Chapter 5, Section 1c

You would have expected those which participate in God’s greater gifts to be the higher, and to surpass the rest.” Now if intelligent beings were defined as having no 134 Existence or Life, the argument would be sound; but since the divine Intelligences do exist in a manner surpassing other existences, and live in a manner surpassing other living things, and understand and know in a manner beyond perception and reason, and in a manner beyond all existent things participate in the Beautiful and Good, they have a nearer place to the Good in that they especially participate therein, and have from It received both more and greater gifts, even as creatures possessed of Reason are exalted, by the superiority of Reason, above those which have but Perception, and these are exalted through having Perception and others through having Life. And the truth, I think, is that the more anything participates in the One infinitely-bountiful God the more is it brought near to Him and made diviner than the rest. 372 372 The more universal a Title is, the more truly it is applicable to God (see end of Section 2). Thus Existence is more applicable than Life, and Life than Wisdom, as involving in each case less that needs to be discarded. Thus Wisdom implies both a time-process and also a certain finite mode of consciousness, neither of which belong to the eternal and infinite God: Life implies a time-process though not a finite consciousness: Existence implies neither time-process nor finite consciousness. Thus we reach the highest conception of God by a process of abstraction in which we cast aside all particular elements (cf. St. Augustine on the Bonum bonum). This is the philosophical basis of the Via Negativa . But this abstraction is not mere abstraction nor this negation mere negation. Existence in God subsumes and so includes all that is real in Life; and Life in Him subsumes all that is real in Wisdom. Hence the creatures, as they advance in the scale of creation, draw from Him more and more particular qualities and progress by becoming more concrete and individual instead of more abstract. All the rich variety of creation exists as a simple Unity in God, and the higher a creature stands in the scale, the more does it draw fresh forces from this simple Unity and convert them into its own multiplicity. D. would have understood Evolution very well. This passage exactly fits in with D’s. psychological doctrine of the Via Negativa . That which is reached by the spiritual act of Contemplation explains the principles underlying the whole creative process, the growing diversity of the world-process and of human life. In God there is a rich Unity, and we must leave all diversity behind to reach It. Thus we shall have richness without diversity. 135 4. Having now dealt with this matter, let us consider the Good as that which really Is and gives their being to all things that exist. The Existent God is, by the nature of His power, super-essentially above all existence; He is the substantial Cause and Creator of Being, Existence, Substance and Nature, the Beginning and the Measuring Principle of ages; the Reality underlying time and the Eternity underlying existences; the time in which created things pass, 373 373 Eternity is a totum simul. It may thus be symbolized by a point revolving round a centre at infinite speed. Time would be symbolized by a point revolving round a centre at a finite speed. Thus eternity is time made perfect. Time is thus subsumed in eternity as the incomplete in the complete. Hence time, like existence, life, etc., exists in God as transcended. Hence the temporal-process is a manifestation of Him. This might had to Pantheism, but D. is saved from such a result by his hold on the complementary truth of Transcendence.