Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

The infinitude of God relatively to space, is his immensity or omnipresence; relatively to duration, it is his eternity. As He is free from all the limitations of space, so He is exalted above all the limitations of time. As He is not more in one place than in another, but is everywhere equally present, so He does not exist during one period of duration more than another. With Him there is no distinction between the present, past, and future; but all things are equally and always present to Him. With Him duration is an eternal now. This is the popular and the Scriptural view of God's eternity. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God." (Ps. xc. 2.) "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." (Ps. cii. 25-27.) He is "The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." (Is. lvii. 15.) "I am the first and I am the last; and besides me there is no God." (Is. xliv. 6.) "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past." (Ps. xc. 4.) "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Pet. iii. 8.) He is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) God is He "which is [ever is], and which was, and which is to come." (Rev. i. 4.) Throughout the Bible He is called the eternal or everlasting God; who only hath immortality. The primal revelation of Himself to his covenant people was as the "I am."

What is taught in these and similar passages, is, first, that God is without beginning of years or end of days. He is, and always has been, and always will be; and secondly, that to Him there is neither past nor future; that the past and the future are always and equally present to Him.

These are Scriptural facts, and necessarily follow from the nature of God as self-existent, infinite, and immutable. With these representations the teaching of theologians for the most part agrees. Thus Augustine says: "Fuisse et futurum esse non est in ea [scil. vita divina], sed esse solum, quoniam æterna est: nam fuisse et futurum esse non est æternum."¹ "Nec tu tempore tempora præcedis, alioquin non omnia tempora præcederes sed præcedis omnia præterita celsitudine semper præsentis æternitatis; et superas omnia futura, quia illa futura sunt et cum venerint præterita erunt; tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficiunt."² Aquinas, to the same effect says, "Æternitas est tota simul."³ Or, as the schoolmen generally were accustomed to say, "In æternitate est unicum instans semper præsens et persistens;" or, as they otherwise expressed it, "Eternitas est interminabilis vitæ simul et perfecta possessio." The same view of this attribute is given by the later theologians. Thus Quenstedt says, "Æternitas Dei est duratio vel permanentia essentiæ divinæ interminabilis, sine principio et fine carens, et indivisibilis, omnem omnino successionem excludens."⁴

The only thing open to question in these statements is, the denial of all succession in the divine consciousness. Our idea of eternity is arrived at from our idea of time. We are conscious of existence in space, and we are conscious of protracted or continuous existence. The ideas of space and duration are necessarily given in the consciousness of continuous existence. We see also that events succeed each other, that their occurrence is separated by a longer or shorter period of duration, just as bodies are separated by a greater or less interval in space. We therefore know, from consciousness or from experience, of no kind of duration which is not successive. Instead of saying, as is commonly done, that time is duration measured by succession, which supposes that duration is antecedent to that by which it is measured, and independent of it, it is maintained by some that duration without succession is inconceivable and impossible. As space is defined to be "negation betwixt the boundary-lines of form," so time is said to be "the negation betwixt the boundary-points of motion." Or, in other words, time is "the interval which a body in motion marks in its transit from one point of space to another."⁵ Hence, if there be no bodies having form, there is no space; and if there is no motion, there is no time. "If all things were annihilated, time as well as space must he annihilated; for time is dependent on space. If all things were annihilated, there could be no transition, no succession of one object with respect to another; for there would be no object in being, — all would be perfect emptiness, nothingness, non-being-ness. Under an entire annihilation, there could be neither space nor time."⁶ The same writer⁷ elsewhere says, "Were the earth, as well as the other globes of space, annihilated, much more would time be annihilated therewith."⁸ All this, however, is to be understood, it is said, of "objective time, that is, of time as dependent upon created material conditions."⁹ As objective timelessness follows from the annihilation of material existences, so timelessness as regards thinking personalities is conceivable only on the destruction of thought. "We have seen that there can be a state of timelessness for material creation, only by destroying its operation, that is, its attribute of motion: precisely in analogy therewith, there can be a state of timelessness for intellectual creation, only by destroying the laws of intellect, that is, its operation of thinking."¹⁰ If, therefore, God be a person, or a thinking Being, He cannot be timeless; there must be succession; one thought or state must follow another. To deny this, it is said, is to deny the personality of God. The dictum, therefore, of the schoolmen, and of the theologians, that eternity precludes succession — that it is a persistent, unmoving Now — is according to this repudiated.

