reality and that he is not free and does not possess any power. Man must live as a slave to those powers whom he has made his masters. But do these world powers then—nature or spirit, destiny or reason, desire or duty—possess the character of being the one and only reality and therefore that of lordship? And which of them really does so? All previous experience seems to teach that their mutual conflict does not reach any decision. But even if a decision were one day to be reached, which of these world powers could—or could they all together?—be powerful enough to make a real prisoner of man and of human self-assertion? Spirit, nature, reason, duty, desire—which of these has power to make man completely prisoner? And though man is powerless to maintain himself as the one and only reality, does he not at least possess sufficient power to set his own subjective self-assertion against the world powers which are after all the offspring of his mind? Does he not therefore possess sufficient power at least to call in question their claim to be the one and only reality? When and where did mankind really entrust or commit themselves totally and without reservation to nature or spirit, destiny or reason, desire or duty? Man may not know how to escape them, but he does know how to make reservations for himself in relation to them, “si fractus illabitur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae.” The conflict between these two parties, man and the powers of his world, over their right to be the one and only reality cannot be settled but ends in indecision. But the conflict is settled already where the parties to the conflict are man on the one hand and the one and only God in His self-revelation on the other. As these two stand face to face, there is decision, a command and a choice which commit man at this point, where man stands before God in His revelation. A claim to lordship is put forward possessing the power to achieve its end. Here man can obey completely, trust completely and commit himself completely and here he can worship. Here man will be able to recognise the one and only God by the fact that He is the one and only God, and here He is the one and only God because He reveals Himself as such. To achieve this result as the conclusion of this test is something which is in no one’s power. The decision, with which it does reach its conclusion, is faith in Jesus Christ, and in saying that we are saying once more that the one and only God Himself is He Who reveals Himself as the one and only God. But in saying that we are saying also what is decisive—what in the sense of the Confession must be said about the words “We acknawledge ane onelie God.”
THE MAJESTIC, THE PERSONAL GOD
(Art. 1b)
Who is Eternall, Infinit, Unmeasurable, Incomprehensible, Omnipotent, Invisible: ane in substance, and zit distinct in thre personnis, the Father, the Sone, and the holie Gost.
I
Reformed teaching gives a twofold answer to the question, “Who is the one God?” In the first place, He is majesty (He is eternal, infinite, immeasureable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, invisible, as the Confession says). Secondly, He is a Person (since in His simple, majestic essence He is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit).
It is well to note at the start that this explanation is introduced in the Latin translation of the Confession by the expression “eundem etiam credimus …” The knowledge of the one and only God, the knowledge that He is and who He is, is the knowledge of faith. Faith knowledge in the sense used by Reformed teaching does not mean a knowledge which is based merely on feeling, which is peculiar to the individual and which therefore has no binding character for others. On the contrary, no more objective and strict form of knowledge can exist, and no type of knowledge can lay claim more definitely to universal validity than the knowledge of faith. It is certainly true that it differs completely from anything else which man calls knowledge, not only in its content, but in its mode of origin and form as well. But this difference consists precisely in the fact that it is bound, a fact which excludes all arbitrariness and chance. The very question “Who is God?” is not one of those questions which man puts to himself and is able either to put or not to put to himself. On the contrary, on every occasion that he raises it in earnest, he is compelled to raise it, because without his ever coming to think of it of his own accord, this question is put to him in such a way that it must be faced and cannot be evaded. Also in answering it he will not be able to choose, but he will have to obey—to read off, spell out and decipher the answer which is laid down for him. Faith knowledge is knowledge through revelation. And that simply means that it is a type of knowledge which is unconditionally bound to its object. And it is only to this object—only to God—that human thought can be bound in this way, since God Himself has bound it to Himself. “Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me” (Mk. 1:17). “And they forsook all and followed Him” (Luke 5:11). The binding of obedience to command here is the basis of the knowledge of faith. “And they forsook all and followed Him” is the foundation of the knowledge of God. And when this knowledge speaks, the binding of obedience to command remains. It does not speak with the freedom from obligation characteristic of a monologue or of what we call a discussion. It speaks with responsibility towards Him from whom it has heard what it has to say, as it completes a liturgical act. It is only subsequently, incidentally and really unintentionally that what is said in the knowledge of faith can also be said as something for which we are responsible to men and have to justify before them. But what is said in the knowledge of faith is rigorous, effective and universally valid for men, just because it is said originally and really to God and not to men.
II
Let us try now to estimate the formal character of faith knowledge, i.e. knowledge through revelation, the knowledge that God is Majesty and that He is a Person. Compared with the French, Dutch and other confessions the Scottish Confession shows originality by linking together directly the confession of faith in the God who is hidden in His eternity, infinity, etc., and the confession of faith in the same God as He is known to us as the God Who is Three in One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What does it mean by placing together the two—the God who is hidden and the God who is known?
When, in the first place, we look from the second truth towards the first, the meaning is as follows. Precisely because God makes Himself known to us in an unsurpassably intimate and definite way as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, He meets us as the One who is hidden, the One about Whom we must admit that we do not know what we are saying when we try to say who He is. Who is the Father, Whose children we are called to be in Jesus Christ? Who is He whom the Father has delivered up for us as His only Son, that in Him and through Him amends might be made for all the evil we do? Who is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of this Father and this Son, qui procedit ex patre filioque, through Whom we participate in all these benefits? We must answer that this One Being is eternal, infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, omnipotent and invisible. By each and all of these words we mean that He is above us, above space and time, and above all concepts and opinions and all potentialities. When we use all these words, we are praising His freedom and power. But what kind of freedom is that which is not bound to space and time or any potentiality known to man? By using all these words, we call Him the Lord, Jahweh Kyrios, but to what Lord will we compare Him? And how are we then to comprehend Him, when we call Him Lord? Thus God’s revelation is precisely His revelation as the hidden God. And therefore faith in God’s revelation can only give a very humble answer to the question “Who is God?” and it is faith which will confess God as the God of majesty and therefore as the God unknown to us. It is faith in God’s revelation which is deadly fear of God’s mystery, because it sees how God Himself veils Himself in mystery. Scepticism, which thinks that it also knows that God is hidden, has not reached the point of being such fear unto death. Scepticism has not been taught by God Himself that He is hidden, but is a human answer to a human question. One must know the darkness of Sinai and of Calvary and must have faith, to know the God who is above us and His hidden nature.
And now let us look from the first truth towards
