Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/25

 differentiation—He is the eternal Process. The fact that this is the truth, and the absolute truth, appears rather in the form of something given or taken for granted. That this should be consciously known as the entire and absolute truth, the truth in-and-for-itself, is, however, just the work of philosophy, and is the entire content of philosophy. In it it is seen how all that constitutes Nature and Spirit presses forward in a dialectic form to this central point as to its absolute truth. Here we are not concerned to prove that the dogma, this silent mystery, is the eternal Truth. That is done, as has been said, in the whole of philosophy.

By way of giving a more definite explanation of these characteristics, we may further call attention to the following points:—

(a.) When the intention is to express what God is, the attributes are what is first thought of. These attributes are God; He is defined by means of predicates, and this is a mode of expressing the truth which is characteristic of the ordinary thought, of the understanding. Predicates are definite characteristics, particularisations, such as goodness, almighty power, &c.

The predicates certainly do not represent natural immediacy, but have got a permanence by means of reflection, and in this way the definite content which they represent has become immovably fixed in itself, exactly as is the natural content by means of which God is represented in the religion of Nature. Natural objects, such as the sun, the sea, &c., are, they exist; but the determinations of reflection are as much self-identical as is natural immediacy.

As Orientals have a feeling that this is not the true mode of expressing the nature of God, they say that He is πολυώνυμος, that His nature cannot be exhausted by predicates, for names are in this connection the same as predicates.

What is really defective in this way of defining God