to the concept of a 'Father's house' with its 'many mansions'.  It is

therefore important at the outset of these enquiries, that we fully

appreciate the limits that are set by our very natures.

'Ultimate' truth can be known only to the 'absolute'.  Ultimate truth

demands universal knowledge, not only of events and appearances, but of

things as they are, and things as they will be, and this is possible to none

but God.  The consciousness of this essential limitation should act upon us

all in a twofold way:

We should hold what truth we see tenaciously but with a

consciousness that continual readjustment will be called for as

we ascend the scale.

We should be prepared to find that the limitations of our

creaturehood set bounds to the extent of our inquiries, so that

we shall always allow for the possibility that we can only 'know

in part' while here below.

When we open our Bibles we discover in the first verse of Genesis that

this limitation is forced upon us from the very outset.  Grammar is after all

the logic of speech, and the relation of one part of speech to another is not

regulated by arbitrary rules, but by experience.  We say 'the man speaks' or

'the men speak', we can never say 'the man speak' or 'the men speaks'; we

must use a singular verb with a singular noun, and a plural verb with a

plural noun, and this expresses truth as far as human experience is judge.

The reader knows however, that in Genesis 1:1 this rule is broken.

'In the beginning God Elohim (plural) created bara (singular)'.  At the

forefront therefore of revelation we have a warning.  All that can be made

known of God, will be made known.  All that is necessary for the believer to

understand, whether regarding the Person and Attributes of the Divine Being,

or His will and work, whether in creation or redemption, will be revealed.

But a revelation not only supposes One Who makes known, but one to whom the

revelation is given, and according to the nature and capacity of the receiver

so will that revelation be limited, and so will the truth revealed be more

and more 'relative'.

There is evidently something that pertains to the Divine nature that

lies beyond the ken of the creature, something that makes it imperative that

the limitations imposed by grammar must be set aside, lest we consider God as

altogether such a one as ourselves.  The human mind is so constructed and

endowed, that assent to certain axioms is necessary before any communication

can be made from one to another with any meaning, yet the moment we endeavour

to make these necessary axioms apply to the Deity they are found untenable.

For example, within the limits of human experience, the following axiom

compels acceptance.  Its denial means the annihilation of thought:

'That which never had a beginning, cannot now exist'.

For anything to exist now, a beginning is necessarily implied, but if

we transfer this axiom to the realm of the Divine what do we find?  Shall we

say 'God exists now, therefore He too must have had a beginning'?  But if He

had a beginning, He cannot be eternal, absolute and self -sufficient.

Instead of the causeless cause of all things He is but an earlier and remote

link in the chain of being.  Again, borrowing our illustration from the New