Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/187

 goodness, mercy, are to be ascribed to the One, but what He does and really is. What we are concerned with is, the actual determination and reality. It must, therefore, be determined whether or not the action expresses the mode in which Spirit appears. If the activity is not of the kind which develops the nature of Spirit, then the subject may certainly pass for being Spirit so far as ordinary thought is concerned, but it is not itself true Spirit. The fundamental characteristic of activity here, however, is, to begin with, Power, which does not assume an outward form implying that the reality is its own reality, but rather its attitude to reality is still essentially a negative one.

B.

THE CONCRETE GENERAL IDEA OR POPULAR CONCEPTION.

(a.) The Determination of the Divine Particularisation.

First Determination.—In the divine act of judgment, God is wisdom; God’s self-determination, His differentiation, or, to put it more definitely, His act of Creation, is contained in it. Spirit is simply what mediates self within self, what is active. This activity implies a distinguishing from self, an act of judgment, which, in its original meaning, is separation or division. The world is something posited by Spirit; it is made out of its nothing. The negative element in the world, however, is the affirmative element, the Creator, namely, in whom what is natural exists as the non-existent. The world, therefore, in its nothingness has sprung from the absolute fulness of the power of the Good. It has been created from its own nothingness, which, as being its Other, God is. Wisdom means that an end is present in the world, and determines it. This subjectivity, however, is what comes first, and is accordingly abstract to begin with, and