There are, however, two senses in which succession is denied to God. Time first has reference to external events. They are ever present to the mind of God. He views them in all their relations, whether causal or chronological. He sees how they succeed each other in time, as we see a passing pageant, all of which we may take in in one view. In this there is perhaps nothing which absolutely transcends our comprehension. The second aspect of the subject concerns the relation of succession to the thoughts and acts of God. When we are ignorant, it is wise to be silent. We have no right to affirm or deny, when we cannot know what our affirmation or denial may involve or imply. We know that God is constantly producing new effects, effects which succeed each other in time; but we do not know that these effects are due to successive exercises of the divine efficiency. It is, indeed, incomprehensible to us how it should be otherwise. The miracles of Christ were due to the immediate exercise of the divine efficiency. We utter words to which we can attach no meaning, when we say that these effects were due, not to a contemporaneous act or volition of the divine mind, but to an eternal act, if such a phrase be not a solecism. In like manner we are confounded when we are told that our prayers are not heard and answered in time — that God is timeless — that what He does in hearing and answering prayer, and in his daily providence, He does from eternity. It is certain that God is subject to all the limitations of personality, if there be any. But as such limitations are the conditions of his being a person and not a mere involuntary force, they are the conditions of his infinite perfection. As constant thought and activity are involved in the very nature of a spirit, these must belong to God; and so far as thinking and acting involve succession, succession must belong to God. There are mysteries connected with chronological succession, in our nature, which we cannot explain. We know that in dreams months may be compressed into moments, and moments extended to months, so far as our consciousness is concerned. We know that it often happens to those near death, that all the past becomes instantly present. Had God so constituted us that memory was as vivid as present consciousness, there would to us be no past, so far as our personal existence is concerned. It is not impossible that, hereafter, memory may become a consciousness of the past; that all we ever thought, felt, or did, may be ever present to the mind; that everything written on that tablet is indelible. Persons who, by long residence in foreign countries, have entirely lost all knowledge of their native language, have been known to speak it fluently, and understand it perfectly, when they came to die. Still more wonderful is the fact that uneducated persons, hearing passages read in an unknown language (Greek or Hebrew, for example), have, years after, when in an abnormal, nervous state, repeated those passages correctly, without understanding their meaning. If unable to comprehend ourselves, we should not pretend to be able to comprehend God. Whether we can understand how there can be succession in the thoughts of Him who inhabits eternity or not, we are not to deny that God is an intelligent Being, that He actually thinks and feels, in order to get over the difficulty. God is a person, and all that personality implies must be true of Him.

The modern philosophy teaches that "Die Ewigkeit ist die Einheit in dem Unterschiede der Zeitmomente — Ewigkeit und Zeit verhalten sich wie die Substanz und deren Accidentien."¹¹ That is, Eternity is the unity underlying the successive moments of time, as substance is the unity underlying the accidents which are its manifestations. Schleiermacher's illustration is borrowed from our consciousness. We are conscious of an abiding, unchanging self, which is the subject of our ever changing thoughts and feelings. By the eternity of God, therefore, is meant nothing more than that He is the ground-being of which the universe is the ever changing phenomenon. The eternity of God is only one phase of his universal causality. "Unter der Ewigkeit Gottes verstehen wir die mit allem Zeitlichen auch die Zeit selbst bedingende schlechthin zeitlose Ursachlichkeit Gottes."¹² To attain this philosophical view of eternity, we must accept the philosophical view of the nature of God upon which it is founded, namely, that God is merely the designation of that unknown and unknowable something of which all other things are the manifestations. To give up the living, personal God of the Bible and of the heart, is an awful sacrifice to specious, logical consistency. We believe what we cannot understand. We believe what the Bible teaches as facts; that God always is, was, and ever will be, immutably the same; that all things are ever present to his view; that with Him there is neither past nor future; but nevertheless that He is not a stagnant ocean, but ever living, ever thinking, ever acting, and ever suiting his action to the exigencies of his creatures, and to the accomplishment of his infinitely wise designs. Whether we can harmonize these facts or not, is a matter of minor importance. We are constantly called upon to believe that things are, without being able to tell how they are, or even how they can be.

