I. Name and General Conception.
II. The God of Scripture.
Old Testament: Ethical Conception (§ 1).
New Testament: Fatherhood of God (§ 2).
Attributes of God (§ 3).
III. The Doctrine of God in Christian Theology.
Dependence upon Pre-Christian Thought (§ 1).
Platonism (§ 2).
Alexandrian Judaism (§ 3).
Gnosticism (§ 4).
Post-Apostolic Theologians (§ 5).
Augustine (§ 6).
Scotus Erigena (§ 7).
The Scholastic Philosophers (§8).
The Mystics (§ 9).
The Reformers (§ 10).
Leibnitz and Wolff (§ 11).
Kant and Fichte (§ 12).
Hegel (§ 13).
Post-Hegelian Philosophers (§ 14).
Schleiermacher (§ 15).
Modern Tendencies (§ l6).
IV. In English and American Theology.
The Deistic Period in England (§ 1).
The Same Period in America (§ 2).
Nineteenth-Century Developments (§ 3).
Theistic Arguments (§ 4).
Immanence (§ 5).
Fatherhood of God (§ 6).
Though the reality of God's existence is the most certain of all truths to the Christian, it follows from the nature of the case that a thoroughly satisfactory definition of the idea of God can never be reached. A logical definition requires the use of genus and differentia, which are, of course, absent in the case of God; nor can he be subsumed in the same genus with other things. Nevertheless, the religions of the world have succeeded in reaching quite distinct conceptions of one or more gods without strict definitions. All of them, even the lowest, include in their idea of God that he is a being endowed with power over men and nature. A certain spiritual character is attributed to him by the fact of his invisibility; but the religious conception of God includes especially the idea of a will by which he acts on men. The more developed religions conceive this will as almighty, and refer the original being of all things to its operation. The most important element, however, according to Christian revelation, is the ethical nature of that will as the absolute good, determining the development of the world toward good ends.II. The God of Scripture:
The Old Testament revelation is peculiar for its conception of God
as wholly and from the beginning standing in an ethical relation to
humanity, and especially to his people Israel. It does not begin with
theoretical speculations as to his existence and nature, but with his
moral claims, his promises, and the proclamation to his people of his
acts. The fear of him is based upon his absolute ethical exaltation,
which repels and condemns all that is morally unclean. The proper name
of the covenant God is Yahweh (q.v.). The exposition of the name in
The New Testament revelation is characterized by the fact that God
now reveals himself in the highest and fullest sense as a father to
all those who share in his salvation or are members of his kingdom,
and in the most absolute and perfect way as the father of Jesus
Christ. On this relation of sonship is based the free, confident
access to God and enjoyment of his love and all the blessings
connected with it; and the children are required to resemble their
father in character
the other thought that the children of the One Father form a
community, a kingdom of God, and that they can enjoy their
union with God only when they are thus united with each
other. According to Paul, the Spirit of God dwells in the
Church as the motive power and principle of an entire new
inner life in the sons of God-who have also attained to their
faith in Christ and their sonship only through the same Spirit
This whole relation of God to the faithful is brought about
through Christ. He is called the Son absolutely, the only-begotten,
just as he calls God his father with a distinction
But this relation of God to his children must be clearly
distinguished from God's relation to the universal natural life of
personal spirits and to nature in general.
Both in Christian revelation and in the idea of the fatherhood of
God, love is a fundamental element. It is most forcibly expressed in
the assertion that
The Christian revelation and its teachings about God supplied a distinct moral and religious need; but even after it had accomplished the foundation of a community based upon these ideas, there was still room for a clear definition of its different elements and an investigation of their relations to other departments of the intellectual life-in a word, for a Christian science of theology. But Christian theology in its earliest stages made use of the results of pre-Christian, especially Greek, thought-the methods and forms of philosophical reasoning, general logical and metaphysical categories, and philosophic views of the Godhead and its relation to the world, which, although they had originated on pagan soil and were in no way permeated by the spirit of Scriptural revelation, were yet considered as elevated far above the common polytheism of the heathen world, and even as borrowed in part from
In regard to philosophy, it is necessary to bear in mind the more or less direct influence of Platonism, which viewed as the highest of all things the good that was above all being and all knowledge, identified it with the divine nous, and attempted to raise the human spirit nism. into the realm of ideas, into a likeness with the Godhead; which taught men to rise to the highest by a process of abstraction disregarding particulars and grasping at universals, and conceived the good of which it spoke not in a strictly ethical sense, but as, after all, the most utterly abstract and undefinable, entirely eluding all attempts at positive description. Neoplatonism (q.v.) went the furthest in this conception of the divine transcendence; God, the absolute One, was, according to Plotinus, elevated not only above all being, but also above all reason and rational activity. He did not, however, attempt to attain to this abstract highest good by reasoning or logical abstraction, but by an immediate contact between God and the soul in a state of ecstasy.Alexandrian Judaism
This tendency was shared by a school of thought within Judaism itself, whose influence upon Christian theology was considerable. The more Jewish speculation, as was the case especially at Alexandria, rose above an anthropomorphic idea of God to a spiritual conception, the more abstract the latter became. In this connection Platonism was the principal one of the Greek philosophical systems toward which this Jewish theology maintained a receptive attitude. According to Philo, God is to on, "that which is" par excellence, and this being is rather the most universal of all than the supreme good with which Plato identified the divine; all that can be said is that God is, without defining the nature of his being. Between God and the world a middle place is attributed by Philp to the Logos (in the sense of ratio, not at all in the Johannine sense), as the principle of diversity and the summary of the ideas and powers operating in the world.4. Gnosticism
When the Gnostics attempted to construct a great system of higher knowledge from a Christian standpoint, through assimilating various Greek and Oriental elements, and worked the facts of the Christian revelation into their fantastic speculation on general metaphysical and cosmic problems (see GNOSTICISM), this atract Godhead became an obscure background for their system; according to the Valentinian doctrine, it was the primal beginning of all things, with eternal silence (aige) for a companion.5. Post-Apostolic Theologians
In the development of the Church's doctrine with Justin and the succeeding apologists, and still more with the Alexandrian school, the transcendental nature of God was emphasized, while the Scriptures and the religious conscience of Christendom still permitted the contemplation of him as a personal and loving Spirit. Theology did not at first proceed to a systematic and logical explanation of the idea of God with reference to these different aspects. Where philosophical and strictly scientific thought was active, as with the Alexandrians, the element of negation and abstraction got the upper hand. God is, especially with Origen, the simple Being with attributes, exalted above nous and ousia, and at the same time the Father, eternally begetting the Logos and touching the world through the Logos. In opposition to this developed a Judaistic and popular conception of God which leaned to the anthropomorphic, and also a view like Tertullian's, which, under the influence of Stoic philosophy, felt obliged to connect with all realities, and thus also with God, the idea of a tangible substance. In this direction Dionysius the Areopagite (q.v.) finally proceeded to a really Neoplatonist theology, with an inexpressible God who is above all categories, both positive and negative, and thus is neither Being nor Not-being; who permits that which is to emanate from himself in a descending scale coming down to things perceived by the senses, but is unable to reveal his eternal truth in this emanation. With this doctrine is con connected, after the Neoplatonist model, an inner union with God, an ecstatic elevation of the soul which resigns itself to the process into the obscure depth of the Godhead. The ethical conception of God and redemption thus gives place to a physical one, just as the emanation of all things from God was described as a physical process; and as soon as speculation attempts to descend from the hidden God to finite and personal life, this physical view connects itself with the abstract metaphysical.6. Augustine.
