Chapter 4, Section 1ak

In the one case we get Immanence without Transcendence: in the other Transcendence without Immanence. D. holds a Transcendent Immanence (cf. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, rebutting charge of Pantheism). 328 e. g. The cruelty of Nature seems to show Intelligence; and Intelligence per se is a good thing. 329 All evil things contain the seed of their own decay, and so tend to non-existence. The arrogance and cruelty of the Germans has been their weakness, as discipline and self-sacrifice has been their strength. 330 God exists without Essence, as an object can exist without this particular quality or that. 331 D. is thinking especially of carnal sin. Such sin is a depraved form of that which, in its true purity, is a mystery, symbolizing the Unitive Life. 332 A diseased body still lives. Death ends the disease. 333 Exuberant vitality is per se a good thing and the more exuberant the better, though, like all good things, it is dangerous, and unless properly directed is disastrous. 334 If good and evil are both existent, they are, to that extent, both of the same kind; which is impossible. 335 So far D. has been showing that evil is not an ultimate principle, being neither (1) identical with the Good, nor (2j self-subsistent. Now he argues that it is not a necessary element in any created thing: neither in their existence as such, nor in any particular kind of creature. 336 D. rambles characteristically, but the general argument is plain. All existence is from the Good. Hence, if evil is inherent in the nature of existence, evil is from the Good. Thus D. meets again and proceeds to lay the ghost of a theory which he has already elaborately slain in the previous section. 337 Having just given a metaphysical argument for the non-existence of evil, D. now gives an argument drawn from the actual nature of the universe and of God’s creative activity. This argument is not so satisfactory as the metaphysical one, for, under all the harmony of the world, there is perpetual strife, and the Cross of Christ reveals God as suffering pain. “Christ is in an agony and will be till the end of the world” ( Pascal ). The metaphysical argument is sound because metaphysics deal with ultimate ideals, and evil is ultimately or ideally non-existent. The argument from actual facts is unsound because evil is actually existent. Much wrong thinking on the subject of evil is due to a confusion of ideal with actual non-existence. D. here seems to fall into this mistake. 338 D. here uses the name “God” because he is thinking of the Absolute or the Good, not in Its ultimate Nature, but in Its emanating or creative activity, in which the Personal Differentiations of the Trinity appear. See II. 7. 339 i. e. Evil does not arise through the passage of the Good from Super-Essence into Essence. It is not in the Good through the Good submitting to the conditions of existence (D. has already shown that evil has no place in the ultimate Super-Essential Nature of the Good). 340 This is a reductio ad absurdum. D. considers it obvious that God possesses the Good as His Substance and not by participation. The Persons of the Trinity are not products of the Absolute but Emanations or Differentiations of It. 341 The argument is as follows: No evil is from God. All existence is from God. Therefore no existence is evil. 342 Having shown that existence as such is not inherently evil, D. now takes various forms of existence and shows that none of them is, as such, inherently evil. 343 Cf. Old Testament title, “Sons of God,” and D. on Deification. Cf.