■Thus there never was, or will be, or could be, a time when things which are equal to the same thing could be ?(«equal to one another. Nor can we imagine a time, or a world, in which cruelty would be other than odious, and lying other than con- temptible. If cruelty and deceit were seated on the throne of the universe, they would still be what they are, odious and contemptible ; and benevolence and truth, their opposites, would still be what they are, admirable and praiseworthy. Time and the vicissitudes of things can make no difference to the laws of Reason and the Moral Law. These are eternally and immutably true,— true not only to the human mind, but to every rational mind that does or can exist ; valid not only in this universe but in all possible uni\ erses.
There exists, therefore, a body of eternal and necessary truth. But this conception of necessary truth carries with it the further conception of necessary Being, or necessary Snhstance. A truth cannot exist as it were 'in the air,' or in an infinite void : it must be true to some mind. And since the tniths in question are independent of all created minds, there must exist some Eternal Uncreated Mind, to which these truths are eternally true. Moreover, since the truths are partly moral truths, this Mind must be moral, or,
to use the language of religion, holy. Now it is obvious that to this Infinite IVIind the predicate of necessary existence belongs in a higher degree than it belongs to what is called necessary truth. The laws or truths which are called necessary derive their necessary character from the fact that they are the laws of His Mind ; but He, the Ultimate and Absolute Mind itself, exists with a degree of necessity transcending theirs. They inhere in Him, not He in them, and consequently He, the Infinite, Absolute, Ultimate Substance, is not only necessarily existent, but also self- existent.
The self-existence, or necessary existence, of the One True, Living, Personal God is a fundamental doctrine of Scripture. It was taught, according to the traditional exegesis of Ex S^'*, to Moses at the bush, and our Lord endorsed this view of the meaning of the Mosaic revelation (Jn 8^^). According to the Johannine theology (with which the Pauline is in essential agreement), necessarj- existence belongs primarily and originally to the Father, who is emphatically 6 ^eos (with the article), and the Living One (6 ftDv irarrip, Jn 6=^). To Je.sus also, as consubstantial Son, belongs eternal and necessary existence (S^^*). He has ' life in himself (5-*^), and is to creatures 'the resurrec- tion and the life' (ll--'). Yet He has this 'life in himself by derivation from the Father (5'^" 6"), and consequently is (in this aspect) an Effect, of Avhich the Father is the Cause.*
2. Necessity and the Divine freedom. — The Divine freedom, though absolute in the sense that God is free to acliieve all that is possible, is limited by the laws of necessarj' truth and necessary substance as defined in § 1. Thus, since the laws of Reason are eternally valid. He can- not achieve the essentially irrational, or (what is really the same thing) the essentially im- pos.sible. For instance. He cannot annihilate the past, or make the angles of a plane triangle un- equal to two right angles. Similarly, since He is a necessary Substance, He cannot will His own annihilation ; and since He is the supreme neces- sary Good (Mk 10^^), He cannot cease to be good, or will what is evil.
The necessary character of the Divine perfections is fullv recognized in Scripture t (Ps 102S<-27^ Mai 36, Nu 2319, He 1?,'^, Ja 11"), as also is the doctrine that God's freedom is limited b\ His character. All that is worthy of Him, He can perform, but deceit, cruelty, and injustice are to Him impossible (Gn IS-', Job 83 etc.).
3. Necessity and the la-ws of Nature. — It is an
important corollary of the Divine freedom, that the laws of Nature do not possess immutable and necessary validity. So far from Nature being a self - contained system of blind, inexorable, materialistically determined forces, it is a realm of Providence, in which a Being friendly to man guides the course of events providentially, with the object of securing ultimately to each individual his proper good (Mt lO^^ff-).
In both Testaments the laws and operations of Nature are regarded as expressions of Jehovah's free will (Gn 1, Ps 104, Job 26, Jit S-is e'^Bf- etc.), and consequently as cai)able of bein^ providentially or miraculously interfered with (Ex 3-1.5, etc ). The NT lavs particular stress upon Christ's control over tli.- forces of Nature (Jn 21iff-, Mt 1422ff. etc. ; see esp. Lk 825 • \v)k. then is this that commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him?').
i. Necessity and human affairs. — The recogni- tion of God as the sole Absolute and Ultimate Being, excludes the heathen conception of an in- scrutable Fate or Necessity {dvdyKv) to which gods and men are subject, but it does not of it-
* Quite Scriptural, therefore, is the Greek theology which regards the Father as xWio;, and the Son and Spirit as a.'ir,a.Tc..
t The perfections of the Son of God have the same necessary character as those of the Father (see He 138).