032. II. Divine Omniscience.
II. Divine Omniscience. As previously noted, we use the term omniscience instead of either intelligence or intellect for the reason that knowledge in God is immediate and infinite. The reality of intellect is given with his personality, while omniscience expresses the plenitude of its perfection. .Such perfection is the real question in the treatment of this attribute.
1. Sense of Omniscience.—In the measure of agreement between the mental concept and the object of conception there is knowledge, in whatever mind. The fact is the same whatever the mode of the conception or the extent of the knowledge. Omniscience must be God’s perfect conception of himself, and of all things and events, without respect to the time of their existence or occurrence. Any limitation in any particular must be a limitation in the divine knowledge.
Omniscience must be an immediate and eternal knowing. The knowledge which is not immediate and eternal must be an acquisition. For the acquisition there must be time and mental process. Such knowledge must be limited. An acquired omniscience is not a thinkable possibility. The ideas are too alien for any scientific association in rational thought. Hence we must either admit an immediate and eternal knowing in God or deny his omniscience. These alternatives are complete and absolute.
Omniscience, in the truest, deepest sense of the term, must be prescient of all futuritions, whatever their nature or causality. Future free volitions must be included with events which shall arise from necessary causes. Only with such prescience can there be a true omniscience. Such a divine omniscience is the common Christian faith. There are exceptions; and the issue raised should not be entirely omitted.
2. Respecting Future Free Volitions.—The divine nescience of future free volitions as now maintained is, apparently, quite different from the doctrine of Adam Clarke, who held on the part of God a purely voluntary nescience. The difference, however, is rather apparent than real. The doctrine of Clarke must assume for God simply a faculty of knowledge, potentially existent in him and for his voluntary use, in analogy to his power. He did recognize this analogy, but plainly without apprehending its implication respecting the mode of the divine knowledge. A faculty of knowledge for voluntary use is simply a faculty for the acquisition of knowledge. An immediate and eternal knowing is thus precluded. But, as previously noted, such acquisition requires time and a mental process. Further, there must be the conditions necessary to the mental process. Such conditions might exist in relation to all necessary futuritions, as a knowledge of them might be reached through their necessitating causes, but no such conditions could exist in relation to future free volitions. The divine nescience of such volitions would, therefore, be a necessity, not a free choice. The outcome is thus contradictory to the doctrine of the divine nescience which Clarke maintained. With this result, we scarcely need add the usual adverse criticism, that a voluntary nescience in God must imply a knowledge of the things which he chooses not to know. The doctrine now specially maintained denies the possibility of a divine prescience of future free volitions. Thus the same ground is here openly asserted which we found as an implication of the doctrine previously noticed, but as contradictory to the particular form in which it was maintained. In addition to this deeper ground on which a doctrine of nescience is maintained, various other arguments are adduced as corroborative of the doctrine. Some of these arguments we shall briefly notice, though our chief aim is to analyze the doctrine and set it in a clear light. The doctrine itself is not entirely new. Along the Christian centuries it occasionally appears in theological speculation. The earlier Socinianism openly avowed it. Some of the Remonstrants held the same view, though it does not appear with Arminius himself. The principle must be in the Calvinism which grounds the prescience of God in his decrees and denies the contingency of foreknown events. But the doctrine itself has more recently been treated with a definiteness and thoroughness and supported with a force of argument which are quite new.[222] It is much easier to pronounce the arguments of Dr. McCabe a nullity than to answer them in a process of lucid and conclusive logic. Divine omniscience, with prescience of future free volitions, however sure as a truth of Scripture, has real difficulty for rational thought. We need but instance the relation of the question to the freedom of choice. Some deny omniscience as contradictory to freedom. Some deny freedom as contradictory to omniscience. Many, while holding both, regard their reconciliation as above the power of human thought. But this is only one of many facts which seriously perplex the question.
[222]
Whatever the perplexities which may arise with the doctrine of omniscience, they must be as real respecting the futuritions of the divine agency as of the human. Indeed, there are difficulties which more directly concern the divine agency. It might be said that God freely predetermines his own future volitions, and therefore may foreknow them in entire consistency with their freedom. This, however, can relieve no difficulty of the question—indeed, simply avoids the real question. Such future volitions must be purely executive for the attainment of previously chosen ends. In the mind of God they must be subject to his predetermination, and therefore cannot stand in the attitude of future free choices. If future free volitions are unknowable because free, or unknowable for any other reason, then such volitions of God are as completely beyond the reach of his prescience as the future free volitions of men. If he cannot foreknow our free volitions, neither can he foreknow his own, which, in a wise dealing with us, must, in many instances, be shaped in adjustment to such as we put forth.
