Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us as your people. We thank you, Lord, mostly for the gift of your Son. We thank you, Father, for the reality that whatever we are, we are in Jesus. That He is the mirror of our election, and He is the very embodiment of your character, your nature, your essence in history, and in the world. We pray now that as we turn our attention again this evening to your character, and to the doctrine of the Trinity, that we would do so faithfully, that we would do so seeking to be biblical in all things. And thank you for all you have given us this day, for it is in Jesus and we pray. Amen. First thing we want to take up this evening is the issue of divine attributes. We've said quite a bit about divine attributes over the last couple of weeks, but we want to return to it here, and I want to do so for a number of reasons. First of all, as I put your out in your note there, the expectations of the Christian community. If you're going to study the doctrine of God, people expect that you will study the divine attributes. It's just somewhat traditional, so we should return to this issue and do it a bit more systematically than we have already up to this point. Second reason. The act of attributing certain powers or capacities to God is not unbiblical. While knowing God is a matter of knowing Him as a personal actor, rather than as a static collection of attributes, this is not to say that God cannot be characterized as possessing attributes. He certainly can. Scriptural statements which come down to, you know, God is X and you can fill in the X are fairly easy to find. God is all powerful, God is all knowing, God is eternal, God is a person, those are easy to find. Third reason. Even though God voluntarily binds Himself to the covenant and His accommodated revelation. And even though He does that, such that we can't speak of Him outside of our standpoint in history, outside of our standpoint in the covenant, we need to remember that God is always more, more than our statements, more than, infinitely greater than His covenantal manifestation and a reflection upon the attributes. It gives us an opportunity to confess that. Even if we can't rationally unpack it all, it gives us an opportunity to confess that God transcends even His covenant manifestation. Should we classify the attributes, let's move on to B in your outline here. Over the years, it's been common to classify, to put God's attributes into different schemes of classification. And there have been a couple of different ways of getting at this. One popular one traditionally is to make the distinction between communicable and incommunicable attributes. According to this taxonomy, a distinction is made between those attributes, which God in some ways shares with human beings, those would be called communicable attributes, and those which are unique qualities to God alone, and those would be incommunicable attributes. A second way of classifying God's attributes is by way of making the distinction between metaphysical and relational attributes, or what are sometimes called natural and moral attributes. According to this way of organizing things, those qualities which adhere to God's essence, which pertain to Him as He is in and of Himself are understood as metaphysical or natural attributes. However, those which characterize His relationship with the world, with creation are understood as relational or moral attributes. Now I'm not sure that either of these or any other method of classification, quite frankly, compels allegiance or needs to, and recently people have suggested some other classifications. Emilar Derrickson has suggested a classification of attributes of greatness and attributes of goodness, and the work of Lewis and Demerist has put forth a five-fold classification system, attributes of intellect, ethics, emotion, volition, and relationship. These recent classifications demonstrate that the older traditional systems have not been compelling and perhaps are unnecessary. Fact is, I see no reason to work with a classification system at all. Scripture does not do it, and any classification system has its shortcomings. You see, any form of classification will invite, even unintentionally, some kind of mental distinction within God, such that some attribute or collection of attributes is understood as being unrelated to others, or that some attribute or collection of attributes is somehow understood as being superior to others, or more essential or more necessary to who God really is. I think here what we need is just a little common sense. If we confess that human beings are in some sense unitary creatures, that the things that we are and do come from the entirety of what we are, then we should confess the same about God. We function as holes. Also, before we get to our list, I want to emphasize the fact that our list is just that. It's a tally, it's a list of capacities or characteristics which Scripture speaks of God as having. We'll not attempt to order them, and we will not attempt to argue that one attribute or some group of attributes is more fundamental than others. One last thing before we get into the issue, and simply this. We need to say something here about philosophy one more time. Philosophical theology has done much with the notion of divine attributes, both identifying them and in seeking to understand them in terms of their inner relationships. We want to be very careful here and