Theology: The Central Question
Today I was reading some more of Jonathan Edwards’s “A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the Wold.” In it I read this statement in Chapter 1, Dictate 4, paragraph 38,
Hence it will follow, that the moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHIEFLY consists in a regard to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings; or, in other words, his holiness consists in this.
In essence, what the Puritan divine was saying is that God regards and respects himself more than anything else in heaven and on earth, and Edwards defines this regarding of himself more valuable than anything else and delighting in himself more than anything else as God’s holiness. My question is this, is Edwards right?
Or let me come at it another way. Is it right for God to delight in himself more than in any other creature? If we place our highest regard and deepest affections upon that which is most valuable; and God is infinitely worthy and is invaluable; then we should place our highest regards and deepest affections on and in God. But should God do that? Should he esteem himself as the most valuable treasure in all the universe? Or does he place his highest regard and deepest affections upon something else outside of him? Does that make that thing more valuable than God? To answer one way is to make theology theocentric to the extreme. To answer the another way is to take theology away from this radical theocentrism that view everything through the lens of God’s worth and value and honor and glory.
If he is to place his highest regard upon himself, what does that imply for how we understand life and Scripture and theology? If not, the same question, how does that impact our understanding of all things spiritual and how we live our lives and minister the gospel? Or even yet, does this question even need to be asked and answered?
If this post doesn’t keep you up tonight, like it will me as I wrestle with what Edwards said, then I don’t know what will. These are some of the weightiest matters to ask oneself if he or she is to call himself a Christian and/or a believer in God.
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Comments
If God loves perfectly, and the Father and Son and Holy Spirit love themselves perfectly, then why would God need to create something to love? He is loving perfectly and being loved perfectly within the Trinity. He has no needs outside of himself (or as Honzo put it, "them-self"). So why create if the love he gives and receives within himself is perfect? What more could he want if he is in a state of perfection?
Also, I really want to hear from all of the authors on this question to see where we all fit on this spectrum. I will tip my hand later as to where I officially stand.
Thats the thing, there is no need for him to do it - but He did it anyway. God does not just do what he needs to do, he does what they want to do.
[...] Came across this at Rose’s Reasonings via the Contemporary Calvinist. I thought it also pertained to Hank’s recent question about God. [...]
Hank,
I have to agree with Honzo… what's amazing to me is that God emptied himself and became a servant to the ones who were his enemies. If that doesn't show that he values us infinitely more than himself, I don't know what would.
And why does it have to be "all for his greater glory"? Could it not just be that he loves us? Sure, when we love someone really and truly, it makes us a better person. We do it because… well I'm not sure. I think just because love is our innate response to beauty as we see in other persons.
As for why would God create… well why not? Again, one of the byproducts of love is that it spills over into other place. Why would God's self-love not spill over into a created world full of beloved creatures who are capable of participating in and reciprocating that divine self-giving love?
God says in Jeremiah 9:24, "I am the LORD who practices steadfast love justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight." It makes him happy to practice steadfast love. So if God created man to sacrificially love him, as the "steadfast love" often implies, then isn't this emptying out of himself for the happiness of his creatures ultimately for his own joy? Or as Hebrews 12:2 said it, "Jesus…who for the joy set before him endured the cross." The same question, isn't Christ sacrificially loving his creatures with the end result being his own joy in it? I think this is how Edwards would argue this point of God's love–though I haven't finished the book yet. For his own joy that he has in loving the creation, God created and loved his creation. I think this is one manner in which Edwards arrived at the statement, "Hence, it will follow, that the moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHIEFLY consists in a regard to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings." He did what you guys are talking about for his own sake as the final end.
Honzo,
Having reread your post on man's worth, it seems that you are furthering Edwards's argument, unless I have misread you. God's glory is manifest in the greatness of his creation. Are you saying that creation should thus look upon its own greatness and realize the perfect Creator that created? If so, it seems that God made creation, he created, as great as he did so that his glory might be seen in it. This doesn't weaken but strengthen Edwards's argument, only it is through an anothorpocentric route instead of Edwards's theocentric route. Am I missing you here or did I get you right in that post? If I did, Edwards seems to be right in his reasoning: God regards himself as the chief end infinitely greater than all other beings.
If I were to take that interpretation, I think I would have to redefine perfect love away from the selflessness that Jesus talks about in John 15:9-17 to a self-serving love that only appears to be selfless, but in reality is only done because of selfish (self-based) reasons. In that passage in John that I referred to, Jesus seems to indicate that the selfless giving is the real definition of love.
I would postulate that the joys that God talks about in those verses are by-products of his selfless giving, instead of the motivations of his love. So in a way, it is a both/and with a primary motivation being selfless love.
To be honest, Edward’s answer screams “Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover.” Given some things that I know about Edwards, that would not surprise me, that he had that in the back of his mind as the best logical expression of God.
Hank,
My post was meant to help build/frame a proper view of mankind as a glorious, but fallen creature. It was meant to warn against having a too low view of humans. It is easy for me to focus on the despair of sin and come to think that I am actually without worth. What I am is in need of punishment. I am, as a creation of God, of immense worth. Just something of immense worth that needs to be punished for sinning against God.
I am not sure how exactly that leads to God being the sole purpose of God’s creation, but then again I am leaving in 2 minutes and I wont’ be back online until monday morning, so this is not completely thought out.
Also, to amend my previous comment, I think I was too jumpy with the need to redefine the love of God. I think having His pleasure as his chief aim moves God away from the definition of God as love. Again, gotta run, so please forgive my sloppiness.
