describe attributes of the divine personality. They are not qualities of the divine essence or being.

I. Eternity. The phrase, "The eternity of God," means that to His existence there was no beginning, and will be no end. In its deepest meaning it affirms "His endless existence in absolute unchangeableness of essence or attribute." As all things were made by Him, He was before all things, and, consequently, there was a time when He dwelt alone, having no society but the mysterious companionship of the Trinity. But there never was a time when He did not exist. And as His existence is not contingent but necessary, it is impossible that He should ever cease to exist. He is simply infinite, personal Being; as He Himself declared "I AM," meaning self-existent and eternal being.

This is clearly asserted in the Scriptures. "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God" (Ps. 90: 2). "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end" (Ps. 102: 25-27). "He inhabiteth eternity" (Isa. 52: 15). "Thou art from everlasting" (Ps. 93: 2). "Unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible" (1 Tim. 1: 17). The Word of God abounds in such declarations.

Of course, the eternity of God is beyond our comprehension, simply because the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. But it is a truth we must firmly hold. "The only alternatives are an absolute Nihilism (the doctrine that no reality exists), or a causeless origination of being in time. Nihilism can never be more than the speculative opinion of a few, because self-consciousness ever gives the reality of self, and is the abiding and effective disproof of Nihilism. The other alternative, a causeless origination of being in time, is absolutely unthinkable. Therefore we must accept the truth of eternal- being. Hence the eternity of God encounters no peculiar difficulty; for there is no more perplexity for thought in the eternity of a personal being than in the eternity of matter or physical force/'1 But the notion of the eternity of matter is absurd and untenable. To suppose matter to be eternal is to suppose it self-existent and independent, having in itself the ground of its own necessary existence. Then it would have existed everywhere alike in all its modes and properties. This we know to be contrary to fact. So we are left with but one tenable view,-the eternity of God,- the self-existent personal being who is the Creator of all things. 1 Miley, Vol. I, pp. 214, 215.

"In the absence of such a personal cause the only alternatives are an infinite series and an uncaused beginning. Neither is thinkable or possible. Reason requires a sufficient cause for a beginning and for the marvelous aggregate of results. God in personality is the only sufficient cause. He must therefore be an eternal personal existence."2 2. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 214, 215.

It is interesting to notice how theologians have philosophized about the eternity of God in their effort to grasp its meaning, e. g., Dr. Charles Hodge: "With God there is no distinction between the present, past, and future; but all things are equally and always present to Him. With Him duration is an eternal now/" 3 Dr. Miley: "The question arises respecting the relation of God to duration, whether He exists in duration or in an eternal now. There is no eternal now. The terms are contradictory. The notion of duration is inseparable from the notion of being. Being must exist in duration. God is the reality of being, and none the less so because of His personality."4 Wakefield: "We are told that the duration of God is a fixed, eternal now, from which all ideas of succession are to be excluded; and we are required to conceive of eternal duration without any reference to past or future time. But the proper abstract idea of duration is simply continuance of being. We must either apply the term duration to the Divine Being in the same sense in which it is applied to creatures, with this difference, that the duration of God is unlimited; or blot it from our creed, as a word to which we can attach no meaning. To say that the duration of God does not admit of past, present, and future, is to impugn the Scriptures; for they speak of Him as the Being, 'which is, and which was, and which is to come.' "5 3. Hodge, Vol. I, p. 385. 4. Miley, Vol. 1, p. 215. 5. Wakefield's Theology, p.

Fairchild: "It is sometimes said that succession of time is not predicable of God: that He fills all time as He fills all space; that all time is present to Him, that His existence is an eternal now. These are words to which in the finite comprehension, there is no corresponding thought. The only now of which we can think, is related to a past and a future. Succession of time is a rational necessity. Time is not an eternal now. Such succession must of necessity pertain to God's being. If God has no past, no future, He has no now. When we have said that God exists from eternity on through eternity, we have said all we are authorized to say- all that is rationally apprehensible."1 1, Fairchild's Theology, p. 19.

The truth seems to be this: all things, past, present, and future stand before the immediate, open vision of omniscience as if they were now; but still He must know things in their true order of succession, as they are related to one another: and there must be a succession of experience in His life as in the life of any finite being.

