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who is over all, and through all, and in all.” The doctrine of divine immanence has been
stretched to the point of Pantheism in a great deal of modern theology. The world, and
especially man, was regarded as the phenomenal manifestation of God. At present there is a
strong reaction to this position in the so-called “theology of crisis.” It is sometimes thought that
this theology, with its emphasis on the “infinite qualitative difference” between time and
eternity, on God as the “wholly Other” and the hidden God, and on the distance between God
and man, naturally rules out the immanence of God. Brunner gives us the assurance, however,
that this is not so. Says he, “Much nonsense has been talked about the ‘Barthian theology’
having perception only for the transcendence of God, not for His immanence. As if we too were
not aware of the fact that God the Creator upholds all things by His power, that He has set the
stamp of His divinity on the world and created man to be His own image.”[The Word and the
World, p. 7.] And Barth says, “Dead were God Himself if He moved His world only from the
outside, if He were a ‘thing in Himself’ and not the One in all, the Creator of all things visible
and invisible, the beginning and the ending.”[The Word of God and the Word of Man, p. 291.]
These men oppose the modern pantheistic conception of the divine immanence, and also the
idea that, in virtue of this immanence, the world is a luminous revelation of God.
6. THE FINAL END OF GOD IN CREATION.
The question of the final end of God in the work of
creation has frequently been debated. In the course of history the question has received
especially a twofold answer.
a. The happiness of man or of humanity.
Some of the earlier philosophers, such as Plato, Philo,
and Seneca, asserted that the goodness of God prompted Him to create the world. He desired
to communicate Himself to His creatures; their happiness was the end He had in view. Though
some Christian theologians chimed in with this idea, it became prominent especially through
the Humanism of the Reformation period and the Rationalism of the eighteenth century. This
theory was often presented in a very superficial way. The best form in which it is stated is to the
effect that God could not make Himself the end of creation, because He is sufficient unto
Himself and could need nothing. And if He could not make Himself the end, then this can be
found only in the creature, especially in man, and ultimately in his supreme happiness. The
teleological view by which the welfare or happiness of man or humanity is made the final end
of creation, was characteristic of the thinking of such influential men as Kant, Schleiermacher,
and Ritschl, though they did not all present it in the same way. But this theory does not satisfy
for several reasons: (1) Though God undoubtedly reveals His goodness in creation, it is not
correct to say that His goodness or love could not express itself, if there were no world. The
personal relations within the triune God supplied all that was necessary for a full and eternal
life of love. (2) It would seem to be perfectly self-evident that God does not exist for the sake of
man, but man for the sake of God. God only is Creator and the supreme Good, while man is but