man.

of thought. Indeed, Being can be predicated of all that is everything is Being. It is identical with Being. In this sense, to say I am is the least I can say of myself, and therefore the poorest predicate of 'I am' is at once subject and predicate of a true judgment, I and Am are identity and difference in Ego and Being. Yet both are absolutely universal, infinite, absolute. Ego is essential Being, Thought and Reason, and therefore in thought man is essentially one with God, for God cannot be outside of the infinite thought of man. Infinite conscious Thought is the ground principle of the personality of God and man, the ground principle of logical philosophy, the ground principle of theology as the science of God and Divine things, and the ground principle of every particular science of Nature.

The one supreme aim of Kant in his Kritik of Pure Reason was to explain logically the nature of that which is the necessary and universal bond between cause and effect. In spite of all the excellent things (and they are many) found in his writings, he failed in his aim because he failed to grasp the fact that man in his thought is infinite; and for the same reason he failed to realize the essential nature of the Ego and personality of man and God. For if man in his thought is only finite, then the infinite God is necessarily unknowable by man. Hegel begins and ends with the idea that man in his thought is infinite and knows God. So, to know God is to know Wisdom, Reason, Truth.

DR.

CHAPTER VI

PERSONALITY-INFINITE

R. Stirling says, in What is Thought?' Man, in that he is of sense, is finite; but man, in that he is of thought, is a spirit and infinite.' These words express in brief the fundamental principle of human personality which is one with the supreme principle of divine personality. The pith of both is contained in the two words, infinite' and 'thought,' that is, infinite-thought. Both personalities being in thought infinite, and so far identical, are yet in an important sense widely different. Infinite thought in God means omniscience, while infinite thought in man, though containing the concrete totality of Being, is, in different men, of a more or less abstract character; that is, thought is in its substantial nature concrete, never a pure empty abstraction; in other words, though in man a concrete infinite, thought is always in part abstract, because, however great his knowledge, he can never be omniscient in the sense of knowing All in its infinite detail. This distinction in the nature of personality is allimportant; without it the logical difference and identity of the two personalities cannot be explained in their true character.

Again, the words in the first chapter of Genesis which state that God made man in His own image and likeness,' express in brief the fundamental intel

lectual principle of personality, Divine and human. God necessarily means a self-conscious being, infinite in thought, and so a Person; and man made in the image of God equally means a self-conscious being, in thought infinite, and so a Person. Man knows himself to be a self-conscious being, he knows that there is no limit to his thought, and that, therefore, he is, so far, in the image of God, and, like God, a Person. Paul expresses the same principle of divine and human personality when he says, 'Man is the image and glory of God,' and ' God is manifest in men.' The divine personality of man is also expressed in the words, Thou hast made him but a little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honour: Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands.' This thought of personality is confirmed by Christ in His words, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods?' It is only because man in his personality is infinite in thought that he is a person, and thinks God. This is the attitude of Calvin in relation to man's knowledge of himself and of God. In his Institutes he tells us that man can only know himself through his knowledge of God, and can only know God through the knowledge of himself. A true logical insight into the genuine nature of man's personality is of vital importance.

The general teaching of the Old Testament recognizes the fact that man in his thought is in an important sense, infinite, otherwise the words contained therein would be devoid of any true meaning. To illustrate this point, we quote here a few passagesof which there are many more to the same effect: God is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity'; 'Great is our Lord and of great power, His understanding is infinite'; 'from everlasting to

everlasting Thou art God'; 'the eternal God is thy refuge'; 'I am that I am': to Abraham God was the Lord, the everlasting God. View these words as we may, they express an infinite and objective thought as constituting the nature and personality of God, which must have been present in the minds of the writers as an essential subjective intellectual principle, otherwise they could not have given expression to it. Their real meaning is so plainly expressive of the one infinite thought in God and man, that nothing but an illogical philosophy could render thought only finite when applied to human personality.

Properly interpreted, the Bible teaches that man in his thought is infinite; this same thought forms the foundation of logical philosophy. It is necessary here to show that Personality constitutes the most universal concrete basis of philosophy and forms the real foundation of all existence. That man is a person is admitted without question, but what it is that constitutes personality has been clearly and properly grasped even by few philosophers. Popular and current science and religion know it not. The definitions generally fall very far short of its deep and full meaning. This is very evident from the way in which the term personality is applied to God, or, rather, from the way in which it is denied to God. Because man is a person, it is thought to give a more exalted view of God, to say He is more than a person, or that He is above personality, as if to call God a person reduced Him to the level of man. The term 'supra-personal' has been applied to God; but this only tends to reduce man's conception of Him to a kind of ethereal mist or something indefinite. There has been, especially among theologians, an unwillingness and even a repugnance to speak of

God as the 'Unknowable,' in view of the fact that the Bible speaks so much, not only of the possibility, but also of the absolute necessity, of man knowing God; and true knowledge is not abstract but concrete. Still, the phrase 'Christian agnosticism' has had considerable vogue. The chief cause of the spread of such pernicious ideas has been the general prevalence of an unsound philosophy, and and an imperfect conception of what constitutes human personality. Indeed, if men have a false conception of human personality, it must be impossible for them to have any other than erroneous ideas of the personality of God and of Christ. Many men, who have cherished and maintained very exalted views of the dignity and value of human personality, have yet utterly failed to see it in its true light. Indeed, Personality in its true light has only recently entered the consciousness of the Christian world.

In discussing the nature of Personality, it may be advisable first to refer to some of the so-called philosophic views which have hitherto prevailed with regard to this subject. Locke says, 'A person is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection,' 'a rational being.' The personality of an intelligent being extends beyond itself, beyond present existence to what is past, only by consciousness.' He holds, that man as a person has no positive idea of the 'infinite,' because man cannot add to that idea. Now the idea of all that is, is an infinite concrete idea in man, and certainly cannot be added to. And man, we affirm, is a rational being,' and so ' a person,' just because he has the concrete idea of the infinite (with all that idea involves and contains) as the absolute relativity of all that is. The animal is not a person, because it cannot think the infinite, or because it has not in it the infinite as a conscious