follow Scripture. We do not want to follow a philosophically speculative agenda. It seems to me that the second commandment demands that our understanding of God be derived from him rather than our own minds, and see Exodus, chapter 20, verses 4 through 6, and Deuteronomy 5, verses 8 through 10 here. It's always the case, I think, that theology must be aware of aligning itself too closely with any philosophical system, or with the dictates of human reason. Philosophical concepts can serve the gospel, but they must not be allowed to force the gospel into their conceptual mold. We can, and sometimes we must, prevail ourselves of philosophical concepts, and that's certainly true at some points in our reflection upon God. We're going to see that when we turn to the issue of the Trinity. However, we must not let those concepts rule our thinking. Donald Blesch put it this way, I'm going to quote him here, quote, as Christians, we should not use biblical images to illustrate and support a philosophical vision, but we may use philosophical concepts to clarify a biblical vision. End quote. We just want to make sure which is the tale and which is the dog. Well, Roman numeral 2, a summary of the divine attributes. And this is where we're going to spend our time here. And even before we begin, we're going to cover some things we've covered before. I'm just going to do those a little bit more systematically. I'll give you some text that you have in front of you there on your handouts, your outline. Some things, some of the attributes we'll speak to will have much more to say than others. So there's not going to be any kind of particular balance here. Some will just say we'll deal with a bit more in a different context. Others will say a little bit and some others will say much more about. First of all, when we've already talked about God as a person, God as a person. This is where we want to start. We might actually talk about all these attributes as the attributes of his person. If we recall, without the fact that God is a person, anything else we say about God, is simply a formal statement. What is a person, a self-conscious being, see how you do have to use some philosophical concepts, one who is capable of willing, feeling, and choosing, one who is able to enter into reciprocal relationships. That is to say he writes two persons and he relates to persons as a person. Scriptural support, how can we possibly get to the idea that God is a person? We'll deal with this a bit more. We look at the Trinity, but here we can say that, well, God is a name. Exodus 3, 14. He engages in activity and reciprocal relationships. See, Genesis 1, Genesis 3, and Matthew 3. And these are just illustrative. And he can be prayed to Matthew 6, 9. What are the implications of God's personhood? Our relationship with him is a personal moral relationship. We might speak up rightly so, our relationship with God being an obligatory relationship, a contractual relationship, their aspects of those things, a legal relationship, but first and foremost, it is a personal relationship. And all personal relationships are also moral relationships. All relationships between persons have moral expectations. Second, we can pray to him. It's the very fact that God's a person is the foundation of our prayer. Second, in our list, or be, God is a spirit. Again, so, nothing we've talked about before. Well, we asked what is a person? Well, what's a spirit? Well, let's see, a philosophical definition. One from Aristotle would be a rarefied, incorporeal substance. I don't know what that means either. The fact is, the only way we can get at what a spirit is is by negation. A spirit does not have a body. No where in scripture do we get a nice definition of a spirit. We can't analyze a spirit the way we can atoms or wood or anything else. What we can say is that God is not composed of matter. He does not have a physical nature. He is invisible. I see the scriptural support there. I'm not going to read the text that I have printed for you on the page. I draw your attention to John 424, which says it most crisply. God is a spirit. Implications. God is not limited by bodily or physical reality. Second, he's not susceptible to physical limitations or death. And third, scripture uses a number of different ways of talking about God. And through pulmorphisms, analogies, metaphors, we will have to know God through his self-disclosure. See, God is sovereign over all things. Now, sovereign take its use in many, many different ways. And I'm sure I use it in many, many different ways. All I mean here by saying that God is sovereign is this. God is not dependent upon anything else. His life is not dependent upon his creation. He is the source of all living things. And again, scriptural support there. Exist 3, Jeremiah 10, and so forth. Implications. God does not derive his life from any other source. Sometimes this is called assayate. Simply a way of saying that God is independent. He is non-relative. He is non-contingent. We are relative creatures. We are contingent creatures. This is not the case with God. He does not depend upon his creation. The fact that God is sovereign also means that he has the right to command obedience from his creatures. Deem. God is transcendent. Now we've addressed transcendence a number of times. And we've noted that the leading idea is that God and his creation are never to be confused with one another. The word transcendence simply means to stand above. Although the term is extrabiblical, it does capture the idea that God is the high and lifted up one. The one whom the earth cannot contain. For example, Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9 tells us that God's thoughts and ways transcend those of humans. