Page 262 Note 1 Kaftan says: "Christian faith in God is faith in the three-one God. That is the expression, alike simple and yet all-comprehending, of the Christian truth of faith."--Das Wesen, etc. p. 387. Most modern theologians, as Schleiermacher, Biedermann, Lipsius, Pfleiderer, etc., express themselves similarly, though each has his own interpretation of the Trinitarian formula.
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Page 263 Note 1 Anti-Theistic Theories, p. 439.
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Page 263 Note 2 Bible Doctrine of Man, p. 126 (Cunningham Lectures).
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Page 263 Note 3 Christian Ethics, i. 75 (Rug. trans.).
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Page 263 Note 4 Thus Harnack, Hatch, etc.
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Page 263 Note 5 E.g. Matt. xxviii. 19; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; 1 Cor. xii. 4-6; 1 Pet. i. 2; Rev. i. 4, 5,
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Page 264 Note 1 "Angel of God" in Elohistic sections. Cf. Gen. xvi. 7-13, xviii. 20, 26, xxii. 11-19, xxiv. 7, 40, xxxi. 11-13, xlviii. 15, 16; Ex. iii. 2-6, xiii. 21, compared with xiv. 19; xxxii. 14 compared with Isa. lxiii. 9; Josh. v. 14, 15; Zech. i. 12, iii. 1, 2, etc.
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Page 264 Note 2 Cf. on this subject Oehler's Theology of Old Testament, i. pp. 188-196 (Eng. trans.); Schultz's Alttest. Theol. pp. 600-606; Delitzsch's New Commentary en Genesis, on chap. xvi. 7, etc. Delitzsch founds on Gen. xviii. in support of his view that the Mal'ach was a created angel, but Schultz shows that this was not so. Schultz holds a mediating view, but says: "There is certainly in the Angel of God something of what Christian theology seeks to express in the doctrine of the Logos," p. 606. Delitzsch also holds that "the angelophanies of God were a prefiguration of His Christophany," ii. p. 21
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Page 265 Note 1 Theology of Old Testament, i. p. 193.
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Page 265 Note 2 Ibid. p. 172.
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Page 265 Note 3 On Isa. xlviii. 16, Cheyne remarks: "I cannot but think with Kleinert (who, however, makes 'His Spirit' the subject) that we have both here and mu Gen. i. 2 an early trace of what is known as the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit"; and on chap. xliii. 10: "There is an evident tendency in this book to hypostatise the Holy Spirit (which it mentions no less than seven times) with special distinctness. The author has already claimed to have been sent in special union with the Spirit of Jehovah; he now employs another p brass which could not have been used (cf. ver. 14) except of a person." Delitzsch confirms this view, remarking on chap. xlviii. 16: "Although 'His Spirit' is taken as a second object, the passage confirms what Cheyne and Driver agree in remarking, that in II. Isa. the tendency is evidently to regard the Spirit of God as a separate personality." Schultz remarks, in speaking of Creation:--" The Spirit of God and His Word appear as powers enclosed in God. The Spirit appears as very independent, in the manner of an hypostasis."--Alttest. Theol. p. 569. On the doctrine of the Spirit in the Old Testament, see Schultz, Oehler, and Kleinert in Jahrbcuher fur deutsche Theologie for 1867 (referred to by Cheyne).
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Page 266 Note 1 Page 266 Note 1 Cf. Hegel, Religionsphilosophie, ii. pp. 237-239.
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Page 266 Note 2 Cf. Zeller on the Eleatics Pre-Socratic Philosophy, i. pp. 533-642.
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Page 267 Note 1 "In philosophy," says Hegel, "it is shown that the whole content of
nature, of spirit, gravitates to this centre as its absolute truth."--Religions philosophie, ii. p. 229.
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Page 267 Note 2 Calvin on this ground objected to the term. "Specially was he annoyed by the attacks made on him by one Caroli, who impeached his orthodoxy, and even had him brought before a synod to clear himself of the charge of Arianism. It is curious to see Calvin--hard dogmatist as we are apt to think him--called to account for not using the terms 'Trinity' and 'Person' in his teachings on the Godhead, and having to defend himself for his preference for simple scriptural expressions. When blamed by Caroli for not accepting the ancient creeds, he 'rejoined,' say the Genevese preachers (in a letter to Borne), 'that we have sworn to the belief in One God, and not to the creed of Athanasius, whose symbol a true Church would never have admitted.' "--Lecture on "John Calvin" by the authors in volume on The Reformers (1885),
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Page 268 Note 1 De Trinitate, Book vii. chap. iv. (p. 189, trans. in Clark's series). Cf.
