This task is, thus, the deduction of the conditional from the unconditional; the deduction of what by itself ought not to be from the unconditional norm, the deduction of the accidental reality from the absolute idea, of the natural world of phenomena from the world of the divine essence.

This deduction would he an impossible task if between the two opposite terms, one of which must be deduced from the other, i.e., from its opposite, there would not be a bond, belonging equally to one and to the other sphere, and therefore serving as a transition between them. This uniting link between the divine and natural worlds is man.

Man combines in himself all possible opposites which can all be reduced to one great polarity between the unconditional and the conditional, between the absolute and eternal essence and the transitory phenomenon or appearance. Man is at once divinity and nothingness.

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If in the divine being, in Christ, the first or the producing unity is properly the Divinity—God, as the acting force, or Logos—and if, thus, in this first unity we have Christ as the divine being proper; then the second unity, the produced one, to which we have given the mystical name of Sophia, is the principle of humanity, is the ideal or normal man. And Christ, as participant in this unity of the human being, is a man, or to use the expression of the Holy Scripture, the second Adam.

Thus, Sophia is the ideal or perfect humanity, eternally contained in the integral divine being Christ. Since it is indubitable that God, in order to exist actually and really must manifest Himself, His being, i.e., must act in the 'other' [in that which is not He], the existence of this 'other' [this antipode] is thereby established as necessary; and, since in speaking of God we cannot have in mind any form of time, because all that is said about God presumes eternity, then the existence of this 'other', in relation to which God is manifested, must necessarily be acknowledged as eternal. This 'other' is not unconditionally alien to God (that is unthinkable), but is [rather] His own expression or manifestation; and it is in regard to this antipode of His that God is called the Word.

But this unfolding or the inner revelation of Divinity, and consequently also the distinction of God as Logos from God as the primordial substance for the Father, this revelation and this distinction necessarily presupposes that in which Divinity is revealed, or in which it acts, and which in the first (in the Father) exists substantially, or in a latent form, and is manifested through the second (i.e., through Logos).

Consequently, in order that God exist eternally as Logos, or as the active God., it is necessary to assume the eternal existence Of real elements which receive [as objects of it] the divine action; it is necessary to assume the existence of the world as subject to divine action, as giving in itself place to divine unity. The proper unity of that world, i.e., the produced unity—the world's centre and at the same time the circumference of Divinity—is humanity. Every actuality presupposes action, and every action presupposes a real object of [that] action:—a subject which receives that action; consequently, the actuality of God, based upon the action of God, presupposes a subject receiving this action, presupposes man—and presupposes him eternally, since the action of God is eternal. This [proposition] may not be countered [with a statement] that God already has such an eternal object for [His] action, in Logos; for Logos is the same God made manifest, and manifestation presupposes that 'other' for which or in relation to which God is manifested, i.e., presupposes man.