II. Unity of God. This phrase means, that God stands alone in the universe as independent and eternal being. God is one in perfect simplicity and unchangeableness of being. He is not one of a kind, but the only self-existent, eternal personal Being. His is "an absolute, essential unity." He is "the only God." As He says of Himself, "I am God, and beside Me there is none else." "Jehovah, He is God: there is none else beside Him" (Deut. 4; 35). "Hear, 0 Israel: Jehovah our God, is one Jehovah" (Deut. 6:4). "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me" (Deut. 32:39). "O Jehovah, God; for there is none like Thee, neither is there any God beside Thee" (2 Sam. 7: 22). "0 Jehovah, the God of Israel, that sittest between the cherubim. Thou art the God, even Thou alone" (2 Kings 19: IS). "Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there is no God" (Isa. 44: 6). "I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside me there is no God" (Isa. 45: 5). "The only true God" (John 17: 3). "There is no God but one" (1 Cor. 8: 4). "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. 4: 6). "Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen" (1 Tim. 1: 17). "God is one" (James 2: 19).

The teaching of Scripture is unmistakable on this point, and God intended that it should be, because polytheism was the perpetual peril of His ancient church. The divine Trinity, whatever it implies, must be consistent with the unity of God's being. This gives us, rationally, Monotheism, as opposed to polytheism, which has taught finite divinities, but no infinite Deity, and has always been so prolific in degradation to humanity.

EVIDENCE OF DIVINE UNITY.

What God has so abundantly declared in His Word needs no proof. But there are some confirming considerations.

1. The metaphysical argument based upon the nature of an infinitely perfect being. The idea of such a being does not admit of there being more than one. There cannot be anything above God or equal to Him, or any one not dependent upon Him. We mean by God an infinite, absolutely perfect being, the uncreated, Creator of all, the first, the greatest, the best. If there were two, having equal perfections, neither could be infinite and absolute. Neither could be absolutely perfect, because it is not so great to have equal perfections with another as to be superior to all other beings. It is, therefore, impossible that there can be more than one infinite absolutely perfect being.

2. There are evidences of divine unity in creation. As St. Peter's Church at Rome bears evidence of the unity of plan of one great master mind, so does this world that God has made. "The elements of physical nature are so few and in such correlation that a few simple laws determine the cosmic order of the earth and the heavens. If the light of this order reveals a divine Creator, it certainly reveals only one. Organic structures are formed upon such a unity of plan and in such a harmony of orders that there must be but one Creator of all. Rational intelligence and moral reason are the same in all men, and the profoundest reason must determine one divine original in all. The three orders of the physical, the animal and the rational are so diverse that they might seem to point to diverse originals; but they all so blend in man, that in the light of this union it is manifest that there is one, and only one, Creator of all."1 1, Miley, Vol. I, p. 216.

The universe itself is a system, the parts of which are united together by one common bond, and governed by the same common laws. The one law of gravitation, causes the tides to rise or fall in the sea, the stone to drop toward the earth, the moon to move around it, and all the different planets to revolve around the sun; and it is highly probable that the same attracting influence, acting according to the same rule, reaches to the fixed stars. The planets are all subject to the same vicissitudes of days, and nights, and seasons. The same element of light reaches every planet and every fixed star.

The same truth appears in our own little world. There is a similarity of type in life in all its varied forms. There is a wide resemblance in structure and functions, and senses of animals. Digestion, nutrition and circulation go on in a similar manner in all. The great circulating fluid, the blood, is the life in all. The physical laws of attraction, cohesion, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism are the same everywhere. One atmosphere surrounds our globe, and a uniformity of administration of natural law is observable everywhere upon it. There is nothing anywhere that would suggest divided kingdoms of different gods. The different races of men have common structure and resemblance, and likeness; and the operations and laws of nature are so harmonious that the evidence is overwhelming that the universe is one and its Creator and Ruler is one God.

3. There is no rational requirement of more than one God. The intuitive reason of man demands one God, but not two or more. Polytheism is a shameful perversion of rational thought that springs from a corrupt heart. "It can have no coexistence in any mind that has a correct notion of God. No other God can be admitted to the faith and worship of the soul while in possession of the unperverted notion of the true God. There is no demand for another. The one true God completely satisfies the reason and the heart" (Miley).

III. Omnipresence of God. This term means that God is everywhere present at the same time. "Our idea connected with the affirmation is that there is not a point of infinite space which is beyond the reach of His power or the manifestation of His presence. This relation to space we do not comprehend, but we rationally know it to be a fact" (Fairchild).

