GOD
608
GOD
nenses", lost annals of the twelfth century which had
been looked upon as an authority in its particular
field. Another work of Gobelinus was his "Vita Mein-
ulphi", a biography of St. Meinolf . a canon of the cathe-
dral chapter of Paderborn in the first half of the ninth
century, and the founder of the Boddeken monastery.
The Cosmidromius of Gobelinus was first published by
Meibom (Frankfort, 1599) in the "Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum"; Max Jansen prepared a new edition
(Monster, 1900). The "Vita Meinulphi" may be found
in the "Acta SS." of the Bollandists, Oct., Ill, 216sqq.
RoSENKRANZ, Gohelinus Persona, ein biographischer Versitch in Zeitschr, fur westfalische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, VI (Munster, 1843), 1-36; Bayer, Gobelinus Persona, Part I: Leben und Zeitalter Gobelins {Leipzig, 1874); Haqemann, Veber die Quellen des Gobelinus Persona, Parti (Soden, 1874); GoBEL, Wilhelm von liavensburg und Gobelinus Persona (Biele- feld, 1877); ScHEFFER-BolCHORST, Annales Patherbrunnenses (Innsbrucli, 1870); Jansen. Das Todexjahr des Gobelinus Per- sona in Ilislori-^ehes Jahrbueh (1902), 76-80; Loffler, Gobel- inus Persons Vila Meinulphi (ibid., 1904), 100-192.
J. P. KiRSCH.
God (A.S. God; Germ. Gott; akin to Persian A;/ioda; Hindu khooda), (1) the proper name of the one Su- preme and Infinite Personal Being, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, to whom man owes obedience and worship; (2) the common or generic name of the several supposed beings to whom, in polytheistic religions, Divine attributes are ascribed and Divine worship rendered; (3) the name sometimes applied to an idol as the image or dwelling-place of a god. The root-meaning of the name (from Gothic root gheu; Skt. hu or Im, "to invoke or to sacrifice to") is either " the one invoked" or " the one sacrificed to" (see Mur- ray, "New Diet, of the Engl.[Language", s. v.). From different Indo-Germanic roots (div, "to shine", "give light"; Dies in thessasthai, "to implore") come the Indo-Iranian deva, Skt. dyaus (gen. divas), Lat. deus, Gr. fleis, Irish and Gaelic, dia, all of which are generic names; also Gr. ZeiJi- (gen. Aios), Lat. Jupiter (jov- pater), Old Teut. Tiu or Tiw (surviving in Tuesday), Lat. Janus, Diana, and other proper names of pagan deities. The common name most widely used in Semitic occurs as 'el in Hebr., 'ilu in Babylonian, 'ilah in Arabic, etc.; and though scholars are not agreed on the point, the root-meaning most probably is " the strong or miglity one".
Scope and Plan of Treatment. — For ethnic con- ceptions of Deity the reader is referred to the article under that title. The present article is concerned exclusively with the God (I) of monotheistic philo.so- phy and (II) of Old- and New-Testament theology, i. e. with the one true God as He can be known by the light of unaided reason and as He is actually known, much more perfectly than reason could know Him, liy His free revelation of Himself in the Jewish and f'liristian religions. It is necessary up to a certain point to oliserve the distinction here implied between philosophical and tlieological Theism — between the God of reason and of Revelation. For it is clear that, if the acceptance of Christianity is to be justified as a reasonable act of faith, the human mind must be capaljle of knowing naturally that a God exists who is free to reveal Himself supernaturally, in such wise that men may be rationally certain that He has done so through the ministry of Jesus Christ. In other words philosophical Theism as such ought to furnish the rational data which are implied in the possibility of revelation and the credibility of the Christian sys- tem; fjut more than this it need not undertake to do. Now all these data — in so far as they relate strictly to Theism — are contained in the comprehensive truth of the self-existence of a free and intelligent First Cause and Moral Ruler, a personal God, distinct from but immanent in the universe, which is subject to His infinite power and wisdom; and we shall, therefore, confine our strictly philosophical treatment of the sub- ject to the discussion of tin's fiin<lamental truth. A good deal more than this is usually included in the
systematic philosophy of Theism as developed by
Christian, and more especially by Catholic, writers,
but in accordance with our present scope, which is
tlieological as well as philosophical, it will be more con-
venient to adopt the combined viewpoint of pliiloso-
pher and theologian in treating many questions which
niiglit be treated separately from either point of view.
In doing so, moreover, we are but following the line
along which theistic doctrine has been developed. It
is a fact that no adequate sy.stem of rational TheLsin
and of natural religion has ever been developed and
maintained independently of Revelation, and it would
be a mistake to infer from the admitted capacity of
the human mind to arrive at a true knowledge of God
as the Creator and Ruler of the universe that the sys-
tematic Theism of Christian philosophers is de facto the
product of unaided reason. It is legitimate for the
philosopher, while retaining the strictly rational view-
point, to improve and perfect his philosophy in the
reflected light of Revelation, and Christian philoso-
phers have used this advantage freely.
I. The God of Philosophy. — A. Existence of God. — (1) The Problem stated. — Had the Theist merely to face a blank Atheistic denial of God's existence his task would be comparatively a light one. Formal dogmatic Atheism is self-refuting, and has never de facto won the reasoned assent of any considerable number of men (see Atheisji). Nor can Polytheism (q. v.), however easily it may take hold of the popular imagination, ever satisfy the mind of a philosopher. But there are several varieties of what may be de- scribed as virtual Atheism which cannot be dismissed so summarily. There is the agnosticism, for instance, of HerbertSpencer, which, while admitting the rational necessity of postulating the Absolute or Unconditioned behind the relative and conditioned objects of our knowledge, declares that Absolute to be altogether unknowable, to be in fact the Unknowable, about which without being guilty of contradiction we can predicate nothing at all, except perhaps that It exists; and there are other types of Agnosticism (q. v.). Then again there is Pantheism (q. v.) in an almost endless variety of forms, all ofwhich, however, may be logically reduced to the three following types: (a) the purely niaterialisf ic, which, making matter the only reality, would explain life by mechanics and chemistry, reduce abstract thought to the level of an organic process, deny any higher ultimate moral value to the Ten Commandments than to Newton's law of gravitation, and, finally, identify God Himself with tfie universe thus interpreted (see Materialism; Monism); (b) the purely idealistic, which, choosing the contrary alternative, would make mind the only reality, con- vert the material universe into an idea, and identify God with this all-embracing mind or idea, conceived as eternally evolving itself into passing phases or ex- pressions of being and attaining self-consciousness in the souls of men; and (c) the combined materialistic- idealistic, which tries to steer a middle course and, without sacrificing mind to matter or matter to mind, would conceive the existing universe, with which God is identified, as some sort of "double-faced" single entity. Tlius to accomplish even the beginning of his task the Theist has to show, against Agnostics, that the knowledge of God attainable by rational inference, however inadequate and imperfect it may be, is as true and valid, as far as it goes, as any other piece of knowledge we possess; and against Pantheists that the God of reason is a supra-mundane personal God distinct both from matter and from the finite human mind — that neither we ourselves nor the earth we tread upon enter into the constitution of His being.
But passing from views that are formally anti- Theistic, it is found that among Theists themselves certain diiferences exist which tend to complicate the problem, and increase the difficulty of stating it briefly and clearly.
