Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/106

Rh passive, powerless, passionless Thought; Omniscience alone is fundamental, and all else flows from that. And yet I cannot but think that the difference between us here is more apparent than real. For example, when he denies God power, is it not a power like that of man that he is talking about? — that is, an action or energy going out and terminating on something external and foreign? God’s power, I grant, is not like that; for there is nothing external or foreign to him. And when he denies him love, at least as a fundamental and essential quality, is it not the human form of love that he is thinking of? — that which stirs the human blood, and agitates the human heart? Doubtless the Infinite Benevolence of God is different from that; but is there not a similar difference in the matter of thought also? Is it not equally true that “His thoughts are not as our thoughts”? All we can say is, that there is in God something which corresponds to all these things in man. The formula of St. John, God is Love, or the popular formula God is Power, is as true as the philosophic formula God is Thought. All of these are truths, but partial truths. A more fundamental formula than either is the formula of the Divine Master, God is Spirit. For Spirit is essential Life, and essential Energy, and essential Love, and essential Thought; in a word, essential Person.

Again: On the great question of Evil, — its nature, its origin, its reason, — a question inseparably connected with the conception of God, — there are apparent differences between Professor Royce and