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VII. The Communicable Attributes
(God as a Personal Spirit)
If the attributes discussed in the previous chapter stressed the absolute Being of God, those
that remain to be considered emphasize His personal nature. It is in the communicable
attributes that God stands out as a conscious, intelligent, free, and moral Being, as a Being that
is personal in the highest sense of the word. The question has long engaged the attention of
philosophers, and is still a subject of debate, whether personal existence is consistent with the
idea of absoluteness. The answer to that question depends to a great extent on the meaning
one ascribes to the word “absolute.” The word has been used in three different senses in
philosophy, which may be denominated as the agnostic, the logical, and the causal sense. For
the agnostic the Absolute is the unrelated, of which nothing can be known, since things are
known only in their relations. And if nothing can be known of it, personality cannot be ascribed
to it. Moreover, since personality is unthinkable apart from relations, it cannot be identified
with an Absolute which is in its very essence the unrelated. In the logical Absolute the individual
is subordinated to the universal, and the highest universal is ultimate reality. Such is the
absolute substance of Spinoza, and the absolute spirit of Hegel. It may express itself in and
through the finite, but nothing that is finite can express its essential nature. To ascribe
personality to it would be to limit it to one mode of being, and would destroy its absoluteness.
In fact, such an absolute or ultimate is a mere abstract and empty concept, that is barren of all
content. The causal view of the Absolute represents it as the ultimate ground of all things. It is
not dependent on anything outside of itself, but causes all things to depend on it. Moreover, it
is not necessarily completely unrelated, but can enter into various relations with finite
creatures. Such a conception of the Absolute is not inconsistent with the idea of personality.
Moreover, we should bear in mind that in their argumentation philosophers were always
operating with the idea of personality as it is realized in man, and lost sight of the fact that
personality in God might be something infinitely more perfect. As a matter of fact, perfect
personality is found only in God, and what we see in man is only a finite copy of the original.
Still more, there is a tripersonality in God, of which no analogy is found in human beings.
Several natural proofs, quite similar to those adduced for the existence of God, have been
urged to prove the personality of God. (1) Human personality demands a personal God for its
explanation. Man is not a self-existent and eternal, but a finite being that has a beginning and
an end. The cause assumed must be sufficient to account for the whole of the effect. Since man
is a personal product, the power originating him must also be personal. Otherwise there is
something in the effect which is superior to anything that is found in the cause; and this would
be quite impossible. (2) The world in general bears witness to the personality of God. In its