arrangement, and his life (i.e. the Holy Spirit) in their constant motion.^1446 God is therefore an
essence in three substances. Scotus Erigena takes up the doctrine of John of Damascus concerning
the procession of the Holy Spirit and applies it to the relation of the Son to the Father: "As the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, so is the Son born of the Father through the Holy
Spirit."^1447 In the old patristic fashion he compares the Three Persons to light, heat and radiance
united in the flame. But he understood under "persons" no real beings, only names of the aspects
and relations under which God’s being comes out. God realizes himself in creation, and in every
part of it, yet he does not thereby yield the simplicity of his essence. He is still removed from all,
subsists outside of and above the world, which has no independent existence apart from God, but
is simply his manifestation. He is both the substance and the accidents of all that exists. "God
therefore is all and all is God."^1448 But God reveals himself to the creature. He appeared first to the
pious in visions, but this was only occasional.^1449 He then appeared constantly in the form of the
different virtues.^1450 The intellect is itself a theophany; and so is the whole world, visible and
invisible.^1451
- The Procession from God or Nature. a. Nature which creates and is created, or the
primordial ideas of the world and their unity in the Logos. God is the nature and essence of the
world. Creation is the effect of the divine nature, which as cause eternally produces its effects,
indeed is itself in the primordial ideas the first forms and grounds of things.^1452 As the pure Being
of God cannot immediately manifest itself in the finite, it is necessary that God should create the
prototypes in which he can appear. In creation God passes through these prototypes or primordial
causes into the world of visible creatures. So the Triune God enters the finite, not only in the
Incarnation, but in all created existences. Our life is God’s life in us. As remarked above, we know
God because in us he reveals himself. These prototypes have only subjective existence, except as
they find their unity in the Logos.^1453 Under the influence of the Holy Spirit they produce the
external world of time and space.
b. Nature, which is created and does not create, or the phenomenal world and its union in
man. In the Logos all things existed from eternity. Creation is their appearance in time. The principle
of the development of the primordial ideas is the Holy Spirit.^1454 The materiality of the world is
only apparent, space and time only exist in the mind. The "nothing" from which God made the
heavens and the earth was his own incomprehensible essence.^1455 The whole phenomenal world is
but the shadow of the real existence.^1456 Man is the centre of the phenomenal world, uniting in
himself all the contradictions and differences of creation.^1457 His intellect has the power to grasp
(^1446) De div. Nat. I. 13 (col. 455). Ueberweg, l.c. , p. 361.
(^1447) De div. Nat. II. 33 (col. 612).
(^1448) III. 10 (col. 650). This is the remark of the "disciple," but the "master" does not contradict it. Cf. III. 17, V. 30; I. 13.
(^1449) I. 7, 8 (cols. 445448).
(^1450) Igitur omnis theophania, id est omnis virtus, et in hac vita et in futura vita,"I. 9 (col. 449).
(^1451) I. 7, 8, 13 (cols. 445-448, 454-459).
(^1452) III. 23 (col. 689).
(^1453) II. 15, 22 (cols. 545-548, 562-566, especially col. 566).
(^1454) II. 22 (col. 566).
(^1455) III. 19 (col. 680).
(^1456) I. 27, 56-58 (col. 474, 475; 498-501).
(^1457) II. 9 (col. 536).