Whether the divine foreknowledge is consistent with the freedom of choice is a question which may be more appropriately treated in another place.
It is strongly urged against the doctrine of prescience that God deals with men, particularly with the wicked, in the use of means for their salvation, just as though he did not foreknow their decisive moral choices. This statement is, at least, apparently true. That is, there would be no apparent reason for a change of procedure if God did not foreknow the final moral choices of men. Is such a procedure so contradictory to the doctrine of prescience that both cannot be true? If this be the case, omniscience would disqualify God for the administration of a moral government over the human race. The only apparent alternative would be a divine allotment of final destinies on the foresight of what would be the decisive moral choices of men if placed in a probationary life. Such a doctrine of the divine procedure actually appears in theological speculation. In the many attempts to solve the perplexing dogma of Adamic sin as the common penal desert of the race, the position has been taken that God, foreknowing that every man, if placed in the same state as Adam, would sin just as he did, might justly and did actually account the same sin to every man. Of course this doctrine can have no place in a true theology. Nor can it be true that omniscience would disqualify God for the administration of a moral government. If we were under a law of necessity, the divine use of means for our salvation would be without reason. This is manifestly true in the case of necessitation to evil. That we are free and salvable renders the use of means consistent with the divine prescience. Otherwise the total omission of means of salvation would be justified in all cases of a foreknown final sinful choice. Such an omission could not be reconciled with the requirements of a divine moral government. With the truth of prescience, God may consistently, and must in fatherly rule and love, deal with us in the use of means for our salvation just as though he did not foreknow our final moral choices.[223] [223]
It is objected that the creation of souls with prescience of a sinful life and a final penal doom is irreconcilable with the goodness of God. This is a weighty objection—so weighty that we might well prefer the doctrine of nescience if it could obviate the difficulties which beset the question of sin. But this it cannot achieve. Insoluble perplexities would still remain. The creation of souls for the moral responsibility of free personalities must be with the known possibility of a final sinful choice and penal doom. This is a fact which our reason cannot fully adjust to the goodness of God, and a fact which remains in all its force with the nescience of future free volitions. Further, even with the nescience of future choices, we must admit the divine knowledge of all actual choices, and therefore the knowledge that, up to the present time, many through the choice of evil have incurred the penal doom of sin. Yet, with this knowledge, and with the forecast of such results in the future, God still perpetuates the race. The difficulty in this case seems quite as inexplicable for our reason as that which arises with the doctrine of the divine prescience. The real difficulty is the existence of moral evil under the government of God. This still remains with the doctrine of nescience. An argument against the prescience of future free volitions is brought from their present nihility. Such volitions are nothing until their actuality, and therefore cannot be the object of any previous knowledge. The validity of this argument is not above question. Moreover, if properly analyzed, its implications must be found of very difficult adjustment to the realities of the divine knowledge. A future eclipse is as much a present nihility as a future free choice. What then is the difference between the two as it respects the divine prescience? The answer is obvious. For the former there is a necessitating cause; for the latter, a free cause. This is the only difference. Hence the implication of this argument is that the divine foreknowledge of any futurition is conditioned on a present knowledge of its necessitating cause. It follows that God foreknows an eclipse just as an astronomer foreknows it. His knowledge may be more ready and perfect, but cannot be other in its mode. Thus the divine knowledge is conditioned and must be an acquisition through a mental process. These facts cannot be adjusted to the perfection and plenitude of the divine knowledge as clearly revealed in the Scriptures.
