creates--the primordial ideas, archetypes, immutable relations, divine acts of will, according to which individual things are formed; _second_, that which is created and does not create, the world of individuals, the effects of the primordial causes, without which the causes have no true being. Created things have no individual or self-independent existence; they are only in God; and each thing is a manifestation of the divine, _theophania_, _divina apparitio_. God alone, the uncreated creator of all, has true being. He is the true universal, all-containing and incomprehensible. The lower cannot comprehend the higher, and therefore we must say that the existence of God is above being, above essence; God is above goodness, above wisdom, above truth. No finite predicates can be applied to him; his mode of being cannot be determined by any category. True theology is negative. Nevertheless the world, as the _theophania_, the revelation of God, enables us so far to understand the divine essence. We recognize his being in the being of all things, his wisdom in their orderly arrangement, his life in their constant motion. Thus God is for us a Trinity--the Father as substance or being ([Greek: ousia]), the Son as wisdom ([Greek: dynamis]), the Spirit as life ([Greek: energeia]). These three are realized in the universe--the Father as the system of things, the Son as the word, i.e. the realm of ideas, the Spirit as the life or moving force which introduces individuality and which ultimately draws back all things into the divine unity. In man, as the noblest of created things, the Trinity is seen most perfectly reflected; _intellectus_ ([Greek: nous]), _ratio_ ([Greek: logos]) and _sensus_ ([Greek: dianoia]) make up the threefold thread of his being. Not in man alone, however, but in all things, God is to be regarded as realizing himself, as becoming incarnate. The infinite essence of God, which may indeed be described as _nihilum_ (nothing) is that from which all is created, from which all proceeds or emanates. The first procession or emanation, as above indicated, is the realm of ideas in the Platonic sense, the word or wisdom of God. These ideas compose a whole or inseparable unity, but we are able in a dim way to think of them as a system logically arranged. Thus the highest idea is that of _goodness_; things are, only if they are good; being without well-being is naught. _Essence_ participates in goodness--that which is good has being, and is therefore to be regarded as a species of good. _Life_, again, is a species of essence, _wisdom_ a species of life, and so on, always descending from genus to species in a rigorous logical fashion.