In the West there was long a lack of scientific and speculative discussion of the idea of God. Augustine, the most significant name in Western theology, sets forth the conception of God as a selfconscious personal being which fitted in with his doctrine of the Trinity; but as his own development had led him through Platonism, the influence of that philosophy is found in the idea of God which he developed tematically and handed down. He conceives God as the unity of ideas, of abstract perfections, of the normal types of being, thinking, and acting; as simple essentia, in which will, knowledge, and being are one and the same. The fundamentally determinant factor in the conception of God by the Augustinian theology is thus pure being in general.Scotus Erigena
Scotus Erigena (q.v.), who gave Dionysius the Areopagite to Western theology, though Augustine was not without influence upon him, fully accepted the notion of God as the absolute Inconceivable, above all affirmation and all negation, distinguishing from him a world to which divine ideas and primal forms belong. He emphasizes the other side of this view-that true existence belongs to God
In accordance with its fundamental character, scholasticism attempted to reduce the idea of God into the categories which related to the laws of thought, to being in general, and to the world. It began by adapting the Aristotelian terms to its own purposes. God, or absolute being, was to Aristotle the primum mobile, regarded thus from the standpoint of causation and not of mere being, and also a thinking subject. The ideas and prototypes of the finite are accordingly to be found in God, who is the final Cause. God, in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, is not the essential being of things, but he is their esse effective et exemplariter, their primum movens, and their causa finalia. Aristotelian, again, is the definition of God's own nature, that he is, as a thinking subject, actus purus-pure, absolute energy, without the distinction found in finite beings between potentiality and actuality. In opposition to Thomas, Duns Scotus emphasized in his conception of God the primum ens and primum movens, the element of will and free causation. The arbitrary nature of the will of God, taught by him, was raised by Occam to the most important element of his teaching about God. Upon this abstract conception of the will of God as arbitrary and unconditioned depend the questions (so characteristic of scholasticism from Abelard down) as to whether all things are possible to God.9. The Mystics.
About the end of the thirteenth century, by the side of the logical reasonings of scholasticism, there arose the mystical theology of Eckhart, which attempted to bring the Absolute near to the hearts of men as the object of an immediate intuition dependent upon complete self-surrender. The transcendental Neoplatonic conception of the Absolute is here pushed to its extreme, and Dionysius has more influence than Thomas Aquinas. The view of God's relation to the world is almost pantheistic, unless it may be rather called acosg. The mistic, regarding the finite as naught. This is Eckhart's teaching, although at the same time he speaks of a creation of the world and of a Son in whom God expresses himself and creates. This God is regarded as goodness and love, communicating himself in a way, but not to separate and independent images of his own being; rather, he possesses and loves himself in all things, and the surrender to him is passivity and self-annihilation. The 9Wling ideas of this view were moderated by the practical Ger man mystics and found in this form a wide currency. On the other hand, pantheistic heretics, such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit combined antinomian principles with the doctrine that God was all things and that the Christian united with God was perfect as God.The Reformers
In partial contrast to the speculative theology which has been considered above, the practical popular view of the Middle Ages tended to represent God as a strict autocrat and judge, and to multiply intermediate advocates with him, of whom Mary was chief. Luther went back to the God of Scripture, regarded primarily in his ethical relation to man, pronouncing curses, indeed, against the impenitent, but really aiming at man's salvation. As the love of God has an ethical, personal character, so it requires from its human objects not self-annihilation, but an entrance with all the power of personality into communion with this love and enjoyment of the filial relation. The Christian, though free from bondage to the world, is to realize that it was made by God to serve his purposes. Melanchthon and Calvin, in like manner, avoiding scholastic subtleties, laid stress upon these practical relations. The dogmatic differences, however, between the Lutheran and Reformed confessions point to a fundamental difference in the way of regarding God. The former emphasizes his loving condescension to man's weakness, and teaches a deification of humanity in the person of Christ and a union of the divine operations and presence with means of grace having a created and symbolic side, which the latter, with its insistence upon the supreme exaltation of God, can not admit; and it rejects a theory of an eternal decree of reprobation against a part of humanity which the latter defends by appealing to God's rights over sinners and his absolute sovereignty. The next generation of dogmatic theologians was accustomed to define God as essentia spiritualis infinita, and, in the description of his attributes, to pass from general metaphysical terms to his ethical attributes and those relating to his knowledge. The older rationalistic and supranaturalistic theologians showed an increasing tendency to return for their definitions and expositions to the Scriptures. Nor did they accomplish much in the way of solving the real problems or investigating the relation between the content of revelation and the knowledge or conception of the divine to be found elsewhere.11. Leibnitz and Wolff
The independent metaphysical systems of the philosophers, which embraced God and the world, did not at first make any profound impression on the thought of theologians. Spinoza's pantheism was by its very nature excluded from consideration; but the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolff, with its conception of God as a supremely prefect, personal Being, in whom all possible realities were embraced in their highest form, and with its demonstration of God's existence, offered itself as a friend to Christian doctrine, and was widely influential. In so far, however, as the theologians adopted any of its conclusions, it was with little clearness of insight or independent thought as to the relation of these metaphysical concepts to the Christian faith or as to their own validity.12. Kant and Fichte.