Further, a present free choice is in itself a purely metaphysical fact, and, even with complete ethical quality, may be without any cognizable sign. Hence it may be rationally questioned whether a mind incapable of foreknowing a future free choice could know a present free choice in its pure metaphysical self. On the other hand, if it be true, as the Scriptures so fully declare, that the divine mind is ever cognizant of the most central and secret facts of the human mind, we may rationally think its vision so immediate and absolute as clearly to foresee our future free choices. The most difficult question of omniscience concerns its relation to the divine personality. This, however, must go forward to a more appropriate place for its treatment. So far we have specially aimed to place the doctrine of nescience in the light of its implications respecting the divine knowledge. We think these implications irreconcilable with the plenitude of this knowledge as it is clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and as it must be in the truth of theism. We have not treated the question of nescience with any profound apprehension for the truth. Its doctrinal and practical bearing may easily be overestimated. The divine nescience of future free volitions, if accepted as a truth, is not necessarily revolutionary in theology. The “Calvinism which grounds foreknowledge in the divine decrees would remain the same. It can freely admit the divine nescience of future volitions as pure contingencies. This position it already occupies. But for it there are no such future volitions. The long-time debate on the question of freedom would still be on hand, and it would be necessary to carry this question convincingly against Calvinism before the doctrine of nescience could disturb its foundations. Nor would this doctrine be any more revolutionary in the system of Arminianism. Every vital doctrine would remain just the same. The chief perceivable result would be to free the system from the perplexity for freedom which arises with the divine prescience. The very serious difficulty in the attainment of this result is that we require the reality of freedom as the necessary ground of the doctrine of nescience. Only through the proved reality of the former can we reach the truth of the latter. This is their logical and irreversible order. If the truth of nescience were established or accepted, it would be as little revolutionary within the sphere of practical truth as in that of doctrinal truth. Certainly it could not in the least abate any of the moral forces of Christianity. God would still be immediately and perfectly cognizant of all the actualities of our moral life. Our responsibility would be Just the same; all divine promises and penalties the very same.[224] [224]
3. Truth of Omniscience.—There is for us no direct or complete knowledge of omniscience. We can no more fully grasp it in thought than we can grasp the omnipotence of the divine will or the infinitude of the divine love. If there be such a reality, only omniscience itself can absolutely know it. We may listen to the united utterances of nature and revelation and receive the great truth in faith, but cannot receive it in a comprehensive knowledge. In the fitness of material elements for cosmical uses, in the manifold and marvelous adjustments of nature, in the simplicity and far-reaching sway of the laws of nature, in the wonders of organic life, in the realm of rational intelligences there are manifestations of a mind which Ave must rationally think omniscient. These thoughts are in accord with the utterances of Scripture. “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all” (Psalms 104:24). “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding he hath established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19).
There are more explicit words of Scripture respecting the infinite plenitude of the divine knowledge. Even in special applications the expression of the knowledge is so complete that its infinite comprehension is an inevitable implication. “Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee” (Psalms 139:1-12). This passage is so replete with the deepest truth of the divine knowledge that we may well cite it in full. There is nothing in the life of man, nothing in his deeds or words, nothing in his most secret thoughts and feelings which is not perfectly known to God. This is the truth respecting all the multitudes of the race. Only an immediate and absolute knowing is equal to such knowledge. Neither height nor depth nor distance can impose any limitation. For it the night is as the day, the darkness as the light.
We may add a few texts: “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (Psalms 147:5). “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). The truth of each of these texts is the truth of the other. If God’s understanding is infinite, he must every-where behold the evil and the good. If he every-where beholds the evil and the good, his understanding must be infinite. “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). The divine knowledge is beforehand with the future. “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them” (Isaiah 42:9). These texts reveal the infinite plenitude of the divine knowledge. In the sense of the former, all things, in the fullest sense of all, are in the open vision of God. The connection shows the inclusion of the most central and secret life of all men. The latter text brings the future with the past into the comprehension of the same knowledge.
