038. II. Unity Of God.
II.Unity Of God.
1. Sense of Divine Unity.—Unity does not well express the theistic truth for which it has long been in common use, though it may not be easy to replace it with a better term. Its deficiency arises from its applicability to any thoroughly individuated body, however many its elements or complex its organism. Thus a stone is one, a tree is one, a man is one, God U one in perfect simplicity and unchangeableness of being, one in an absolute, eternal unity. There is still a deeper sense of the divine unity, and one which the term still more signally fails properly to express, A stone, a tree, a man—each is one of a kind. They belong to specifical orders. God is not one of a kind. He is infinitely above all the categories of species. He exists in absolute soleness of essential divinity. This is the deepest sense of his unity. For the expression of this sense we have from Dorner the word solity.
2. Rational Evidence of Divine Unity.—With all the diversities of nature, there are such harmonies as evince a unity of divine original. The more complete the discoveries of science, the fewer and simpler are found to be the laws of physical nature. It is even claimed that the various distinctions of force express simply modes of the one force. Certain it is that the elements of physical nature are so few and in such correlation that a few simple laws determine the cosmic order of the earth and the heavens. If the light of this order reveals a divine Creator, it certainly reveals only one. Organic structures are formed upon such a unity of plan and in such a harmony of orders that there must be one Creator of all. Rational intelligence and moral reason are the same in all men, and the profoundest reason must determine one divine original of all. The three orders of the physical, the animal, and the rational are so diverse that they might seem to point to diverse originals; but they all so blend in man that in the light of this union it is manifest that there is one, and only one, Creator of all.
3. Unity of God in the Scriptures.—The Ten Commandments embody the profound truth of the divine unity (Exodus 20:3-17). This truth is their transcendent moral and religious power. The Lord declares himself God in heaven and earth, besides whom there is no other; and on this ground claims the reverent and unreserved obedience of his people (Deuteronomy 4:39-40). The Lord our God is one Lord. Therefore we must love him with the whole heart (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). With slight variations of expression, this same truth of the unity of God is often declared. The Lord says, “I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me” (Deuteronomy 32:39) “Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4). Thus is given the Scripture sense of the divine unity. There is only one God, Creator, and moral Ruler. He only must be worshiped, because he only is God. In perfect agreement with these truths is the sublime monotheism of St. Paul (Acts 17:22-31).
4. No Requirement for Plurality.—Polytheism is the result of a vicious perversion of the intuitive and rational notion of God. This is the account of it given by St. Paul (Romans 1:21-25). It is also in complete accord with the moral grounds upon which he had just based the responsibility of the Gentile world (Romans 1:18-20). Polytheism can have no co-existence in any mind with the true notion of God. If there are any facts which seem contrary to this view, it is only in appearance, not in reality. No other God can be admitted to the faith and worship of the soul while in possession of the unperverted notion of the true God. There is no demand for another. The one true God satisfies the most searching logic of the question, the clearest intuitions of the reason, and the profoundest religious feeling. In the clear vision of the true God there is no place for another.
Unity is not in any sense determinative of what God is in himself. Just the reverse is the truth. God is the deepest unity because he only is absolute spirit, existing in eternal personality, with the infinite perfection of personal attributes. This deepest unity is, therefore, in no sense constitutive or determinative of what God is in himself, but is purely consequent to the infinite perfections which are his sole possession. Unity is therefore in no proper sense an attribute of God.