I think Edwards would say that God making himself as the chief end in creation leads God to love selflessly. That God's "self-centeredness" is the very thing that leads him to be "selfless."
I think Edwards might also take you to Exodus 34:6-7 where God says that his name means he is the "steadfast love" that he delights to practice in Jeremiah 9:24. I would seem that Scripture here postulates that God is love, and that God delights in practicing that love that he is. Thus he is delighting in himself by loving Israel and reinstating the covenant with her after her idolatry in Exodus 32. Hence by delighting in himself, he practices those attributes that his is comprised. By displaying his attributes that he delights in, he loves his creation with a steadfast love. If he did not delight in himself, he would not practice those attributes, and thus he would not love his creation.
I would encourage you guys, when you get the chance, to read the context of the statement I posted so that you see the premise he deduces the quoted statement from. If God is worthy of all respect and admiration as the only being of infinite worth, Edwards says that all beings must respect and admire and treasure God, including God himself.
Is the delight the motivator or a consequence of some other motivator? I would argue that it is not the primary motivator, but a real consequence of another motivator.
If we are to mirror God’s love, should we love people because of what it does for us or because of their intrinsic worth?
I think Edwards might answer your questions in the previous comment like this. In 2 Corinthians 1:24 Paul says he labors for the joy of the Corinthians. Why? Paul answers this in 2 Corinthians 2:2, there would be no one to make him glad. He is loving and serving the Corinthians for his own joy and gladness. Again in 2 Corinthians 8:2, Paul praises the Macedonian churches saying, "for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." Again here joy is a primary motivator for their gift to the church in Jerusalem. If this mirrors God's love for others and they were moved out of and for their own joy, then God would move out of and for his own joy to love creation. This does not seem to show that love is because of someone's intrinsic worth but because of the person loving seeking his own joy in that love.
Also, Edwards might argue that we are first called to love God, then man. The greatest commandment, according to Christ, was Deuteronomy 6:5, that we love God with our hearts and minds and souls and strength. The second, Leviticus 19:18, is like the first, that we love others. Now if these commands to love mirror God's love, then God loves his name first and his creation second (I only say I think Edwards might say these things but I am not 100% certain because I've never met the man nor read everything that his pen has published).
In regards to 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:2, keep reading in verse 3 where Paul says, "And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all." Paul wrote to them previously so that when he came to them he might rejoice. And he desires to make his joy their joy. Paul's love for the Corinthian church was expressed through his joy. Again if this mirrors God's love, God is seeking his own joy.
Here is some more from Edwards. He likens God to a fountain infinitely full of goodness (i.e. love, mercy, holiness, righteousness, grace) that overflows. Or he likens God to the sun whose brightness is so full that it shines out from him (I would add that the sun is so hot that its heat radiates out from it). The streams that flow from the fountain or the beams that shine forth, the love the flows from God, are the same as the fountain or sun but yet different. The stream originates from the fountain and is of the same goodness, the beams originate from the sun and is of the same light, but the stream is not the fountain and the beam is not the sun (Click here and scroll down to point 4 at the bottom near pg. 100). Thus God has a natural disposition to communicate his perfections and goodness as the sun has a natural disposition to shine forth its light or an infinitely full fountain overflows. He thus implies that the creation was made to receive the communication of his attributes (i.e. love, mercy, holiness, righteousness, grace, justice). Thus God has made himself the ultimate end of creation. God created the universe so that he could communicate his glory, his perfections, his goodness, to the creation as is his natural disposition. Hence Romans 11:36, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." Or Colossians 1:16, "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him."
Edwards is careful to say that this is not out of a need or deficiency to communicate himself to creation but out of a disposition, it is who God is. The universe does not meet a need but rather is the way that God determined to communicate himself or emanate his glory ad extra. It was God's desire to create us to receive this love and mercy, ect. that overflowed from who he is.
Check out Edwards and see if this further enlightens you to his position in this conversation.
That sounds more like a pagan philosopher than what we learn from Jesus about God.
Furthermore, most of the connections you are making here about ends and means seems to be pulled out of context. I am leaving for my TA class now, so I’ll try to highlight some of them this evening.
Big statement. I eagerly await where either I have gone wrong in my reading of Edwards or of the texts cited. I will say, I spent four hours last Friday reading these paragraphs over and over trying to get my head around what Edwards has said. If I got him wrong, that's gonna stink. :(
I did use the word "likens" and not "equates." Neither I nor Edwards are equating God to the sun or some fountain but rather trying to use them as analogies and illustrations. I just hope that might clarify the "pagan philosopher" statement.
This is a bit off topic, but just for the above discussion. I think that from our perspective, the central theological question is - what is this God-thing and how do we approach/interact with it? Closely related to this question is a follow-up to the first, namely, now we know how to interact with this god-thing, how does this spill into other areas of my/our live/s?
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Hank,
First, great question man. This is indeed a central question in the pursuit of theology!
While God is that which has the highest value in the universe, I don’t know that it necessarily follows that God must hold himself up as the chief end. He most certainly can, but one of the most amazing things about God, as revealed in the character of Jesus, is its selfless love for the things lesser than it. That is a great mystery and one we are called to emulate.
This is one of the fundamental ideas to my system of theology. While God is ultimate end of the universe, that isn’t the whole story. God apparently wanted more than just them-self (trinity) to relate to (don’t hinge criticism on the world relate, I am no Hegelian). God’s unnecessary love for that which it outside him, think not only lead him/them to create, but also to love that creation more than they loved himself.
It is a case of both/and, instead of either/or. God did something he did not have to.
It does inform my theology. It gives the principle weight to God and at the same time it incorporates God’s high view of human (and the rest of creation’s) worth.