It might be objected that all the texts which we have cited in proof of omniscience, with one exception, reveal simply the divine knowledge of the present, the truth of which no theist questions. It might further be said that the one text which embraces the future may not include free choices, but only such futuritions as shall arise from predetermining causalities. If all this should be conceded, the proof of omniscience must still lie in these texts. The plenitude and the mode of the divine knowledge which they reveal warrant the inference of omniscience in the truest, deepest sense of the term. We need not dwell upon the extent of the universe which, in all its magnitudes and minutiae, even to every atom, is perfectly known to God. Nor need we specially speak of higher intelligences, with lives replete with the deepest intensities of thought and feeling and action, all which are comprehended in the divine knowledge. Suffice, that God knows what is in man; all that is in man; all that is in all men. This is what the Scriptures declare, and what no theist can question. The knowledge is perfect. It embraces all the interior activities, all the springs of action, all the impulses and aims of every life. The knowledge is so complete that God can perfectly adjust his ministries to the exigencies of every life; so complete that he can finally be the perfectly righteous Judge of each life. Such knowledge must be immediate and absolute in its mode. Its plenitude can admit no process of acquisition, no conditions of space or time. The future, even in its ethical volitions, must be open to the vision of such absolute knowledge. The prophecies cannot be interpreted without the divine prescience of morally free and responsible volitions in men. We speak of the prophecies generally. Even if some could be interpreted on deterministic ground, the many require freedom in the responsible human agency so widely operative in their fulfillment. We need not enter into details or into the citation and unfolding of particular prophecies. A general view may suffice. Prophecy began its utterances in the earliest history of the race, and continued to multiply them through all the progress of revelation, while the times of their application still stretched far down the centuries, even unto the final consummation. In a general way, we may instance the Jews and neighboring nations—Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre—as the subjects of prophecy. Not only are their future fortunes severally sketched in bold outline, but the reason of their fortunes is given specifically in their own moral conduct. The various forms of vice and crime are depicted in their incipiency, progress, and repletion, as the prelude and provocation of the providential doom which successively befell them. These prophecies, so specific in facts, and often long antedating the fulfilling events, could not have been uttered and verified by the result without the divine prescience of the morally responsible conduct of these people severally and individually. This is the prescience of free choices. The Messianic prophecies should receive a separate notice in their relation to this question. Students of these prophecies find in them much of the life of Christ as it is given in the gospels. Moreover, the responsible conduct of others respecting him is equally foretold. The rejection and persecution which he should suffer from his own people; the heinous offense of his betrayal by Judas and his denial by Peter; his crucifixion, with singular detail of particulars in the cruel treatment which he should suffer, and the fearful sin of the authors of these cruelties—all this is in these prophecies. They equally disclose the providential doom of this people for the willful and wicked rejection of the Christ. How could all this be without the divine prescience of the free and responsible action of men? These prophecies were not the utterance of a mere judgment of the future in view of the drift of the present, but divine predictions of clearly foreseen events, in the production of which the free and responsible agency of men should be efficiently operative. Prophecy in its fulfillment seems conclusive of the divine prescience of free, ethical volitions.
4. Distinctions of Divine Knowledge.—There are certain distinctions in the knowledge of God which may be helpful toward an adjustment of omniscience to his personal agency. The originality of these distinctions is accorded to Fonseca and Molina, Spanish theologians of the Jesuit order. Naturally, they were formulated in the technical manner common at the time: scientia Dei necessaria; scientia Dei libera; scientia Dei media. Dorner gives a very full and clear statement of these distinctions.[225] Dr. Hodge also gives a clear statement, particularly of the third—scientia Dei media—from which, however, his stanch Calvinism dissents.[226] A summary statement in simpler terms may render these distinctions clearer.
[225]
[226]
God’s knowledge of himself is necessary and eternal. This is an inevitable implication of his eternal personal existence. Personality is unreal without self-consciousness, which must include self-knowledge. The infinite perfection of the divine mind must imply the absolute plenitude of self-knowledge. In the perfection of this knowledge God must know his own potentialities, and therefore all possibilities with respect to his own immediate agency. Further, all rational and ethical truths which, with the personality of God, must be eternal realities, may properly be placed in the content of his necessary knowledge. There is thus a sphere of necessary knowledge, which is intrinsic to the divine personality. But as the universe is the creation of God on his own free choice (Isaiah 29:15; Matthew 6:32; Acts 15:8), a knowledge of it cannot be included in his necessary self-knowledge. The fact is the same even with an eternal prescience of his creative work. It is still the work of his free agency, and therefore need not have been. In this case it could have been an object of knowledge only as a possibility, which belongs to the distinction of necessary knowledge. It follows that God’s knowledge of the universe, whether as a purposed futurition or an effectuated reality, is conditioned on his own free agency, and may properly be designated scientia Dei libera—a knowledge within his own power or dependent upon himself. In the reality of our free moral agency, God must adjust the ministries of his government to the manner of our conduct as arising from our freedom. There is nothing surer than this. To deny it is to deny the reality of our own free agency. With freedom, human conduct is often other than it might have been. One man is bad who might have been good, and another good who might have been bad. The divine dealings with each must, as wise and good, be shaped according to his conduct, and would be different with a difference of conduct. In all such cases God’s prescience of his own agency is conditioned on the foreseen free action of men. There is this logical mediation even with immediateness in the mode of the divine knowledge. Scientia Dei media is therefore no erroneous or misleading formula.[227] [227]