§ 7. Immutability.

The immutability of God is intimately connected with his immensity and eternity, and is frequently included with them in the Scriptural statements concerning his nature. Thus, when it is said, He is the First and the Last; the Alpha and Omega, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; or when in contrast with the ever changing and perishing world, it is said: "They shall be changed, but thou art the same;" it is not his eternity more than his immutability that is brought into view. As an infinite and absolute Being, self-existent and absolutely independent, God is exalted above all the causes of and even above the possibility of change. Infinite space and infinite duration cannot change. They must ever be what they are. So God is absolutely immutable in his essence and attributes. He can neither increase nor decrease. He is subject to no process of development, or of self-evolution. His knowledge and power can never be greater or less. He can never be wiser or holier, or more righteous or more merciful than He ever has been and ever must be. He is no less immutable in his plans and purposes. Infinite in wisdom, there can be no error in their conception; infinite in power, there can be no failure in their accomplishment. He is "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James i. 17.) "God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent; hath He said and shall He not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Num. xxiii. 19.) "I am the LORD, I change not." (Mal. iii. 6.) "The counsel of the LORD standeth forever; the thoughts of his heart to all generations." (Ps. xxxiii. 11.) "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless, the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand." (Prov. xix. 21.) "The Lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." (Is. xiv. 24.) "I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." (Is. xlvi. 9, 10.) Those passages of Scripture in which God is said to repent, are to be interpreted on the same principle as those in which He is said to ride upon the wings of the wind, or to walk through the earth. These create no difficulty.

Theologians, in their attempts to state, in philosophical language, the doctrine of the Bible on the unchangeableness of God, are apt to confound immutability with immobility. In denying that God can change, they seem to deny that He can act. Augustine says, on this subject: "Non invenies in Deo aliquid mutabilitatis; non aliquid, quod aliter nunc sit, aliter paulo ante fuerit. Nam ubi invenis aliter et aliter, facta est ibi quædam mors: mors enim est, non esse quod fuit."¹³ Quenstedt uses language still more open to objection, when he says that the immutability of God is "Perpetua essentiæ divinæ et omnium ejus perfectionum identitas, negans omnem omnino motum cum physicum, tum ethicum."¹⁴ Turrettin is more cautious, and yet perhaps goes too far. He says: "Potestas variandi actus suos, non est principium mutabilitatis in se, sed tantum in objectis suis; nisi intelligatur de variatione internorum suorum actuum, quos voluntas perfecta non variat, sed imperfecta tantum."¹⁵ The clause italicized in the above quotation assumes a knowledge of the nature of God to which man has no legitimate claim. It is in vain for us to presume to understand the Almighty to perfection. We know that God is immutable in his being, his perfections, and his purposes; and we know that He is perpetually active. And, therefore, activity and immutability must be compatible; and no explanation of the latter inconsistent with the former ought to be admitted.

The Absolute Attributes of God not inconsistent with Personality.

