2. Division. — I. The Nature of God: 1. As the original and unoriginated personal Being: (a) One; (b) self-existent ; (c) infinite. 2. As the original Word and Will: (a) Creator; (6) preserver; (c) governor of the world. 3. As the original Spirit: (a) Essen- tial Spirit ; (i) origin of all moral and spiritual laws and existences. And hence, 11, the Trinity of three persons in the one Godliead: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. See Monotheism ; Trinity. III. The At- tributes of God. These are not parts of the divine essence, but conceptions of the idea of God in his relations to the world and to human thought (Suabe- dissen, p. 150). Perfictiones Dei, qiue esseniiam divi- nam nostra concijneiidi modo per se conseqimntur, et de Deo paronymlce preedicantur (Hollaz, p. 234). So Aqui- nas : "The name of God does not express the divine essence as it is, as the name of man expresses in its signification the essence of man as it is; that is to say. In' signifying the definition which declares the essence" {Summa, pt. i, q. xiii, art. i). The ground of this distinction w-as the conviction that finite things cannot indicate the nature of the infinite God other- wise tlian by imperfect analogies. "The attributes of God must be represented to our minds, so f;ir as they can be represented at all, under the similitude of the corresponding attributes of man. Yet we cannot conceive them as existing in God in the same manner as they exist in man. In man they are many, in God thej' must be one. In man they are related to and limit each other ; in God there can be no relation and no limitation. In man the}' exist onl}' as capacities at times carried into action ; in God, who is j'uriis ac- tus, there can be no distinction between faculty and operation. Hence the divine attributes may properly be called mj-sterious ; for, tliough we believe in their coexistence, we are unable to conceive the manner of their co-existence" {Qunrterli/ Revieiv, July, 18G4, art. iii). There have been many divisions of the attributes of God. The scholastic theologj' set forth the attri- butes in three ways: 1. by causality {via causalitatis), in wliich all the perfections we observe in creation, and especiallj' in man, are necessarilj' to be attributed to their Creator; 2. by negation (via negationis'), under which the imperfections of created beings are kept out of the conception of God; 3. by analogy or eminence (via analogic, via eminentirt), by whicli the highest de- gree of all known perfections is attributed to God. Accordingly, the attributes of God were classed as neg- ative and positive, the negative being such as remove from him whatever is imperfect in creatures — such are inlinity, immutability, immortalit}', etc. ; while the positive assert some perfection in God which is in and of himself, and which in the creatures, in any meas- ure, is from him. This distinction is now mostly dis- carded. Among modern writers. Dr. Samuel Clarke sums up the attributes as ultimately refeiTible to these three leading ones : omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. Others distinguish them into abso- lute and relative: absolute are such as belong to the essence of God, as Jehovah, Jali, etc. ; relative ones are such as ma}' be ascribed to'him in time, with rela- tion to his creatures, as creator, governor, preserver, redeemer, etc. Others, again, divide them into com- munirahle and incommrmicable attributes. The com- municable are those which can be imparted to the creature, as goodness, holiness, wisdom, etc. ; the in- communicable are sucli as cannot be so imparted, as indejiendence, immutability, inunensity, and eternity. Another division makes one class of ?(rt<!<r«/ attributes, e. g. eternit}', immensity, etc., and another of moral, e. g. holiness, goodness, etc. , The later German theo- logians attem])t more scientific discriminations ; e. g. Bohme (^Lehre v. d. GOttl. Eigenschaften, 1821 ; last ed.
Altenburg, 1842) distinguishes the attributes into thoso ' which refer to tlie world in general, and those which refer to tiie moral world in particular. Schleiermacher makes two classes: (1.) attributes which refer to the tmiversal sense of dependence on God, viz. omnipo- tence, omniscience, omnipresence; (2.) attributes which refer to the Christian sense of redemption and of de- pendence ou God, viz. holiness, justice, wisdom, love. Pelt (Theolog. Encycl. § 74) classes them as (1.) attri- butes of God as absolute cause («) in himself — eternal, infinite, self-sufficient ; (6) in relation to the u-orld — omnipotent, omnipresent ; (2.) attributes of God as the original and self-revealing icill — good, holy, just, benev- olent, etc. liothe's scheme of the attributes is thus set forth hj Babut in the Bulletin of the Revue Chre- tienne (1868, No. 3, Juillet) : I. Absolute or immanent Attributes: 1. self-sufficiency of God as a pure and ab- solute Being; 2. majesty; the divine will ; 3. blessed- ness. II. Relative Atliibutes, implied in God's rela- tion to the universe ; the love- of God is the source of creation and being, while the essence of God is express- ed in infinity, immensity, immutaliilitj'. 1\xq person- alitij of God is manifested to the world in goodness, wrath, grace ; the intelligence of God in omniscience; holiness, truth. The will of God is manifested in om- nipotence, justice, faithfulness ; and the divine na- ture is manifested in the one attribute of omnipotence. See Bates, Harmony of the Divine A ttributes , Char- nock, Existence and Attributes of God (Loud. 1845, 8vo, last edit.); Elwert, i« Tub. Zeitschrift, ISSO; Blasche, gottl. Eigenschaften (Erfurdt, 1831) ; Andreaj, De A ttrii. Divin., etc. (Lugdun. 1824); Bruch, Lehre v. d. gottl. Eigenschaften (Hamb. 1842) ; Moll, De justo attribtiio- rum Dei discrimine (Hal. 1855) ; Shedd, History of Doc- trine, i, 240 ; Hase, Evang. Dogmatik, § 102 sq., and writers on sj'stematic theology generally. See Crea- tion ; Trinity ; Providence.