A new epoch in German philosophy, with which theology had and still has to reckon, came in with Kant. Confidence in the arguments by which God's existence had been proved and defined was at
But for a time the most successful and apparently the most dangerous to Christian theology was a pantheistic philosophical conception of God which took for its foundation the idea of an Absolute raised above subject and object, above thinking and being; which explained and claimed to deduce all truth as the necessary self-development of this idea. With Schelling this pantheism is still in embryo, and finally comes back (in his "philosophy of revelation") to the recognition of the divine personality, with an attempt to construct it speculatively. In a great piece of constructive work the philosophy of Hegel undertook to show how this Absolute is first pure being, identical with not being; bow then, in the form of externalization or becoming other, it comes to be nature or descends to nature; and finally, in the finite spirit, resumes itself into itself, comes to itself, becomes self-conscious, and thus now for the first tune takes on the form of personality. For Christian theology the special importance of this teaching was its claim to have taken what Christian doctrine had comprehended only in a limited way of God, the divine Personality, the Incarnation, etc., and to have expressed it according to its real con tent and to the laws of thought.
The conservative Hegehans still maintained that God, in himself and apart from the creation of the world and the origin of human personality, was to be considered as a self-conscious spirit or personality, and thus offered positive support to the Christian doctrine of God and his revelation of himself. But the Hegelian principles were more logically carried out by the opposite wing of the party, especially by David Friedrich Strauss (in his Christliche Glaubenslehre Tubingen, 1840) in the strongest antithesis to the Christian doctrine of a personal God, of Christ as the only Son of God and the God-Man, and of a personal ethical relation between God and man. Some other philosophers, however, who may be classed in general under the head of the modern speculative idealism, have, in their speculations on the Absolute as actually present in the universe, retained a belief in the personality of God.14. Post-Hegelian Philosophers.
The realist philosopher Herbart, who recognized a personal God not through speculations on the Absolute and the finite, but on the basis of moral consciousness and teleology, yet defined little about him, and what he has to say on this subject never attracted much attention among theologians. The Hegelian pantheistic "absolute idealism," once widely prevalent, did not long retain its domination. Its place was taken first in many quarters, as with Strauss, by an atheistic materialism; Hegel had made the universal abstract into God, and when men abandoned their belief in this and in its power to prollute results, they gave up their belief in God with it. Among the post Hegelian philosophers the most important for the present subject is Lotze with his defense and confirmation of the idea of a personal God, going back in the most independent way both to Herbart and to idealism, both to Spinoza and to Leibnitz. Christian theology can, of course, only protest against the peculiar pantheism of Schopenhauer, which is really much older than he, but never before attained wide currency, and against that of Von Hartmann. The significance for the doctrine of God of the newer philosophical undertakings which are characterized by an empiricist-realist tendency, and based on epistemology and criticism is found not so much in their definite expressions about God-they do not as a rule consider him an object of scientific expression, even when they allow him to be a necessary object of faith-as in the impulse which they give to critical investigation of religious belief and perception in general.15. Schleiermacher
Theology, at least German theology, before Schleiermacher showed but little understanding of and interest in the problems regarding a proper conception and confirmation of the doctrine of God which had been laid before it in this development of philosophy beginning with Kant. This is especially true of its attitude toward Kant himself and not only of the supranaturaliats who were suspicious of any exaltation of the natural reason, but also of the rationalists, who still had a superficial devotion to the Enlightenment and to Wolffian philosophy. In Schleiermacher's teaching about God, however, the results of a devout and immediate consciousness were combined with philosophical postulates. In his mind the place of all the so-called proofs of the existence of God is completely sup plied by the recognition that the feeling of absolute dependence involved in the devout Christian consciousness is a universal element of life; in this consciousness he finds the explanation of the source of this feeling of dependence, i.e., of God, as being Io ~e, by which the divine nature communicates itself. For his reasoned philosophical speculation, however, on the human spirit and universal being, the idea of God is nothing but the idea of the absolute unity of the ideal and the real, which in-the world exist as opposites. (Compare Schelling'a philosophy of identity, unlike which, however, Schleiermacher acknowledges the impossibility of a speculative deduction of opposites from an original identity; and the teaching of Spinoza, whose conception of God, however, as the one substance he does not share.) Thus God and the universe are to him correlatives, but not identical-God is unity without plurality, the universe plurality without unity; and this God is apprehended by man's feeling, just as man's feeling apprehends the unity of ideal and real.16. Modern Tendencies
The question has also arisen among theologians of the strict positive school, in consequence of the doctrine of Christ as the God-Man, whether, and if so how far, it is consistent with the divine nature, as found in the Logos or the second Person of the Trinity, to speak of a Kenosis (q.v.) or self-emptying, such as was supposed to have taken place in the incarnation of the Logos, bringing with it a suspension of his eternal consciousness. This is in direct opposition to the old orthodox teaching, according to which Christ laid aside in his humiliation not what affected his Godhead, but what affected his humanity, endowed with divine qualities by the Communicatio idiomatum (q.v.).
Biedermann, a dogmatic theologian influenced by Hegelian speculation, treats the notion of the personality of God as one to be rejected from the standpoint of scientific philosophy. It is true that he designates personality as "the adequate form of presentation for the theistic conception of God"; but he goes on to say that a theism of this kind can never attain to pure thought, and is only an unscientific conception of the content of the religious idea, adopted in a polemical spirit against those who think this out logically. As against pantheistic notions of God, however, he is willing to admit the "substantial" validity of the theistic position. He himself describes God as absolute spirit, absolute being in and by himself, and the fundamental essence of all being outside himself. Quite a different tendency of philosophic thought on the matter is met with in Lipsius. He traces the belief in God back to a practical necessity felt by the personal human spirit, and reaches the conception of God as a purpose-determining intelligence and a lawgiving will, and thus as a self-conscious and self-determining personality. He finds our knowledge of God always inadequate as soon as we attempt to go on to transcendental knowledge of his inner nature, because we are forced to speak of this in metaphors borrowed from our human relations, and to carry over our notions of space and tame to where space and time are not. He declares also that the metaphysical speculations which attempt to replace these inadequate notions by a real knowledge of God are them Ives unable to do this, since they can not get beyond the boundary of an eternal and ever-present existence underlying all existence in space and time, and are unable to define this existence in distinction from spatial and temporal existence except by purely formal logical definitions which really add nothing to our knowledge. It is really Kantian criticism which appears here, more forcibly than in previous dogmatic theology, as it reappears also in the later post-Hegelian philosophy.
