Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE NEOPLATONIC PHILOSOPHY AND EPOCH 3 I 7the operations which we can produce are but possiblethrough the nature of things, through the will of God,and our own constitution : to make them actual dependson our will. We determine whether they shallbe, which of them shall be, how long and in whatcircumstances they shall be."lAs a world evolved by necessity cannot admit afreedom of will in a subordinate part of itself, so aGod free to create makes a creature free in the choiceof his actions. This created dignity in man answersto that uncreated dignity of will in God, which is thesource of all beings outside of Himself.4. The evil which the philosophy saw was that themind should not act according to its nature as aneffluence of the divine mind, being drawn down bythe contact with matter. The good was such a restorationof order that everything in man and in societyshould be done according to this nature. But theChurch taught that the malady of human nature consistedin an inward rebellion of the spirit itself againstits Maker. Its good was the removal of that rebellionby the sanctification of man. Thus the word " sin "was used in the philosophy in a sense entirely opposedto that which belonged to it in the Christian teaching.In the philosophy it was the soul missing its aim,falling short of its intrinsic dignity as a portion of" the Divine/' and the body with which it was encumberedwas the perpetual cause of such a fall. In theChristian sense Sin was the disobedience of the creatureto the will of the Creator. If in the actual state ofman the body perpetually solicited the will to such adisobedience, yet the mind likewise was liable to classesof sins more dangerous and more difficult to overcome1 Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, i. 514.