Systematic Theology (Vol. 1-3). Augustus Hopkins Strong

is not “the filling material,” nor “the vessel filled,” but “that which is complete in itself,”or, in other words, “plenitude,” “fulness,” “totality,” “abundance.” The whole universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of God's garment, or a breath exhaled from his mouth. He could create a universe a hundred times as great. Nature is but the symbol of God. The tides of life that ebb and flow on the far shores of the universe are only faint expressions of his life. The Immanent Attributes show us how completely matters of grace are Creation and Redemption, and how unspeakable is the condescension of him who took our humanity and humbled himself to the death of the Cross. Ps. 8:3, 4—“When I consider thy heavens … what is man that thou art mindful of him?” 113:5, 6—“Who is like unto Jehovah our God, that hath his seat on high, that humbleth himself?” Phil. 2:6, 7—“Who, existing in the form of God, … emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

      Ladd, Theory of Reality, 69—“I know that I am, because, as the basis of all discriminations as to what I am, and as the core of all such self-knowledge, I immediately know myself as will” So as to the non-ego, “that things actually are is a factor in my knowledge of them which springs from the root of an experience with myself as a will, at once active and inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another.” The ego and the non-ego as well are fundamentally and essentially will. “Matter must be, per se, Force. But this is … to be a Will” (439). We know nothing of the atom apart from its force (442). Ladd quotes from G. E. Bailey: “The life-principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence, and this thrills through every atom of the whole Cosmos” (446). “Science has only made the Substrate of material things more and more completely self-like”(449). Spirit is the true and essential Being of what is called Nature (472). “The ultimate Being of the world is a self-conscious Mind and Will, which is the Ground of all objects made known in human experience” (550).

      On classification of attributes, see Luthardt, Compendium, 71; Rothe, Dogmatik, 71; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:162; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:47, 52, 136. On the general subject, see Charnock, Attributes; Bruce, Eigenschaftslehre.