Ritachl, again, is reminiscent of Kant in his opposition to all "metaphysical" statements about God, and in the way in which he places God for our knowledge in relation to our personal ethical spirit, as well as the powers which he attributes to this latter in relation to nature (cf. Kant's so-called moral proof or God as the postulate of the practical reason). Through the revelation in Christ, God becomes to him to a certain extent an objective reality, and, rejecting the conception of God as the Absolute, he prefers to define him simply as love. Against this not only dogmatic theologians like Frank and Nitzach, but Kaftan also objects that love is found also in the finite sphere, and thus can not sufficiently express the essential nature of God, which differentiates him from the finite. Ritachl himself says, moreover, that the love which God is has the attribute of omnipotence, and that God is the creator of the universe, as will determining both himself and all things, while these definitions can in no way be deduced from the simple conception of love. Kaftan begins by the statement that God is the Absolute; and this signifies to him not only that God has absolute power over all that is, but also and even more that he is the absolute goal of all human endeavor. Nitzsch employs the term "supramundane" to include the domination of the universe and to express at the same time not only the thought that he who conditions all things is himself unconditioned, but also the moral and intellectual exaltation of God.
The whole body, therefore, of these modern theologians hold fast to an objective doctrine of God with a strict scientific comprehension of terms; and they agree in displaying a characteristic which differentiates them from earlier schools of thought, though varying in degree and in logical sequence the consciousness that the Christian doctrine of God is based not upon the operations of reason but upon the revelation of God in Christ, of which the witness is in our hearts and that it must grasp as the fundamentally essential in God and his relation to us the ethical element in him-must conceive him, in a word, primarily as the sacred Love. (J. KdamLiNt.)
In Great Britain and America the idea of God has undergone many vicissitudes. In the period of q.v. 1650-1800, the doctrine of God was profoundly affected by certain modern questions which were already emerging: the scientific view of nature as a unity, the denial of the principle of external authority, the right and sufficiency of reason, and the ethical as compared with the religious value of life. The deists yielded to none of their contemporaries in affirming that God was personal, the cause of the fixed providential order of the world, and of the moral order with its rewards and punishments both here and hereafter. The cosmological was the only theistic argument. God's wisdom and power were expressed neither in supernatural revelation nor in miracle. His nature was perfectly apprehensible to man's reason. He was, however, absolutely transcendent, i.e., not merely distinct from but removed from the world, an absentee God. This process of thought reached its negative skeptical result in David Hume; the being of God could be proved neither by rational considerations nor by the prevailing sensationalist theory of knowledge. Outside of the deists, the demonstration of the being and attributes of God by Samuel Clarks (q.v.) was thoroughly representative of the time. Something must have existed from eternity, of an independent, unchangeable nature, self-existent, absolutely inconceivable by us, necessarily everlasting, infinite, omnipotent, one and unique, intelligent and free, infinitely powerful, wise, good, and just, possessing the moral attributes required for governing the world. Bishop Butler (Analogy of Religion) held as firmly as the deists the transcendence of God, and if he made less of the cosmic, ethical, and mysterious than of the redemptive side of the divine nature, this is to be referred not to hid underestimate of the redemptive purpose of God, but to the immediate aim of his apologetic. Accepting the fundamental tenet of Matthew Tindal (q.v.), i.e., the identity of natural and revealed religion, he shows that the mysteries of revealed religion are not more inexplicable than the facts of universal human experience. Thus he seeks to open a door for God's activity in revelation-prophecy, miracles, and redemption A new tendency in the idea of God appears in William Paley (q.v.). The proof of the existence and attributes of the deity is teleological. Nature is a contrivance of which God is the immediate creator. The celebrated Bridge water Treatises (q.v.) follow in the same path, proving the wisdom, power, and goodness of God from geology, chemistry, astronomy, the animal world, the human body, and the inner world of consciousness. Chalmers sharply distinguishes between natural and revealed theology, as offering two sources for the knowledge of God. In this entire great movement of thought, therefore, God is con ceived as transcendent. God and the world are pre sented in a thoroughly dualistic fashion. God is the immediate and instantaneous creator of the world as a mechanism. The principal divine attributes are wisdom and power; goodness is affirmed, but appears to be secondary: its hour has not yet come.2. The Same Period in America.
In America during the same period Jonathan Edwards (q.v.) is the chief representative of the idea of God. His doctrine centers in that of absolute sovereignty. God is a personal being, glorious, transcendent. The world has in him its absolute source, and proceeds from him as an emanation, or by continuous creation, or by perpetual energizing thought. As motive for the creation, he added to the common view-the declarative glory of God-that of the happiness of the creature. On the basis of causative predestination he maintains divine foreknowledge of human choice-a theory pushed to extreme limits by later writers, Samuel Hopkins and Nathanael Emmons (qq.v.; also see NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY). His doctrine of the divine transcendence was qualified by a thorough-going mysticism, a Christian experience characterized by a profound consciousness of the immediate presence, goodness, and glory of God. His conception of the ethical nature of God contained an s antinomy which he never resolved; the Being who showed surpassing grace to the elect and bestowed unnumbered common favors on the non elect in this life, would, the instant after death, withdraw from the latter every vestige of good and henceforth pour out upon them the infinite and eternal fury of his wrath. Edwards' doctrine of God and its implications later underwent, however, serious modifications. In the circle which recognized him as leader, his son reports that no less than ten improvements had been made, some of which, e.g., concerning the atonement, directly affected the idea of God. Predestination was affirmed, but, instead of proceeding from an inscrutable will, following Leibnitz, rested on divine foreknowledge of all possible worlds and included the purpose to realize this, the best of all possible worlds (A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, New York, 1900; S. Harris, God, the Creator and Lord of All, ib., 1896). The atonement was conceived as sufficient but not efficient for all (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Philadelphia, 1865), or, on the other hand, as ex pressing the sincere purpose of God to redeem all sinners (A. E. Park, The Atonement; Introductory Essay, Boston, 1859)` Divine sovereignty was roundly affirmed; for some it contained the secret of a double decree, for others it offered a convincing basis for the larger hope.3. Nineteenth-Century Developments.
