is
Greek. It is not primarily ethical nor even religious, but it is
metaphysical. What is the ontological relationship between these three
factors? The answer is given in the Nicene formula, which is
characteristically Greek. By it we perceive how God, the infinite, the
absolute, the eternal, is yet not separated from the finite, the
temporal, the relative, but, through the incarnation, enters into
humanity. We further see how this entering into humanity is not an
isolated act but continues in all the children of God by the indwelling
spirit. Thus, according to the canons of the ancient philosophy, justice
is done to all the factors of our problem--God remains as Father, the
infinitely remote and absolute source of all; as Son, the Word who is
revealed to man and incarnate in him; as Spirit, who dwells even in our
own souls and by his substance unites us to God.

While thus the Greek philosophy furnished the dialectic and the mould
for the characteristic Christian teaching, the doctrine of the Trinity
preserved religious values. By Jesus the disciples had been led to God,
and he was the central fact of faith. After the resurrection he was the
object of praise, and soon prayers were offered in his name and to him.
Already to the apostle Paul he dominates the world and is above all
created things, visible and invisible, so that he has the religious
value of God. It is not God as abstract, infinite and eternal, as the
far-away creator of the universe, or even as the ruler of the world,
which Paul worships, but it is God revealed in Jesus Christ, the Father
of Jesus Christ, the grace and mercy in Jesus Christ which deliver from
evil. Metaphysics and speculative theories were valueless for Paul; he
was conscious of a mighty power transforming his own life and filling
him with joy, and that this power was identical with Jesus of Nazareth
he knew. In all this Paul is the representative of that which is highest
and best in early Christianity. Speculation and hyperspiritualization
were ever tending to obscure this fundamental religious fact: in the
interest of a higher doctrine of God his true presence in Jesus was
denied, and by exaggeration of Paul's doctrine of "Christ in us" the
significance of the historic Jesus was given up. The Johannine writings,
which presupposed the Pauline movement, are a protest against the
hyperspiritualizing tendency. They insist that the Son of God has been
incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, and that