Actuality, on the other spiritual and corporeal substances possessing an
homogeneous common element." That is to say; matter and spirit are both
the result of the divine creative act, and though separate, and in a
sense opposed, find their point of origin in the Divine Actuality.

The created world is the concrete manifestation of matter, through
which, for its transformation and redemption, spirit is active in a
constant process of interpenetration whereby matter itself is being
eternally redeemed. What then is matter and what is spirit? The question
is of sufficient magnitude to absorb all the time assigned to these
lectures, with the strong possibility that even then we should be
scarcely wiser than before. For my own purposes, however, I am content
to accept the definition of matter formulated by Duns Scotus, which
takes over the earlier definition of Plotinus, purges it of its elements
of pagan error, and redeems it by Christian insight.

"Materia Primo Prima" says the great Franciscan, "is the indeterminate
element of contingent things. This does not exist in Nature, but it has
reality in so far as it constitutes the term of God's creative activity.
By its union with a substantial form it becomes endowed with the
attributes of quantity, and becomes Secundo Prima. Subject to the
substantial changes of Nature, it becomes matter as we see it."

It is this "Materia Primo Prima," the term of God's creative activity,
that is eternally subjected to the regenerative process of spiritual
interpenetration, and the result is organic life.

What is spirit? The creative power of the Logos, in the sense in which
St. John interprets and corrects the early, partial, and therefore
erroneous theories of the Stoics and of Philo. God the Son, the Eternal
Word of the Father, "the brightness of His glory and the figure of His
Substance." "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten,
not made, being of one substance with the Father: by Whom all things
were made." Pure wisdom, pure will, pure energy, unconditioned by
matter, but creating life out of the operation of the Holy Spirit on and
through matter, and in the fullness of time becoming Incarnate for the
purpose of the final redemption of man.

Now since man is so compact of matter and spirit, it must follow that he
cannot lay hold of pure spirit, the Absolute that lies beyond and above
all material conditioning, except through the medium of matter, through
its f