"Omnipresence means God's existence everywhere, not by an extension of parts, but by His essential being" (Daniel Steele). Hodge observes: "Theologians are accustomed to distinguish three modes of presence in space. (1) Bodies are in space circumscriptively. They are bounded by it. (2) Spirits are in space definitively. They have an ubi. They are not everywhere, but only somewhere. (3) God is in space repletively. He fills all space. In other words, the limitations of space have no reference to Him. He is not absent from any portion of space, nor more present in one portion than in another. This is not to be understood of extension or diffusion. Extension is a property of matter, and cannot be predicated of God. If extended, He would be capable of division or separation.

"Nor is this omnipresence to be understood as a mere presence in knowledge and power. It is an omnipresence of the divine essence. Otherwise the essence of God would be limited. The doctrine therefore taught by the older Socinians that the essence of God is confined to heaven (wherever that may be) and that He is elsewhere only as to His knowledge and efficiency, is inconsistent with the divine perfections and with the representations of Scripture. As God acts everywhere, He is present everywhere; for, as the theologians say, a being can no more act where he is not, than when he is not. He is not more in one place than in another, but is everywhere equally present."1 1. Hodge, Vol. I, pp. 383, 384, 38S.

Dr. Miley, on the other hand, makes a long and labored argument against the above and generally accepted view as follows: "The doctrine of an infinite essence of being should be carefully guarded in both thought and expression, lest it become the foundation of pantheism... If we think of God as essentially present in all worlds, we tend to think of His essence as a magnitude reaching all in a mode of extension, and as filling all the interspaces. The notion is utterly inconsistent with pure spirituality of being. If, however, we still assert the essential ubiquity of God, but hold our thought rigidly to the notion of pure spiritual being, we must at once be conscious of an utter incapacity to form any conception of the manner in which He is thus omnipresent.

The real truth is not in the sense of a ubiquitous divine essence. . . . Personal agency is for us the only vital reality of His presence. . . . Neither knowledge nor the energy of will can have any dependence on so alien a quality as extension in spiritual essence and personality. There is an infinite plenitude of personal agency in the omniscience and omnipotence of God. In the plenitude and perfection of these personal attributes God is omnipresent in the truest and deepest sense of the term."2 2. MUey, Vol. I, pp. 218, 219.

What he seems to be saying in a heavy and roundabout way is, that God's personality is confined to one place, and He is omnipresent only in the sense that His knowledge reaches every place and His power can affect every place. He says "we are conscious of an utter incapacity to form any conception of the manner in which He is omnipresent in essence. Nothing could be more inconceivable." But what of it? Of course it is inconceivable, and so are all of God's infinite attributes and predicables. But that does not militate against the truth of them. And further, the idea of the omnipresence of God's essence, is no more difficult for us to comprehend than His own notion of the knowledge and power of God reaching every place without His presence there. At any rate, the theologians are largely against Miley in this contention, and we agree with them. We find our warrant

1. In the Bible. "Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded" (1 Kings 8: 27). "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven thou art there: If I make my bed in sheol, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall uphold me" (Ps. 139: 7-10). "Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see Him saith Jehovah" (Jer. 23: 23, 24). "The fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1: 23). "The God that made the world and all things therein being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands... He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17: 24-28).

These Scriptures decide the question and each one must judge for himself, on which side they are.

2. On the Work of Creation. It seems to be an evident truth that a being cannot act where it is not. If God made the universe, we would think that He must be in every part of it. As no attribute of God can be separated from His essence, wherever His power is exerted, there must His essence be. Therefore, He must be present wherever His power has been, or is at work.

3. In the Work of Divine Providence. Reason and Scripture both declare that He who made this world and all the shining hosts of heaven, also sustains them. We are not to suppose that after God made the physical universe, He withdrew from it and left it like a. perpetual clock to run itself. This would be to suppose that the universe was now independent of its Maker. But "He upholds all things," and "by Him all things consist." What for convenience we call the laws of nature are only the established and uniform modes according to which the power of God is exerted in His providential government of created things. But if God is the preserver of all things as well as their Creator, then, necessarily, he must be present everywhere.

St. Paul said to the Athenians: "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." "If men live in God, then God is in them. If men move in God, then He imparts to them their motion. If men have a being in God, then he sustains their being. By Him the sun shines, the winds blow, the earth is clothed with vegetation, and the tides of the ocean rise and fall. Everywhere He exists in the fulness of perfection. The universe is a magnificent temple erected by His own hands, in which He manifests Himself to His intelligent creatures. The Divine Inhabitant fills it, and every part shines with His glory."1 1. Wakefield's Theology, p. 150.