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. It declares Yahweh. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts, higher than your thoughts. This notion of height of being high and lifted up is often gotten at in scripture by associating God with heaven. The skies above which are too high for any man to reach. In fact, oftentimes in scripture the word heaven doesn't designate a place necessarily and angelic abode or the locale of the divine throne so much as it's a metaphor for divine transcendence. For the fact that God is different, that He is separate from us. Very common, you'll read the phrase, a voice came from heaven. It's a frequent device used to introduce divine speech. And the idea is that while the voice of God is heard, the source of the communication is, here's the key term, not here. You know, a voice came from heaven. You're looking all over, right? You're looking every place but here. And this leads us to misunderstandings of transcendence. The biblical language of height and God as residing in heaven suggests a spatial understanding of transcendence. God stands above this place. God is out there somewhere rather than here. In Psalm 113, verses 5 and 6, the Psalmist writes, who is like the Lord our God, the one who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth. But that's not to say that God is absent. Simply because we're saying God is not here. We're not saying He's absent. Does that make sense? Hang on. While God is other than creation, He's always close to it. Isaiah 57, verse 15, expresses both God's transcendence and His nearness. Listen to Isaiah. For this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high place but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. And Ephesians 4.6, in that text Paul says this, there is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. So while God is above, while He's other than us, he is always near. In fact, one way the Christian tradition has gotten at this, is to say that God is omnipresent. God is omnipresent. He is never absent from any place in His creation. Even though He cannot be confused with any place in His creation. We think here of David's words in Psalm 139, verses 7 through 11. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you're there. If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light to become night around me, even the darkness won't be dark to you. The night will shine like day. For darkness is as light to you. For David, God's pervasive presence was a comfort. But to the center, it's a threat. Thus, Amos speaks of the evil doer who seeks to hide from the Lord but to no avail. Second misunderstanding here, we should note that God's transcendence does not entail the notion that God and His creation are to be distinguished in such a way that no possible contact is available between them. We've talked about this idea a bit before. The doctrine of providence, which we'll look at later, holds that God actively governs His creation. In such a way that His creation is never independent of Him. In fact, God's creation requires His continual and personal application of His fatherly, kingly power. Further, the biblical understanding of revelation is that something of God can be known by His creation in that God can manifest His person and His will in particular events and places. The incarnation makes it clear that God can and does enter into the world. John 1 verses 14 and 18 tell us that the word became flesh in such a way that Jesus of Nazareth demonstrates God's very person to the world. And this is precisely why it's helpful to think in terms of a spatial difference when it comes to transcendence. People may times say, you know, those kind of spatial metaphors aren't helpful. I think they are. I think we need them in certain places. I think it's helpful to think of transcendence in terms of the classical spatial distinction. God cannot be confused with this location or that location or any other place. He's always distinct, but He can as He wills become localized. This model, God is other than can't be confused with yet can enter into. It's going to be very helpful for us when we look at the issue of time. So just remember this model. Well, some consequences here for transcendence.
Cantheism, thinking of some aspect of creation as divine, whether it's trees or the stars or whatever is disallowed. And second, worshipping some aspect of creation, some item within creation, an idol is also disallowed. E. God is holy. Many of the texts that speak of God's transcendence also speak of the fact that He is the holy one. Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1 through 6 are a good example here. That's verses 1 through 7, excuse me. God is not only ontologically different from His creation, but given the historical reality of sin, He is also morally distinct from His creation.