During the nineteenth century a new movement appeared in English thought. Sir William Hamilton held that God was the absolute, the unconditioned, the cause of all (Philosophy of the Unconditioned, in Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1829). But since all thinking is to condition, and to condition the unconditioned is self-contradictory, God is both unknown and unknowable. Following in the same path H. L. Mansel (Limits of Religious Thought, London, 1867) found here the secret by which to maintain the mysteries of the faith of the church in the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, and other beliefs. Revelation was therefore required to supplement men's ignorance and to communicate what human intelligence was unable to discover. Hence the
Turning from the historical survey to specific aspects of the idea of God which have in more recent times engrossed attention, there come into view the theistic arguments, the immanence, the personality, the Fatherhood of God, and the Trinity. Those writers who have not acknowledged the force of Kant's well-known criticism of the theistic arguments maintain the full validity of these proofs (cf. R. Flint, Theism, new ed., New York, 1890; J. L. Diman, The Theistic Argument, Boston, 1882). Others, as John Caird (ut sup.), conceive of the cosmological and teleological arguments as stages through which the human spirit rises to the knowledge of God which attains fulfillment in the onto logical, the alone sufficient proof; yet Caird accords a real validity to the teleological argument interpreted from the point of view of evolution. Still others would restate the first and second arguments so that the cosmological argument would run as follows: The world of experience is manifold and yet unified in a law of universal and concomitant variation among phenomena caused by some one being in them which is their true self and of which they are in some sense phases. As self-sufficient, this reality is absolute; as not subject to restrictions from without, it is infinite; as explanation of the world, it is the world-ground. The teleological argument would first inquire if there is in the world of experience activity toward ends, and secondly, when found, refer this to intelligence. Other forms of the theistic argument are drawn from the fact of finite intelligence, from epistemology (in reply to agnosticism), from metaphysical considerations in which purposeful thought is shown to be the essential nature of reality, and from the moral order which involves freedom and obligation to a personal source and ideal (cf. E. Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1889; T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, 4th ed., London, 1899).5. Immanence
The idea of divine immanence is variously presented. Its true meaning is that God is the inner and essential reality of all phenomena, but this is susceptible of two very different interpretations. On the one hand, a pantheistic or metaphysical immanence, in which the One is identified with the many. This, however, destroys the relative independence of the human consciousness, eliminates the ethical value of conduct, and breaks down the very idea of God (cf. for criticism of metaphysical immanence, J. Caird, ut sup.; J. Royce, The World and the Individual, vol. ii.). Other notions of immanence are: First, God is present by his creative omniscience, so that the creation is in his image, and with a degree of independence, proceeds of itself and realizes the divine ideals (G. H. Howison, in Royce's Conception of God, New York, 1897). Secondly, the immanence of God is made picturesque by the analogy of the outside physical phenomena of the brain and the inner psychical phenomena of consciousness in which the true self appears. In like manner the veil of nature hides a person, complete, infinite, self-existent (J. LeConte, also in Royce, ut sup.). Thirdly, God is personally present as energy in all things and particularly in all
The Fatherhood of God is the well-nigh universal term to describe the relation of God to men. This position has been reached (1) by a return to the point of view of Jesus' teaching and his own personal attitude. toward God, (2) by an increasing ethical interpretation of the divine nature -in this particular respect led by Universalists and Unitarians (qq.v.), and (3) by a juster appreciation of the worth of the individual life. Fatherhood has indeed been restricted to God's relation to the regenerate, on the ground that man's natural relation to God was legal and servile, and that sonship and adoption resulted from redemption and regeneration (R. S. Candlish, The Fatherhood of God, Edinburgh, 1865). This, however, ignores the fact that man's essential nature was constituted for the filial relation. Since man was made in the image of God, and Christ not only has revealed the true meaning of sonship, but is himself the way to its realization, Fatherhood exhausts all the natural and redemptive relation of God to men (W. N. Clarke, Can I Believe in God the Father? New York, 1899; T. S. Lidgett, The Fatherhood of God, Edinburgh, 1902; J. Orr, Progress of Dogma, London, 1903). If, finally, all the divine attributes and activities are crowned in Fatherhood, even sovereignty, omnipotence, justice, election, and grace are interpreted by it (A. M. Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Modern Theology, New York, 1893; cf. W. Sanday, DB, ii. 205-215). For English and American conceptions of the Trinity as affecting the idea of God, see TRINITY. C. A. BECGWITH.
For the Biblical conception of God consult the works given under BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, particularly those of Schultz and Beyschlag. On the development of the idea in general consult: K. R. Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrine, ed. H. B. Smith, New York, 1861-62; R. Rainy, Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine, Edinburgh, 1874; A. V. G. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Boston, 1884; T. C. Crippen, Introduction to Hist. of Christian Doctrine, Edinburgh, 1884; E. Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, London, 1892; also the sections in the various works upon church history which deal with the history of doctrine, and the works upon the history of dogma, such as those of Harnack and Dorner.