Book v. chap. v. p. 155.
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Page 268 Note 2 Quoted by Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, p. 289 (Eng. trans.). Cf. De Trinitate, v. 9: "When the question is asked, What three? human language labours
altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given, three
persons, not that it might be spoken, but that it might not be left unspoken."
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Page 268 Note 3 De Trinitate Book iv. chap. iv. sec. 8, p. 192 (Eng. trans.).
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Page 269 Note 1 Biedermann and Pfleiderer grant that, with the presupposition of the Personal Incarnation in Christ, the ontological Trinity is inevitable. "The Trinity," says Biedermann, "is the specific Christian concept of God, as it must necessarily develop itself out of the identification of the Divine principle in Christ with the Ego of Jesus Christ."--Dogmatik, ii. p. 600. Pfleiderer says: "When we observe that dogmatic reflection had to work with the presuppositions set up by the Pauline and Johannine theology, and with the notions provided in the philosophy of the age, we can scarcely imagine any other result to have been possible than that embodied in the decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon."--Religionsphilosophie, iii. p. 218 (Eng. trans.).
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Page 270 Note 1 "The anti-trinitarian movements of recent times have made it perfectly clear that there consequently only remains the choice either to think of God in a Unitarian manner, and in that case to see even in Jesus a mere man, or, if He is supposed to he the God-Man, to hold to eternal distinctions in God, and therefore to undertake to prove that the unity of God is quite consistent with such distinctions."--Dorner, System of Doctrine, i. p. 415 (Eng. trans.). But has Dr. Dorner himself a truly immanent Trinity? See Note A.--Recent Theories of the Trinity.
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Page 270 Note 2 Bohme's "mode of imagining, of thinking," says Hegel, "is certainly somewhat fantastic and wild; he has not raised himself into the pure form of thought, but this is the ruling, the ground tendency of his ferment and struggle--to see the Trinity in everything and everywhere."--Religionsphilosophie, B. p. 246.
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Page 271 Note 1 "No wonder," says Christlieb. "that philosophy too--and that not only the old mystic theosophical speculation, but also modern idealism, with all the acuteness of its dialectics--has taken up the idea of a Triune God, and endeavoured to comprehend and prove it. . . .Their efforts show us that modern philosophy (from Jacob Robins onwards) feels that this doctrine is the true solution of the world's enigma. Moreover, these philosophical investigations cast a strong light on the unconscionable superficiality and shortsightedness of those who most reject this fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith untested, without a notion of its deep religious, philosophical, and historical importance."--Moderns Zweifel, pp. 273, 274 (Eng. trans.). See Note A.--As above.
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Page 271 Note 2 Augustine is constantly acknowledging the imperfection of finite analogies to express the ineffable reality of the Godhead. See specially Book xv. The following are some of the headings of chapters: "That it is not easy to discover the Trinity that is God from the trinities we have spoken of." "There is the greatest possible unlikeness between our word and knowledge and the Divine Word and knowledge." "Still further of the difference between the knowledge and word of our mind, and the knowledge and Word of God."--"How great is the unlikeness between our word and the Divine Word! Our word cannot be, or be called, eternal," etc. "We know but in an enigma," and "Who can explain how great is the unlikeness also, in this glass, in this enigma, in this likeness, such as it is?"--De Trinitate, p. 402 (Eng. trans.).
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Page 272 Note 1 Thus, e.g., Weisse.
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Page 273 Note 1 It is besides only progressively realised, and thus would involve a growing self-consciousness.
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Page 273 Note 2 This objection is not obviated by assuming a world of finite personalities.
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Page 273 Note 3 Heb. i. 3. Pfleiderer supposes that the Divine self-consciousness is mediated by God's own thoughts (" His changing activities and states ")--but thoughts of what?--Religionsphilosophie, iii. p. 282 (Eng. trans.).
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Page 273 Note 4 Cf. on this argument Dorner, System of Doctrine, pp. 422-426; Christlieb,Moderne Zweifel, pp. 271, 272 (Eng. trans.), etc. Hegel makes it the startingpoint of his deduction. "Knowing implies that there is another which is known; and in the act of knowing, the other is appropriated. Herein it is contained that God, the eternally in-and-for-Himself existing One, eternally begets Himself as His Son, distinguishes Himself from Himself--the absolute act of judgment."--Religionsphilosophie, ii. p. 228.