Holiness is a term in Scripture which carries the idea of being free from moral corruption. As such, God's Holiness conveys the truth that not only is He free from sin, but that He hates sin, that His word is the standard of truth. You see there at the biblical support. But I have to admit here, I have a wee bit of a problem with the notion of Holiness, but I think all fallen human beings have a lot of problems with the notion of Holiness. But theologically or systematically, it's this. I don't like having to talk about an attribute of God and the negative of His being sinless. I think we should also be able to talk about God's Holiness more positively. It is not just an absence of impurity. We need to understand that God's Holiness is His positive moral perfection. Thus God's Holiness includes His inherent truthfulness in all His words. He is inherent faithfulness in all His ways and the inherent righteousness of all His judgments. God is truthful in what He says. He can't lie. His word is the standard of truth and He can be relied upon to keep His promises. He's faithful in His ways. He's consistent in His ways, in His character. He's not capricious and He can be relied upon. And finally, He is righteous in all His judgments. Something that Scripture will come back to over and over again. And you see Psalm 147, Genesis 18 and Romans 3 there in front of you. F. God is constant in His person. This is really an extension of the idea of divine faithfulness. The philosophical idea is that God is immutable. Is that word on your outline? Immutable? Okay. As the idea came from Plato, God is the locus of all perfection. He is Himself a perfect being. Now change would mean moving from one state to another. Either you were perfect and move now to a state of imperfection or you were imperfect and you moved toward a state of perfection. Since both of these are impossible, God must be unchanging. God must be immutable. Well, let's look at a little text here. Take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Psalms.
Psalm 102, I want to read verses 25 through 27. In the beginning, you like the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like clothing. You will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same. And your years will never end. You can see Malachi 36 and James 117 as well. Reason I wanted to read at least one text here is that when we look at the biblical materials, those texts that are usually put forward as proof texts for immutability, we find that the philosophical idea does not really appear to be part of the biblical concern. The concern of these texts is not whether God's nature or essence is capable of changing. The concern of these texts is, can you be relied upon Lord? Now, having said that, we should also point out that asking philosophical questions of the text, such as, can God's nature change? Asking those kinds of questions is not illegitimate. Asking those kinds of questions does have its place. But we need to realize that such questions are usually not the direct biblical concern. Such propositions as God is constant in His nature and therefore may be called immutable, may be a legitimate philosophical deduction from the biblical witness of God's faithfulness. But when we concentrate solely or even primarily upon the philosophical question, we run the risk of missing the biblical point. That's why I'm doing this now. Far too often, when people talk about God's attributes, we end up in philosophical discussions, and we miss the very point of the biblical text. The contemporary Christian philosopher, Steve Davis, suggests that the classical doctrine of immutability arose in order to protect the belief in a God who is faithful in His ways, in a God who keeps His promises, in a God who doesn't act arbitrarily, in a God who's not capricious. I think that's right. And it comes a whole lot closer to the concerns of the biblical writers than does the mere philosophical question of immutability. We need to keep the biblical point in view, God's not arbitrary, He's consistent, He's faithful, both in His ways and His person. For recall last week, I mentioned that in about one sentence, Bray in the textbook said just about all that's necessary to say on this very issue. If Abraham were here with us today, he would recognize the God we worship as his God. We need to realize here that sometimes the philosophical questions applied to the attributes of God have caused more problems than they've provided answers. In fact, philosophy has led theology down some unproductive paths here. For instance, the static unchanging God of the philosophers, with this whole thing of God can't change, has led some to push it so far so say that God is impassible. He has no, literally no passions, but no dispositions, no emotional states. He's incapable of feeling emotion. Love, hate, joy, displeasure, changing your emotional state from one of those to another. For some philosophers, they would say that constitutes some kind of change since God is immutable, God must also be impassible. The biblical reality is that scripture shows God as evidencing just those emotions and many more besides. I'm going to suggest this, rather than thinking of God as an unmoved mover, a static being, we would do better. To think of his, him as dynamically acting in the world, yet stable in his nature. God can dynamically engage creation, personally engage us and not lose himself in the process, not be threatened by us in the process. Performing different actions at different times is not an indication of change in a person. Human beings do different things at different times in different situations, yet without being thought of as having changed. It's only when a person acts in ways they're inconsistent with their nature. When they act