For modern treatment consult: J.-B. Bossuet, Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme, Paris, 1722; S. Charnoek, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God, often printed, e.g., 2 vols., New York, 1874 (a classic); R. S. Candlish, Fatherhood of God, London, 1870; A. Gratry, De la connaissance de Dieu, 2 vols., Paris, 1873, Eng. transl., Guide to the Knowledge of God, Boston, 1892; J. Sengler, Die Idee Gottes, 2 vols., Heidelberg, 1845-52 (vol. i. historical, vol. ii. dogmatic); H. Ulrici, Gott and die Natur, Leipsic, 1875; E. Mulford, Republic of God, chaps. i.-ii., Boston, 1881; S. Harris, Self Revelation of God, New York, 1887; J. S. Candlish, Christian Doctrine of God, New York, 1891; P. H. Steenatra, The Being of God as Unity and Trinity, New York, 1891; J. A. Beet, Through Christ to God, London, 1892; E. M. Caro, L'ldee de Dieu et ses nouveaux critiques, Paris, 1894; A. M. Fairbaim, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, London, 1896; G. d'Alviella, Origin and Growth of the Conception of God, ib. 1897; J. Royce, The Conception of God, New York, 1897; R. Rocholl, Der christliche Gottesbegriff, Gbttingen, 1900; J. A. Leighton, Typical Modern Conceptions of God, London, 1901; E. A. Reed, Idea of God in Relation to Theology, Chicago, 1902; B. P. Bowne, The Immanence of God, Boston 1905; S. Chadwick, Humanity and God, New York, 1905; W. H. Gillespie, The Argument a priori for the Being and Attributes of the Lord God, Edinburgh, 1906; F. Ballard, Theomonism True: God and the Universe in Modern Light, London, 1906; W. R. Inge, Personal Idealism and Mysticism, lecture i., New York, 1907; P. Lobstein, Etudes sur la doctrine chretienne de Dieu, Paris, 1907. Consult also the systems of theology in the works of Bus, Clark, Dabney, Dorner, Gerhart, Hodge, Jacob, Miley, Shedd, Smith Strong, etc.; H. W. Gevatken, The Knowledge of God, Edinburgh, 1906. GODEAU, g6'do', ANTOINE: Bishop of Grasse, and then of Vence; b. at Dreux (45 m. w. of Paris), in the diocese of Chartres, 1605; d. at Vence (14 m. n.e. of Grasse) Apr. 21, 1672. He devoted himself first to poetry, but later entered the clergy and became bishop of Grasse in 1636 and afterward of Vence. At the conventions of the clergy in 1645 and 1655 he attacked the Jesuit system of ethics. He wrote Histoire de l1glise depuis le commencement du monde jusqu'h la fin du neuvieme siMe (5 vols., Paris, 1653-78), Version expliquee du Nouveau Testament (2 vols., 1668), Les Psaumes de David, traduits en vers fran gais (1649), biographies of Paul, Augustine, Carlo Borromeo, Fastes de l'6glise, a poem of 15,000 verses, and other works.
To the student reasonably acquainted with literature as a whole, the Synoptics suggest a kind of authorship deeply differing from that now prevailing. They possess a remarkable impersonality; the author hardly appears. Even the Fourth Gospel, though it is extremely self-conscious, is nevertheless anonymous and the individual author seems to count for very little. The Gospels require for their explanation an authorship which is in some sense corporate. The deepest element for the understanding of their peculiar genius is found in the fact that they are the literary products of a prophetic community. St. Peter preaching on Joel (Acts ii.) introduces the situation. Our Lord has founded a society in which prophetic power inheres as an intrinsic quality. The new prophetism differs from that of the old dispensation in that prophetic inspiration no longer belongs to certain gifted individuals, but to the entire community (cf. Paul in I Cor. xii. and xiv.). The literary history of a community is, therefore, the object of study. To use a distinction drawn by literary critics, the literary study of the Gospels is not the history of a literature, but a literary history of a great community which uses certain individuals as its instruments. The closest literary parallel is the Periclean age. Greater than the individual Athenians who wrote the classic books is the great Athenian community, the polis or Church-State, whose extraordinary civic and corporate qualities made the individual genius possible. Bu the parallel is imperfect; the individual author is full-grown in Athens, he hardly exists in the field of the Gospels. Corporate consciousness and the corporate mood are all-controlling. An indication of this state of things is found in the title of the Gospels. They are entitled the Gospel according to Mark, etc. The meaning of kata is in part identical with the same prepositions in the editions of Homer put forth by famous editors. But there is more at stake. The kata carries the mind back from the second century into the prophetic age, when the Gospel was a corporate mood and a corporate message and the book-gospel of the second century was not thought of.
Here is found the explanation of the style of the Gospels, their noble and sustained simplicity, and their extraordinary adaptability for translation. While their style is molded by the Old Testament and by the Aramaic language and mind, the soul of it is the genius of a supreme community. The Gospels are, like Homer, the creations of an age, and of conditions where the bookish habits of our time were wholly lacking. The Homeric singer was one with his audience, and the poem was lived before it was written. So with the Gospels. The individual author was one with his audience, and the Gospel was lived before it was written. Hence, also, the relations between the Gospels. One of the solid results of criticism is the conclusion that the text of the Gospels took fixed form slowly and that, while it was fixing itself, it was played upon by the unwritten Gospel. This is the truth within the abandoned theory of an oral Gospel. In its original form this theory has become impossible, for the reason that a text formed by the natural memory, without the help of books, resists change far more successfully than a written text. The text of the Gospels, while forming, was for a long time plastic, and the living memories of a prophetic age which was far larger than its literature played upon the text and molded it. A corporate mood controlled the Gospels; consequently, in one sense they have a corporate author. Put in another way, this means that the Gospels constitute a literature which in its origins and in the forces and motives leading to publication closely resembles law. Law, in its deeper moments, is free from academic processes and motives. The literary individual plays an exceedingly small part. Law is the expression of the community's needs, hence it travels no faster than it is driven. But the literary individual is more or less detached from corporate needs. He writes for the pleasure of expression, and seeks a systematic theory for his own mental satisfaction. But law is forced into expression and publication by the needs of the corporate life. Similarly the Gospels, in a very real sense, were published as law is published. They were built up with and shaped within the Apostolic Church.