Nor is this pantheism. Wherever in the universe there is evidence of mind, God is there, using the forces of nature and making Himself seen and felt. He is in them all; but, what is more He is over them all and above them all, and essentially different from all, independent of all, and infinitely exalted above all. He inhabits the physical universe, yet He is not matter but a spiritual Being, without form, "Invisible," "whom no man hath seen or can see"; "dwelling in light which no man can approach unto"; and "full of glory." He is the author of life in the blade of grass, and in the microscopic insect that feeds upon it; He also kindles the fires in blazing Arcturus, and begets "the sweet influence of the Pleiades" and fills the spaces beyond the stars. He is the Creator, and preserver, and governor of all things, marshalling the hosts of heaven and "calling them by their names." As the birds float in the air and the fish float in the sea, so are all things surrounded and sustained by this one only omnipresent and ever-adorable God.

IV. The Immutability of God. This refers to the unchangeableness of His nature and moral principles.

1. This great truth is forcibly taught in the Scriptures. It is declared in the august and awe-inspiring words "I am that I am" (Ex. 3: 14). "God is not a man that he should lie; nor the son of man that He should repent" (Num. 23: 19). "The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent" (1 Sam. IS: 29). "Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end" (Ps. 102: 27). "For I, Jehovah, change not, therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed" (Mal. 3:6). "The Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor shadow cast by turning" (James 1: 17).

2. Such passages affirm an immutability of nature. Every-thing else is mutable and changing. The rock-ribbed mountains that seem so abiding are being slowly eaten away by the tooth of 'time. Yea "the foundation of the earth, and the heavens shall perish" (Heb. 1: 10, 11). "And the elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Pet. 3: 12). "But thou art the same" (Heb. 1: 12).

God's eternity and His immutability are wedded in these pass-ages, which makes the latter all the more precious. As long as God's eternal years endure, so long will He remain unchanged and unchangeable in character and attributes. "As an infinite and absolute Being, self-existent and absolutely independent, God is exalted above all the causes of change, and above the possibility of it. Infinite space and infinite duration cannot change. They must ever be what they are. So God is absolutely immutable in His essence and attributes. He can neither increase nor decrease. He is subject to no process of development, or of self-evolution. His knowledge and power can never be greater or less. He never can be wiser or holier, or more righteous or more merciful than He ever has been and must be. He is no less immutable in His plans and purposes Infinite in wisdom, there can be no error in their conception.

3. This immutability of God gives solid ground for comfort to all the subjects of His government. It assures us that He will govern His creatures without caprice or fickleness, with the steady hand of wisdom, inspired and guided by infinite love. His moral laws will not be altered to meet some unforeseen emergency of His administration. There never can be such a thing. What ever was virtue and goodness in principle in the past, is virtue and goodness now, and will be a million ages hence. Whatever was vice once will always be vice, and whatever God abhorred once He will always abhor. God's character will not change. His loves and His hates will ever remain the same. His omniscience and justice and holiness and love will forever make Him as trustworthy as He ever has been. He will continue to be too wise to make mistakes, too good and just to do us wrong, too loving to forget our interests or be unmindful of our needs. God has manifested His will to men by successive revelations,-the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and Christian; but the moral principles which gave them vitality and the moral ends which they proposed were the same. Their inner spirit was ever one, showing the Infinite Being to be unchangeable in holiness and mercy and goodness and truth.

4. While God's attributes thus remain the same, the form of their manifestations will vary according to the occasions that call them forth. If His moral subjects sin, He will frown and perhaps punish; if they repent and forsake sin, He will smile and show mercy. This does not prove that God's character has changed but proves the contrary. His character is permanent; but His feelings and His actions must adjust themselves to the changing characters of men.

David said to Solomon: "If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever. This was precisely what happened. But it was not God's holiness that changed, but Solomon's character. The immutability of God must not be so interpreted as to conclude that His operations admit no change; or that His feelings admit of no change toward the same creatures under different circumstances. "The Lord loveth he righteous"; but "He is angry with the wicked." Now the man who is "righteous" today may be "wicked" tomorrow; then God's feelings toward Him must change. If they did not, if the love or anger of God toward His moral subjects did not correspond with their moral character, then God Himself would not be the unchangeable lover of holiness and hater of iniquity which He has Declared Himself to be.