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Page 273 Note 5 It is developed specially by Sartorius in his Doctrine of Divine Love (translated). See also Martensen's Christian Ethics, i. p. 73; Christlieb's Moderne Zweifel, pp. 272, 273 (Eng. trans.); Laidlaw's Bible Doctrine of Man, pp. 126, 127; Murphy's Scientific Basis of Faith, p. 377; Lux Munai, p.
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Page 274 Note 1 1 John iv. 16.
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Page 274 Note 2 This is an important point in the doctrine of Divine Love. The thought is already met with in lrenaeus. Cf. Dorner, Person of Christ, i. p. 306. Martensen says: "God's love to the world is only then pure and unmixed holy affection when God, whilst He is sufficient to Himself and in need of nothing, out of infinite grace and mercy calls forth life and liberty beyond His own Being. . . . But this free power of love in the relations of God to the world presupposes the existence of perfect love realised within itself, the love of the Father and the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit."--Christian Ethics, i. p. 74. Similarly Dorner in his Christian Ethics, p. 94 (Eng. trans.).
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Page 275 Note 1 This is the mistake of those who, in a Sabellian way, take Father as the name for God as the Creator, etc. The Christian idea of the Father comes to birth only in the Revelation of the Son. The terms are reciprocal. See Note A.
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Page 275 Note 2 Theological Essays, 3rd ed. p. 257.
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Page 276 Note 1 This important aspect of the Trinity, as safeguarding the true idea of God in. relation to the world (His immanence and transcendence) against the opposite errors of Deism and Pantheism, is brought out with special fulness by Dorner in his discussion of Sabellianism and Arianism, Person of Christ, i. and B., and his System of Doctrine, i. pp. 365-378. Cf. also Martensen's Dogmatics, pp. 103-106; Christlieb's Moderns Zweifel, pp. 263-265; Lux Mundi, pp. 92-102, etc.
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Page 276 Note 2 A remarkable illustration of how the deeper thought on God runs almost necessarily into a Trinitarian mould is furnished by an essay of Dr. Martineau's on "A Way out of the Trinitarian Controversy," in his recently published volume of Essays, Ecclesiastical and Historical. See Note B.--Dr. Martineau
as a Trinitarian.
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Page 276 Note 3 Col. i. 15-18.
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Page 277 Note 1 John i. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Eph. iii. 9-11; Col. L 15-18; Heb. i.
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Page 277 Note 2 Rev. li. 14.
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Page 277 Note 3 1 John iv. 9.
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Page 277 Note 4 Typology of ,Scripture, 4th ed. I. p. 118.
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Page 278 Note 1 Person of Christ, iii. pp. 361-369. This view was already Involved in the theology of Irenaeus. See Dorner, I. p. 316; and Article "Irenaeus," in Dictionary of Christian Biography.
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Page 278 Note 2 Vol. i. pp. 117-135.
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Page 278 Note 3 Luke xix. 10. 4 John iii. 16.
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Page 278 Note 4 Gal. iv. 4 (R.V.). 6 1 John iii. 8.
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Page 279 Note 1 On Col. i. 16.
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Page 279 Note 2 Eph. i. 10.
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Page 280 Note 1 Rev. xiii. & Cf. the interesting remarks in Hugh Miller's Footprints of the Creator, 23rd ed. p. 289 (1887)
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Page 280 Note 2 Eph. i. 10.
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Page 281 Note 1 Col. i. 16.
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Page 281 Note 2 Typology of Scripture, 4th ed. i. p. 133.
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Page 282 Note 1 Cf. Weiss, Biblical Theology of New Testament, ii. pp. 97-100 (Eng. trans.). On Eph. iii. 9 he says: "If it is said that the mystery of salvation was hid from eternity in God, who created the universe, it is indicated by this characteristic of God, that the purpose of salvation is connected in the closest way with the plan of the world, which began to be realised in creation; and that purpose, having been formed by the Creator before the creation of the world, was regulative even in its creation."
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Page 282 Note 2 John i. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 15-18; Heb. i. 3.
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Page 282 Note 3Col. i. 16.
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Page 282 Note 4 Rev. i. 8,17.
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Page 282 Note 5 Matt. xxv. 34.
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Page 282 Note 6 Rev. xiii. &
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Page 282 Note 7 1 Pet. i. 20 (R.V.).
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Page 282 Note 8 Col. i. 16.
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