Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/167

 Power produces effects, makes distinctions, and thus is Creation.

It is to be noticed that this part of the mediation does not belong to the proof of the existence of God, for this part of the mediation begins with the conception or notion of wise Power. We have not here as yet reached the point at which the proof starts from the Notion, but that at which it starts from definite existence.

I. It is at this point that we first get the conception of Creation strictly so called; it is not to be found in any of the discussions which have gone before. We had first infinitude, then Power as the Essence of God. In the Infinite we have simply the negative of the finite; and in the same way in necessity finite existence is something which merely goes back whence it came; things disappear in it as accidental. What is is only in so far as it is a result. In so far as it is, all that can be asserted of it is only the fact that it is; nothing can be said of how it is; it can be in the particular way in which it is, but it might be otherwise as well, right or wrong, happy or unhappy. In necessity we get no further than formal affirmation; we do not get to the content; here there is nothing which is abiding, there is nothing which would be an absolute end. It is in Creation that we first come upon the positing and the being posited of affirmative forms of existence, not only as abstract, as things which only are, but as having content as well. It is just for this reason that Creation is only rightly in its place here. It is not the action of Power as Power, but of Power as Power that is wise, for Power first determines itself as wisdom; what appears as finite is thus already contained in it, and the determinations here get affirmation, i.e., the finite existences, the things created get true affirmation. There are ends which are valid, and necessity is reduced to the condition of a moment in reference to the ends. The end is what persists in the Power, as