5. Omniscience and Divine Personality.—The scientific adjustment of omniscience to the divine personality and personal agency is no easy attainment. The real difficulty has not received its proper recognition. It should not be overlooked, even if without solution in our reason. The discussion respecting the consistency of foreknowledge and freedom has been conducted with little apprehension of the profound truth that free agency and personal agency are but different formulas for the same reality, and that, if free agency falls by the logic of foreknowledge, personality must fall with it, and the divine personality no less than the human. There can be no true personality or personal agency except in freedom. The necessary freedom is the freedom of choice. For the freedom of choice there must be the eligibility of ends—eligibility in the reality of motives to choice. Can there be the eligibility of ends for an omniscient mind? This is the real question of difficulty. It is far deeper than the usual question of consistency between fore-knowledge and freedom, which concerns only the relation of foreknowledge in God to freedom in man, while the question in hand concerns the consistency of omniscience and freedom, both being in God himself.
We cannot in rational thought separate God’s conception of realities, even as futurities, from his motive-states respecting them. For our thought the latter must co-exist with the former and be as the former. If his conception is eternally complete in his eternal prescience, does it not follow that his motive-states are eternally the same respecting all realities? Seemingly, no distinction can be made between futurities and actualities. How can any thing take on a new form or appear in a new light of interest in the view of an absolute prescience? If all is eternally the same in that view, how can we avoid the consequence of an eternally fixed and changeless mental state, both cognitive and emotional, in God respecting all objects of his conception? Henc3 there would seem to be no reason for any choice or agency which was not eternally the same in the divine mind. In this case only an unthinkable eternal choice would seem possible. There could be no eligibility of ends arising in time, no specific choices in time; and therefore only a divine operation eternally predetermined. Such facts do not seem consistent with either a true personality in God or a true personal agency in his providence. It thus appears how far deeper this question is than the question of consistency between divine prescience and human freedom. How shall the necessary adjustment be attained? The manifest truth of omniscience will not allow us to replace it with the divine nescience of all free and responsible futuritions, and thus eliminate the difficulty—if indeed this would eliminate it.
There is no clear way out of this perplexity. Yet we should not concede its utter hopelessness of all explication. Doubtless the moral principles of the divine procedure are eternally the same in the divine consciousness; but the divine feelings in view of moral conduct in the free subjects of moral government are not eternally the same, as seemingly implied in omniscience. Otherwise they would either be false to the truth of facts, or in many instances involve a contradictory dualism in the divine mind. Such would be the case in all instances of a radical change of moral conduct in human life. A very wicked man may become truly saintly—of which there are many instances. If respecting such there were eternally the same feelings in God, they could not be true to the facts. This possibility is precluded by the great change in moral character. If from eternity such are regarded with reprehension as bad and with approval as good, then the unthinkable dualism must exist in the divine mind. These implications are conclusive against an eternally changeless emotional state in the mind of God respecting the free subjects of his moral government.
It is the clear sense of Scripture that the divine feelings are not eternally the same nor yet dualistic respecting the responsible conduct of men, but in forms answering in time to the moral quality of their action: feelings of displeasure against their wickedness; of clemency and forgiveness on their true repentance; of approving love for their genuine piety. The truth of divine displeasure against the wicked, whatever the subsequent change in their moral conduct, is given in many texts; but it is a truth so familiar and sure that a few references may suffice (Numbers 32:14; Deuteronomy 7:4; 2 Kings 17:17-18; Psalms 7:11; Psalms 78:40). It is in the nature of God as holy and just that this must be so. It is equally sure on the same ground of his holiness that he does not and cannot be regard any others than the wicked. The truth of the divine propitiousness on a true repentance is also given in many texts (Isaiah 12:1; Isaiah 55:7; Daniel 9:16-19). The whole truth of an approving love on a genuine piety may be given in a single text: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 15:21). It is thus clear that God’s personal regards of men ever answer in time to the moral quality of their personal conduct. Those who hold the doctrine of divine nescience, as previously noticed, may say that this precisely accords with their doctrine, and is therefore the proof of it. We admit the agreement, and would also admit the proof were it not for the paramount proof of the divine prescience. But the facts which we have found do not yet bring us the adjustment of omniscience to the divine personality and personal agency.
