Any belief in creation, and indeed any belief in the reality of freedom, seems clearly to necessitate some limitation of the omnipotence and perhaps of the omniscience of God. At the same time, Theism cannot admit that any portion of existence is abso lutely independent of God. To meet this dilemma the thought of a divine "self-limitation" has been employed. Admittedly this is a thought which cannot be articulated in any detail. We cannot know the conditions of such self-limitation. But the conception itself is required by the facts as they appear in religious and moral experience. We may urge that the idea is not really con tradictory of omnipotence, for an omnipotence which could not limit itself would not be omnipotent. And there is no inherent difficulty in the moral attributes of God, for it may be argued that the development of free moral persons who can enter into communion with God is the ultimate purpose of creation, and that this end could not be attained apart from a limitation of the divine power which makes freedom possible and with it both moral good and moral disaster.
A difference of opinion among Theists exists on the question whether creation is in any sense necessary to God. On this point traditional Christian theology and some modern idealistic inter pretations of Christianity (e.g., Hegel's) are at variance. Chris tian theology on the whole has laid down that the world is in no way necessary to God and that its creation does not add to His perfection or satisfaction. The opposite view, which emphasises the Divine immanence, holds that the world is as necessary to God as God to the world. A distinction should be made between the active and passive sense of "creation." Thus it might be con ceived that creation is an essential attribute of God and at the same time that the present universe is not necessary to God, that to create is an eternal activity of God but no product of that activity is eternal. A theory of this kind would avoid the diffi culties which arise when we attempt to conceive a beginning of creation. (On this point see further, Studies in Christian Philos ophy by W. R. Matthews.) A problem in Theistic philosophy closely connected with the foregoing is that of the place of suffering in the Divine Experience. Here again the weight of Christian thought is against the admis sion of anything which would seem to qualify the absolute self sufficiency and perfection of the Divine Nature. Suffering arises
through frustration and limitation, conditions which are hardly to be thought of in connection with the Supreme Being. Against this may be set some considerations arising from the problem of evil and the moral perfection which we believe God to possess. It would seem difficult to think of Divine Sympathy with suffering if suffering could not enter into the Divine Experience ; and it would seem strange to ascribe moral perfection to God if self sacrifice, which involves voluntary pain, were excluded. On these grounds many writers on Theism and Christian Theologians in the present century have argued that suffering must enter into the Divine Consciousness, and some have urged that this is really an essential element in the Christian view of the world. (For a survey of opinion on this subject see J. K. Mozley, The Impassi bility of God.) It must be observed, however, that Theism could not admit that suffering is the dominant note of the Divine Experience. To do so would be to fall back upon the conception of a "God" so limited and struggling that He may be ultimately defeated. Our experience, however, offers us an analogy which throws light upon the problem. At the highest level of spiritual life a condition of "blessedness" has sometimes been attained which is far different from a condition of mere pleasure and absence of pain. Pain enters into it as an essential element, but the condition itself is not one of pain, rather it is one in which the self finds its truest satisfaction and which it would not exchange for any maximum of pleasant feeling. Of this kind, though in an infinitely higher degree, we may imagine the life of God to be.
other works see Caldecott and Mackintosh, Selections from the Literature of Theism (1904) ; A. S. Pringle Pattison, The Idea of God (2nd ed., 192o) ; James Ward, The Realm of Ends (3rd ed., 192o) ; Charles Gore, Belief in God (1921) ; C. C. J. Webb, Divine Personality and Human Life (1920) ; Problems in the Relations of God and Man (191I) ; G. Galloway, The Philosophy of Religion (1914) ; A. C. Fraser, Philosophy of Theism. (1899) ; F. von Hugel, Mystical Element in Religion (1909), Eternal Life (1912) ; A. Caldicott, Philosophy of Religion (1901) ; W. Temple, Mens Creatrix (1917) ; H. Hoffding, Philosophy of Religion (1906) ; A. E.
Taylor, art., "Theism" in Hastings' Enc. Rel. Eth. (W. R. M.) THEISS : see TISA.