There are two main conditions for the rise of the Gospels. First, the Christian Church from the first day had a Bible under its hand--it inherited the Hebrew Scriptures. Second, it was a prophetic community, inspired with creative hope and moral passion, and, consequently, the process of gospel-building was entirely free. The need of new Scriptures was not consciously felt. The law of the new community was the Old Testament plus the Savior's words, the Logia of Jesus the Messias (Acts vii. 38, logia zonta). As late as I. Clement (90-95 A.D.?) this situation continues. The eschatologic passion which dominated the Apostolic Age--the intense and vivid belief in the speedy return of the Savior (see MILLENARIANISM, MILLENNIUM), and in the triumph of his community--hindered the growth of the Gospels. But this passion was chastened by the knowledge of the Christ of history and sobered by the growing governmental responsibilities of the Church. It may be supposed that small and imperfect collections of the saving words appeared at a fairly early date. The Jewish-Christian community, as it began to come under strain, had to prove its right to exist. It was inevitable that it should do this by the argument from Prophecy, by searching the Scriptures (John v. 39; Acts xvii. 2-3, 11), by proving that the life of Jesus tallied with the Messianic oracles of the Old Testament. It was equally inevitable that, in order to know its own mind so far as that
This is the situation that explains the first published Gospel. Up to a short time ago this Gospel was confidently called the Logia, the name being taken from Papias' account of Matthew's work. So many difficulties have besieged this fragment and the utterances of Papias are so confused that in the last few years an increasing number of scholars have either put it to one side or cashiered it. In place of the "Logia" they would put "Q" (Quelle, "source"). They assume, what must be conceded, that the Agrapha or extracanonical sayings of Jesus can not materially help and that the only other Gospel which might have helped (the Gospel according to the Hebrews) has practically perished. So, the interpreter of the origin and relations of the Gospels is shut up to the Gospels as they are. Hence as a measurable quantity the investigator must seek the literary source (Q) of that text of the saving words which underlies our Synoptists. But Papias can not yet be wholly abandoned: the best possible must be made of his statement. It may be supposed that Matthew assembled and published a collection of the saving words. This edition of the Logia may have had a slight thread of narrative in it, but the narrative could not have been primary. The motive was to state the law of the new life and hope as Jewish Christians sought to live it. This could be done only by making clear to Christians the mind of Jesus. The cause of publication is utterly unlike that given by the Fathers, namely that St. Matthew was about to leave the Holy Land (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III., xxiv. 6). The true explanation has already been given. The new community publishes its law, the ground and obligation of its corporate existence and aim. The place of publication, if any credit is due to Papias, must have been Jerusalem. The causes and motives of gospel-building were necessarily strongest and clearest at the center of Christian life. The congregation of Jerusalem was the mother church of the new religion. Matthew, by assembling and publishing the Logia, gave to that great congregation a deeper understanding of itself and a clearer conception of its calling. The date of publication can not be determined. But it may well have been between the death of James (62?) and the flight of the church of Jerusalem to Pella (67?).
But the strongest motives for gospel-building were found not inside, but outside Palestine. The converts from Judaism were, in terms of religion, rich before they came to Christ (Rom. ix. 4-5). The converts from heathendom, on the contrary, being polytheists, were paupers (I Cor. xii. 2; Eph. ii. 11). Jewish Christians inheriting a complete equipment of religion and discipline, came slowly into the conscious recognition of governmental needs. Gentile Christians were outposts of Christ, besieged by a vast heathen world. As a result, Gentile Christianity very soon felt a compelling need for clear knowledge of the Savior (Luke i. 4). The period when the Gospels appeared is a distinct epoch in the history of the Church (68?-95?). The Christian communities were rapidly becoming self-conscious; Judaism pressed upon them from the one side, from the other the Roman empire. The persecutions under Nero and under Domitian forced them into close coherence. The Christian community, under pressure, needed to know the reason for its being. A clear and continuous view of Christ became a necessity. The publication of the Gospels corresponds in part to that need in the life of nations which leads to the writing of histories and still more closely to those crises in the existence of great communities which bring about the publication and codification of law.
Mark begins the series. The priority of Mark is a strong probability. The evidence is not merely the lively coloring which is said to indicate the eye witness. That might be otherwise explained, e.g., as due to the temperament and ability of the reporter. Nor is the primary evidence found in Mark's possession of inside knowledge, which might in fact be secondary. The primary evidence is found, first in the literary relationship between the Synoptics. Practically the entire text of Mark is found in Matthew and Luke. The theory broached long ago by Augustine that Mark is an epitomator becomes, in the light of the mental and literary conditions of the Apostolic Age, a sheer impossibility. The only alternative seems to be the use of Mark by Luke and Matthew. Secondly, the primary evidence is found in the way the story fits into the times and in its contrast at this point with Matthew and Luke. Mark gives the picture of Christ in his time and place. Jesus' primary question is his relation to the popular Messianism of Galilee. He is the Messiah, yet he avoids Messianic titles. At a very early day he adopts a policy of silence regarding his claims (Mark i. 34), and consistently pursues it to its end. His primary relations are with the crowd. He walks across Palestine a man of his time in the fullest sense of the word, whereas in Matthew and Luke other and later motives come into the portrait. The literary and historical arguments together give a very strong probability of priority. The story of Mark is characterized by fine narrative qualities. The story is not delayed by the massing of Logia as in Matthew, nor is its continuity ever threatened as in Luke by detailed accounts of Jesus' relations with all sorts and conditions of people. The story goes steadily forward and is a narrative of noble simplicity and movement befitting its supreme object. There is no reason for doubting the tradition that it was published in Rome. Mark satisfied the Gentile Christians' craving for an enkindling story of the Savior's life. It was probably published in the years immediately following the Neronian persecution (66-68?). As with the Logia, so with Mark, its publication was in close connection with the intense life of a great congregation. To the Roman Church, as to the Church of Jerusalem, pressure and persecution had given superior coherence and deepened its conscious needs. In the Gospel of Mark it
Luke opens with a prologue of large interest and
value. The dedication to Theophilus clearly indicates that the writer is an educated Gentile; the
style of it is thoroughly Greek, the
sentence being highly articulated and
rhetorically developed (contrast the
Aramaic type of sentence in the other
Gospels). The writer knows of other attempts to
write the life of Christ and they do not content him.
He tells his readers that he has gone to first sources
and consulted the eye-witnesses. In every way he
bears himself as an educated Gentile, consciously
devoting himself in a literary way to the historian's
task. Yet he is not an apologete (contrast Matthew). He betrays no dogmatic motive. Hence
he exercises far less control than Matthew over the
materials. Coming from the Greek world into Palestine, he cares little for local coloring. While he
is careful to make connections with the chronology
of the Empire (iii. 1), he is careless of the connections in the Savior's life, following Mark less carefully than does Matthew. Like Mark, his Gospel
is, in the best sense, unconstrained, neglecting what
it does not need. Thus Jesus' relations to popular
Messianism are neglected or casually treated. The
"Herodians," more than once in evidence in Mark
(Mark iii. 6, xii. 13), are not in evidence. The Savior's policy of silence is not consistently developed.