Even with the doctrine of prescience, it is still open for us to say that futurities of human conduct may not be the same for the divine conception and feeling as in their actuality. There is some ground for this position in the distinctions of the divine knowledge previously considered. The self-intuition of God is eternal and absolute. But the universe is the creation of his free agency, and therefore was eternally foreknown only as a futurity or as a freely purposed futurition, and known in its actuality only when by the free act of creation this purpose was set in reality. Even as a purposed futurition it could not be the same to the divine conception and consciousness as in its actuality. What is thus true respecting the universe as a creation may be specially true respecting the moral choices of free and responsible personalities. While eternally foreknown, they are yet different in their actuality for the divine conception, and therefore different for the divine feeling. There may thus be a sphere of free personal agency for God. There is no other apparent reconciliation of omniscience with either his personality or his personal agency in providence. If the distinctions in the knowledge of God may not be claimed as absolutely valid for the sphere of his personal free agency, they yet appear reasonably sufficient; and this is about all that we could expect in so difficult a question. But further, than this: it is surely possible that the plenitude of personality in God may place him above any law of determinism which may seem to us an implication of his omniscience; so that there is for him all the reality of a free personal agency which seems so manifest in the history of his providence.
There is a providence of God, with ministries in time. Nor can all this be regarded as merely executive of eternal pre-determinations. The field of this providence is an historic world developing in time. Its successive facts can be actual for the divine conception only on their actuality. What is thus true respecting all must be specially true respecting the free ethical action of men. The interests of both morality and religion require the ministries of providence in the ever-living personal agency of God. There must be the ever-actual discrimination of human conduct in his moral judgment; the reprehension of the evil and the loving approval of the good in the very depths of his moral feeling. Without these facts there is for the moral and religious consciousness no living relation of God to the present life, and our theism must be practically as empty of vital content as deism or pantheism. If the ministries of providence in the free agency of God, with all the emotional activities of such ministries, be not consistent or possible with his foreknowledge, then foreknowledge cannot be true. If there must be for us an alternative between the prescience of God, on the one hand, and his true personal agency in the ministries of his providence, on the other, the former doctrine must be yielded, while we tenaciously cleave to the Letter, because it embodies the living reality of the divine moral government. With all the difficulties of the question, we have not found any contradictory opposition of the two doctrines, and therefore hold both in a sure faith.[228] [228]
6. Divine Wisdom.—The wisdom of God is so closely related to his knowledge that the former may properly be treated in connection with the latter. Yet there are elements of wisdom which do not belong to mere knowledge. For wisdom there must be the practical use of knowledge. For the deepest truth of wisdom there must be the practical use of knowledge for benevolent ends. In the apt use of means for the attainment of evil ends there may be ingenuity or skill which requires knowledge, but there cannot be wisdom. Hence in wisdom there must be an element of goodness, a benevolence of aim. Benevolence requires affection. There can be no good end, either as a conception or an aim, without the emotional nature. Hence wisdom is not purely from the intellect, but from the intellect and the sensibility in co-operation. The wisdom of God appears in the co-operation of infinite knowledge and love. For the present life, even in its providential aspects, there is a mixture of good and evil; so that for our view the wisdom of God does not stand m the clearest light. The circle of our vision is but a narrow one, while often much of it lies in the shadow of cheerless clouds.[229] For our faith there is sunshine above and upon the vast fields beyond the circle of our vision, where the wisdom of God is revealed in the brightness of its own divine light. It is in truth deeply wrought into the wonders of creation, providence, and grace, however hidden from our present view. So the Scriptures witness. Wisdom was with God in determining the marvelous adjustments and laws of nature (Job 28:20-27). “O Lord, how manifold are thy works I in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (Psalms 104:24). The wisdom of God assumes its divinest form in the manifestation and work of Christ, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (Ephesians 1:7-8).Thus is made known, even unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, “the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11). The perfections of knowledge and love are here co-operative. “the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).
[229]