Ignorant, but of its general nature we possess

a positive though abstract knowledge. And, in attempting

to deny or to doubt the result we have gained, we find

ourselves once more unconsciously affirming it.

The Absolute, though known, is higher, in a sense,

than our experience and knowledge; and in this

connection I will ask if it has personality. At the

point we have reached such a question can be dealt with

rapidly. We can answer it at once in the affirmative or

negative according to its meaning. Since the Absolute

has everything, it of course must possess personality.

And if by personality we are to understand the highest

form of finite spiritual development, then certainly in

an eminent degree the Absolute is personal. For the

higher (we may repeat) is always the more real. And,

since in the Absolute the very lowest modes of

experience are not lost, it seems even absurd to raise

such a question about personality.

And this is not the sense in which the question is

usually put. "Personal" is employed in effect with a

restrictive meaning; for it is used to exclude what is

above, as well as below, personality. The super-

personal, in other words, is either openly or tacitly

regarded as impossible. Personality is taken as the

highest possible way of experience, and naturally, if

so, the Absolute cannot be super-personal. This

conclusion, with the assumption on which it rests, may

be summarily rejected. It has been, indeed, refuted

beforehand by previous discussions. If the term

"personal" is to bear anything like its ordinary sense,

assuredly the Absolute is not merely personal. It is not

personal, because it is personal and more. It is, in a

word, super-personal.

I intend here not to enquire into the possible

meanings of personality. On the nature of the self and

of self-consciousness I have spoken already, and

I will merely add here that for me a person is

finite or is meaningless. But the question raised as to

the Absolute may, I think, be more briefly disposed of.

If by calling it personal you mean only that it is

nothing but experience, that it contains all the highest

that we possibly can know and feel, and is a unity in

which the details are utterly pervaded and embraced--

then in this conclusion I am with you. But your

employment of the term personal I very much regret. I

regret this use mainly not because I consider it

incorrect--that between us would matter little--but

because it is misleading and directly serves the cause

of dishonesty.

For most of those who insist on what they call "the

personality of God," are intellectually dishonest. They

desire one conclusion, and, to reach it, they argue for

another. But the second, if proved, is quite different,

and serves their purpose only because they obscure it

and confound it with the first. And it is by their

practical purpose that the result may here be judged.

The Deity, which they want, is of course finite, a

person much like themselves, with thoughts and feelings

limited and mutable in the process of time. They desire

a person in the sense of a self, amongst and over

against other selves, moved by personal relations and

feelings towards these others--feelings and relations

which are altered by the conduct of the others. And, for

their purpose, what is not this, is really nothing. Now

with this desire in itself I am not here concerned. Of

course for us to ask seriously if the Absolute can be

personal in such a way, would be quite absurd. And my

business for the moment is not with truth but with

intellectual honesty.

It would be honest first of all to state openly the

conclusion aimed at, and then to enquire if this

conclusion can be maintained. But what is not honest is

to suppress the point really at issue, to desire the

personality of the Deity in one sense, and then to

contend for it in another, and to do one's best

to ignore the chasm which separates the two. Once give

up your finite and mutable person, and you have parted

with everything which, for you, makes personality

important. Nor will you bridge the chasm by the sliding

extension of a word. You will only make a fog, where you

can cry out that you are on both sides at once. And

towards increasing this fog I decline to contribute. It

would be useless, in such company and in such an

atmosphere, to discuss the meaning of personality--if

indeed the word actually has any one meaning. For me it

is sufficient to know, on one side, that the Absolute is

not a finite person. Whether, on the other side,

personality in some eviscerated remnant of sense can be

applied to it, is a question intellectually unimportant

and practically trifling.

With regard to the personality of the Absolute we

must guard against two one-sided errors. The Absolute is

not personal, nor is it moral, nor is it beautiful or

true. And yet in these denials we may be falling into

worse mistakes. For it would be far more incorrect to

assert that the Absolute is either false, or ugly, or

bad, or is something even beneath the application of

predicates such as these. And it is better to affirm

personality than to call the Absolute impersonal. But

neither mistake should be necessary. The Absolute stands

above, and not below, its internal distinctions. It does

not eject them, but it includes them as elements in its

fulness. To speak in other language, it is not the