Luke's Gospel was for a long time called Pauline, a
term which does not do justice to its breadth. His
mind is controlled by forces deeper than a conscious
Paulinism. He represents the emotional needs of
the Gentile churches recruited for the most part
among the lower classes and the socially disinherited. The Savior, in Luke's story, is in saving
touch with women and with the folk outside the
pale of rigorous Judaism. Luke's sources seem to
be Mark, the Logia, and springs of tradition still flowing among the Jewish Christians of Palestine. There
are distinct veinings in his Gospel (Jesus' dealings
with women, vii. 37 sqq., viii. 2-3, 19 sqq., 43 sqq.,
In Mark unity is gained through a deep impression of the events. In Luke there is a certain loss
of unity. But in Matthew unity of a high order is
secured through conscious purpose. The first Gospel is intensely apologetic, and controls its material in this interest which
is its first main object. It steadily
employs the argument from prophecy
to prove that Jesus is the Messiah ("that it might
be fulfilled" occurs in Matthew twelve times, in
Mark twice, and in Luke twice). The other main
purpose is a clear view of the teaching of Jesus,
and this is obtained by massing the Logia in impressive groups (sermon on Mount, parables in
chap. xiii., and elsewhere). Through adherence to
purpose Matthew becomes in a sense a creative
writer, having more initiative and a larger influence than Luke. The apologetic is Jewish-Christian in type. The book springs from the heart of
Jewish Christianity straining to convert Israel to
Jesus, and is built into Jewish Christianity and its
needs. There are some evidences that the Logia,
having been constantly used in debate, have been
more or less adapted (Matt. v. 3, cf. Luke vi. 20;
Matthew adds "in spirit"; v. 32,
The building and publishing of the Gospels was a process inherent in the growth of the Apostolic Church. It was wider than our canonical Gospels. There is one Gospel, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which probably falls within the first century. The scanty fragments of it remaining make a constructive hypothesis of any sort extremely hazardous. In its account of the conversion of James it places itself on solid ground (cf. I Cor. xv. 7). The silence of the canonical Gospels and of Acts forcibly recall their limitations as histories. But it would seem that the story of James had already become a Jewish-Christian legend. And possibly the Gospel according to the Hebrews at this point indicates the beginning of the Clementine legend. There are other elements (account of the temptation, "My Mother the Holy Spirit took me by one of the hairs of my head and carried me off to the great mountain, Thabor") that suggest a movement toward extravagant mysticism. This may have been a growing tendency in the depressed and disheartened congregation of Jerusalem, which in the last years of the first century had lost its hold on great affairs. The possible relations of this Gospel to the canonical Matthew or to the Logia are questions upon which no opinion may safely be ventured. The hazy and heterogeneous opinions of the Fathers yield no solid data.
The foregoing discussion shows that the Gospels were not written as scientific histories were written, but that they constitute a religious literature springing from corporate religious need. The choice and presentation of the saving words of Jesus was determined by practical, not by systematic or historical, motives (John xx. 30-31). In Matthew there are clear indications that interpretation has to some extent fused with the Logia held in the living memory and applied to imperious practical needs. The habit of quotation has a long history. Nothing like the modern standard of quotation was reached in antiquity, not even in Greek learning, and most certainly not in first-century Christianity, where the corporate need of law gave the main motive for gospel-building. Christians did not dream that they were guilty of irreverence when they adapted the words of Jesus even as they adapted the saving words of the Old Testament (cf. Paul in Rom. x. 8 sqq.). This study of the Gospels illumines the problem of the Fourth Gospel. To place the book fairly, the history of Christian prophetism must be remembered. The Apostolic, or more concretely the prophetic, age of Christianity was the creative and constructive period of our religion. It founded a new type of community and, as a part of that work, created a new literary type, the Gospels. By the year 100 Christian prophetism was in rapid decline. The Pastoral Epistles, II Peter, I Clement, and the Didache are convincing evidence. The period of decline lasted till near the middle of the second century. The labored apocalypse of Hermes indicates its close. The publication of the Diatessaron (see HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS, I., §§ 2-4) proclaims its close. Then follows quickly the attempted revival of Christian prophetism in Montanism, and the period of the Catholic Church. Much hasty work has been done in the field of the Fourth Gospel through a disregard of certain fundamental facts involved in this history of Christian prophetism.
The quality of thought in the Fourth Gospel is not metaphysical but prophetic. The absence of the pictured parousia has been given excessive weight. The quality of the thought is the real criterion. The Gospel is inseparable from I John, where there is a lively expectation of the "last times." There is no emotional gulf between the eschatologies. The "last day" plays a not inconsiderable part in the Gospel (vi. 39, 40, 44, xi. 23, xii. 48). The monotheism is intense. The conception of the "world" (kosmos) has been cast in the apocalyptic mold. It is true that the presence of the word Logos (i. 1, 14) carries great weight. But i. 1-5">>i. 1-5, by its brevity, indicates the author's eagerness to get into history, his indisposition for metaphysics. The fundamental quality of thought is intensely prophetic and of itself places the core of the book well within the first century. The parallel with Matthew may be pressed. Here as there the opposition of Christ to Judaism is the determining element (the displacing of the purification of the Temple from the end of the ministry to the beginning to indicate the irrepressible conflict between Jesus and Judaism; the dialogue with Nicodemus, iii. 1-10; the important part taken by the Sabbath questions; the constant phrase "your law "; the title "the Jews" constantly used to describe the dark figures in the picture). Here as there, though far more decisively, the self-consciousness of Christ stands out in opposition to Judaism. The self-consciousness of the Savior is the Gospel (the "kingdom of God" is absorbed into the person of the king, the phrase occurs only in iii. 3, 5; the parabolic form of teaching disappears with the "kingdom of God"; the style of Jesus in the Synoptics is in striking contrast). It is evident that the mold of the Gospel was shaped in the mind of a first century Jewish Christian.
The occasioning cause of publication is found in Gnosticism in its first period of development. There is a truth in the legend that connects the author of the Gospel with Cerinthus. The substance of the Fourth Gospel was shaped by the same causes that shaped the Synoptists, the corporate need of the Christian community, fighting at close quarters with the world. The perspective and emphasis and main terms of the Fourth Gospel are found also in the First Epistle. The person of Christ becomes the outstanding and all-controlling principle. The conception of the Logos is used to lay in consciousness the final foundation for the fact and mystery
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