These attributes of infinity, eternity, and immutability, are freely admitted by the modern philosophy to belong to the absolute Being. But it is maintained that such a Being cannot be a person. Personality implies self-consciousness. Self-consciousness necessarily implies limitation, a distinction between the self and the not-self. Ohne Du kein Ich, — unless there be something objective and independent to which we stand opposed, as subject and object, there can be no consciousness of self. But nothing can be thus objective and independent in relation to the Absolute; and, therefore, the Absolute cannot have any consciousness of self, and consequently cannot be a personal Being. We have already seen (chap. iv.) that this objection is founded on an arbitrary definition of the Infinite and Absolute. It assumes that the Infinite must be all, and that the Absolute must be alone, without relation to anything out of itself. It is here only necessary to remark, in reference to the objection, (1.) That it may be admitted as a fact that the slumbering consciousness of self in the human soul is awakened and developed by contact with what is not only external to itself but also independent of it. But God is not subject to that law. He is eternally perfect and immutable; having in Himself the plenitude of life. There is, therefore, no analogy between the cases, and no ground for inferring in this case that what is true in us, who begin life as an undeveloped germ, must be true in relation to God. (2.) In the second place, we have no right to assume that even with regard to a finite intelligence created in the perfection of its being, self-consciousness is dependent on what is independent of itself. Such a being would of necessity be conscious of its own feelings; for thought is a state of consciousness in an intelligent being. If God, therefore, can make an intelligent being in the perfection of its limited nature, it would be self-conscious even were it left alone in the universe. (3.) Admitting it to be true that "without a Thou there can be no I," we know that, according to the Scriptures and the faith of the Church universal, there are in the unity of the Godhead three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; so that from eternity the Father can say I, and the Son Thou.

We must abide by the teachings of Scripture, and refuse to subordinate their authority and the intuitive convictions of our moral and religious nature to the arbitrary definitions of any philosophical system. The Bible everywhere teaches that God is an absolute Being, in the sense of being self-existent, necessary, independent, immutable, eternal, and without limitation or necessary relation to anything out of Himself. It teaches moreover that He is infinite; not in the sense of including all being, all power, all knowledge in Himself, to the exclusion of all other intelligent agents; but in the sense that no limit can be assigned to his being or perfections, other than that which arises out of his own perfection itself. He would cease to be infinite could He be unwise or untrue. It is to be remembered that God is infinite and absolute as a spirit, and a spirit from its nature is living, active, intelligent, self-conscious, and personal.

§ 8. Knowledge.

By knowledge is meant the intellectual apprehension of truth. It supposes a subject and object; an intelligent subject that apprehends, and something true that is apprehended.

So far as we are concerned, knowledge is either intuitive or discursive. Our senses give us immediate knowledge of their appropriate objects; the understanding perceives intuitively primary truths; our moral and æsthetic nature gives us the immediate cognition of things right or wrong, and beautiful or deformed. Most of our knowledge, however, is derived ab extra, by instruction, observation, comparison, deduction, etc. In all cases there is the distinction between the mind which perceives and the object which is perceived.

Such being the nature of knowledge, can there be knowledge in God? Can there be this distinction between subject and object in an absolute and infinite Being? Not only are the wicked and the worldly disposed to think that God cannot know; that either He is too exalted to take cognizance of earthly things; or that it is impossible even for an infinite mind to embrace the universe and all its perpetual changes in his mental vision; but the possibility of knowledge, in the ordinary and proper sense of the word, is expressly denied to God by a large class of philosophers, and virtually even by many theologians of the highest rank in the history of the Church.

The Pantheistic Theory precludes the possibility of Knowledge of God

1. As, according to the pantheistic theory, the universe is the existence form of God, as the infinite comes to intelligent consciousness and life only in the finite, there is and can be no knowledge in the infinite as distinguished from the finite. God lives only so far as finite beings live; he thinks and knows only so far as they think and know. Omniscience is only the sum or aggregate of the intelligence of the transient forms of finite beings. All this, as even Hamilton and Mansel admit, necessarily flows from the idea of an absolute Being which precludes the possibility of any such conditions or relations as are involved in consciousness or intelligence. Strauss therefore says:¹⁶ "Not in Himself, but in finite intelligences is God omniscient, which together constitute the fulness or completeness of all the possible forms or degrees of knowledge." And Spinoza says:¹⁷ "Intellectus et voluntas, qui Dei essentiam constituerent, a nostro intellectu et voluntate toto coelo differe deberent, nec in ulla re, præterquam in nomine, convenire possent; non aliter scilicet, quam inter se conveniunt canis, signum coeleste, et canis, animal latrans." This subject was considered in the chapter on Pantheism.

Knowledge and Power not to be confounded.

2. The possibility of knowledge in God is virtually denied by those who deny any distinction between knowledge and power. Knowledge, which is power, ceases to be knowledge; and therefore if omniscience is only a different name for omnipotence, it ceases to be a distinct attribute of God. It makes little difference whether we expressly deny a given perfection to God, or whether we so determine it as to make it mean nothing distinctive. It is deeply to be regretted that not only the Fathers, but also the Lutheran and Reformed theologians, after renouncing the authority of the schoolmen, almost immediately yielded themselves to their speculations. Instead of determining the nature of the divine attributes from the representations of Scripture and from the constitution of man as the image of God, and from the necessities of our moral and religious nature, they allowed themselves to be controlled by à priori speculations as to the nature of the infinite and absolute. Even Augustine, as before stated, says: "Nos ista, quæ fecisti videmus, quia sunt: tu autem quia vides ea, sunt."¹⁸ And Scotus Erigena says,¹⁹ "Voluntas illius et visio et essentia anum est."²⁰.... "Visio Dei totius universitatis est conditio. Non enim aliud est ei videre, aliud facere; sed visio illius voluntas ejus est, et voluntas operatio." Thomas Aquinas also says,²¹ "Deus per intellectum suum causat res, cum suum esse sit suum intelligere. Unde necesse est, quod sua scientia sit causa rerum."

The Lutheran and Reformed theologians represent God as simplicissima simplicitas, admitting of no distinction between faculty and act, or between one attribute and another. Thus Gerhard says: "Deus est ipsum esse subsistens, omnibus modis indeterminatum."²² "Solus Deus summe simplex est, ut nec actus et potentiæ, nec esse et essentiæ compositio ipsi competat."²³ "Essentia, bonitas, potentia, sapientia, justitia, et reliqua attributa omnia sunt in Deo realiter unum."²⁴ He also says: "In Deo idem est esse et intelligere et velle." In like manner the Reformed theologian Heidegger²⁵ says: "Voluntas ab intellectu non differt, quia intelligendo vult et volendo intelligit. Intelligere et velle ejus idemque perpetuus indivisus actus." This does not mean simply that in an intelligent being, every act of the will is an intelligent act. He knows while he wills, and knows what he wills. The meaning is, that knowledge and power in God are identical. To know a thing is, and to will it, are the same undivided and perpetual act. From this it would seem to follow, that as God knows from eternity He creates from eternity; and that "all He knows, is." We are thus led, by these speculations, into pantheistical views of the nature of God and of his relation to the world.

This mode of representation is carried still further by the modern philosophical theologians. With Schleiermacher, all the attributes of God are virtually merged into the idea of causality. With him God is ens summum prima causa.²⁶ He says that God's thinking and willing are the same, and that his omnipotence and omniscience are identical. When we say that He is omnipotent, we only mean that He is the cause of all that is. And when we say that He is omniscient, we only mean that He is an intelligent cause. His power and knowledge are limited to the actual. The possible is nothing; it is the object neither of knowledge nor of power. "Gott," says Schleiermacher, "weiss Alles was ist; und Alles ist, was Gott weiss und dieses beides ist nicht zweierlei sondern einerlei, weil sein Wissen und sein allmächtiges Wollen eines und dasselbe ist," i.e., God knows all that is, and all is that God knows. God, therefore, is limited to the world, which is the phenomenon of which He is the substance.

Another philosophical view of this subject, adopted even by those who repudiate the pantheistic system and maintain that God and the world are distinct, is, that as God is immanent in the world, there is in Him no difference between self-consciousness and world-consciousness, as they express it, i.e., between God's knowledge of Himself and his knowledge of the world. They therefore define omniscience by saying, "Insofern Gott gedacht wird als die Welt mit seinem Bewusstseyn umfassend, nennen wir ihn den Allwissenden."²⁷ That is, "So far as we conceive of God as embracing the world in his consciousness, we call him omniscient." Whatever such language may mean to those who use it, to the ordinary mind it conveys the revolting idea that all the sins of men enter into the consciousness of God.

The Scriptural view of this subject, which distinguishes the attributes in God as distinct, and assumes that knowledge in Him, in its essential nature, is what knowledge is in us, does not conflict with the unity and simplicity of God as a spiritual being. There is a sense in which knowledge and power, intellect and will, may be said to be identical in man. They are not different substances. They are different modes in which the life or activity of the soul manifests itself. So in God when we conceive of Him as a spirit, we do not think of Him as a compound being, but as manifesting his infinite life and activity, in knowing, willing, and doing. What, therefore, we must hold fast to, if we would hold fast to God, is, that knowledge in God is knowledge, and not power or eternity; that it is what knowledge is in us, not indeed in its modes and objects, but in its essential nature. We must remove from our conceptions of the divine attributes all the limitations and imperfections which belong to the corresponding attributes in us; but we are not to destroy their nature. And in determining what is, and what is not, consistent with the nature of God as an infinitely perfect being, we are to be controlled by the teachings of the Scriptures, and by the necessities (or laws) of our moral and religions nature, and not by our speculative notions of the Infinite and Absolute. God, therefore, does and can know in the ordinary and proper sense of that word. He is an ever present eye, to which all things are perfectly revealed. "All things," says the Apostle, "are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) "The darkness and the light are both alike" to Him. (Ps. cxxxix. 12.) "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" (Ps. xciv. 9.) "O Lord thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising, thou understandest my thought afar off." (Ps. cxxxix. 1, 2.) "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Prov. xv. 3.) "Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?" (Prov. xv. 11.) "Great is our Lord and of great power: his understanding is infinite." (Ps. cxlvii. 5.) "O house of Israel I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them." (Ezek. xi. 5.) "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts. xv. 18.) "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." (Matt. x. 30.)

This knowledge of God is not only all-comprehending, but it is intuitive and immutable. He knows all things as they are, being as being, phenomena as phenomena, the possible as possible, the actual as actual, the necessary as necessary, the free as free, the past as past, the present as present, the future as future. Although all things are ever present in his view, yet He sees them as successive in time. The vast procession of events, thoughts, feelings, and acts, stands open to his view.

This infinite knowledge of God is not only clearly and constantly asserted in Scripture, but is also obviously included in the idea of an absolutely perfect being. Such a being cannot be ignorant of anything; his knowledge can neither be increased nor diminished. The omniscience of God follows also from his omnipresence. As God fills heaven and earth, all things are transacted in his presence. He knows our thoughts far better than they are known to ourselves. This plenitude of divine knowledge is taken for granted in all acts of worship. We pray to a God who, we believe, knows our state and wants, who hears what we say, and who is able to meet all our necessities. Unless God were thus omniscient, He could not judge the world in righteousness. Faith in this attribute in its integrity is, therefore, essential even to natural religion.

Various distinctions are made by theologians as to the objects of the divine knowledge.

1. God is said to know Himself and all things out of Himself. This is the foundation of the distinction between the scientia necessaria and the scientia libera. God knows Himself by the necessity of his nature; but as everything out of Himself depends for its existence or occurrence upon his will, his knowledge of each thing as an actual occurrence is suspended on his will, and in that sense is free. Creation not being necessary, it depended on the will of God whether the universe as an object of knowledge should exist or not. This distinction is not of much importance. And it is liable to the objection that it makes the knowledge of God dependent. Being the cause of all things, God knows everything by knowing Himself; all things possible, by the knowledge of his power, and all things actual, by the knowledge of his own purposes.

2. This distinction between the possible and actual, is the foundation of the distinction between the knowledge of simple intelligence and the knowledge of vision. The former is founded on God's power, and the latter upon his will. This only means that, in virtue of his omniscient intelligence, He knows whatever infinite power can effect; and that from the consciousness of his own purposes, He knows what He has determined to effect or to permit to occur. This is a distinction which the modern philosophical theologians ignore. Nothing, according to their philosophy is possible, but the actual. All that can be, either is, or is to be. This follows from the idea of God as mere cause. He produces all that can be; and there is in Him no causality for what does not exist.