so differently that the whole pattern, the whole tenor of their lives appears to be changed that we say if they have changed. Gee, God's all powerful. Another one that we've talked about before. And here I'm going to split our discussion into first the Old Testament and then the New Testament. When God comes to Abraham in Genesis 171, he identifies himself there by the divine name L should I, God Almighty. The occasion here, if you recall, was God's promise that Sarah would bear a child. Now at this point, Abraham is one hundred years old and Sarah is 90. So the promise of childbearing is a breathtaking one. Sarah had been able to conceive over all those years in which she tried to conceive during her childbearing years and now she is way past those years. And it's been since, it's been some 25 years since God first promised Abraham and Sarah descendants. And the promise is getting a little long in the tooth. It got so old, it got so bothersome that if you recall, they tried to give God a little help here with Hagar and the birth of Ishmael. So when God approaches Abraham at the age of 100 and tells him that he's going to be a father, Abraham is a little doubtful. He laughs at God's suggestion. God again repeats the promise. I'm looking here at 1719. When Sarah heard the news, she also laughed at the idea that at this late stage in her life, she's going to be a mother. And then God said this to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh and say, well, I really have a child now that I'm old and then his next word makes the point. Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son. That's 18 versus 13 and 14. The point is nothing is beyond God's ability. Nothing is beyond his power. Jeremiah 32 is a special interest pertaining to this divine name, El Shudai. The context here is the fall of the city of Babylon. In verse 17, Jeremiah says this, oh, sovereign Yahweh, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. God's power is also related to his mighty deeds by which he brought Israel out of Egypt. See that in verses 20 and 22. Thus his power extends along to creation but to history as well. And as the text proceeds there, Yahweh will even judge his elected people Israel by the use of a pagan people, Babylon. I am Yahweh that God of all mankind is anything too hard for me. What we also see in the Old Testament is that it's very common to see attributions of great power to God. Job 42, verse 2, I know that you can do all things. No plan of yours can be ported. We should also mention here in the book of Job that the term El Shudai is that divine name is very, very common in the book. It appears no less than 31 times in the book of Job. God has the ability, the right to act with power. No obstacle can prevent God from reaching his goal, from achieving what he perps us to do. We also have some 115 verse 3 here. Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases him. Notice there a statement of transcendence together with God's power. The New Testament equivalent to Shudai is Panto Crato, a term we've talked about before. Could be translated in English as all powerful, perhaps even better, all governing. It appears 10 times in the New Testament. Along with 2 Corinthians 6, 18, it appears 9 times in the book of Revelation. And it's usually, it emphasizes God's lordship over historical events. Revelation 1, verse 8, is representative here. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, the Panto Crato. Well, like the Old Testament, the Old Testament can also simply make statements of great power, attributing power to God. There are many of these in New Testament. Good example here is the story of the rich, the rich young ruler who came to Jesus. And if you recall, he was told to sell everything that he owned and give it to the poor. And then to come back and follow Jesus. But as the story proceeds, the young man went away sad. Jesus then gave his teaching about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And of course, the disciples upon hearing that say, well, then who can make it? You know, Jesus, you've just made it so hard that no one can do it. And his reply gets right to the point. With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. Interesting statement here about election as well. Matthew 1926. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 19, we find this statement by Paul. He is incomparably great power for us who believe that power is like the working of his mighty strength. We can't measure God's power. And we should not miss Romans 8, verses 38 and 39 here. Paul speaks of the inability of any supposed, any alleged source of power to separate us, God's people from his love. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the future, which would be neither the present or future, neither any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in operation will be able to separate us from a level Christ that is in Christ. Jesus our Lord. We've noted the problems that attend to an abstract notion of omnipotence. So I'm not going to repeat any of that here. Suffice it to say that the point of God's power is that he has sufficient resources. He has sufficient power to bring to realization everything he promises to do. That's the ground of our comfort. That's the ground of our of our reliance. God can keep his word. He can keep his promise. H, God's eternal. What we mean we say that God's eternal is that he is infinite in respect to time. There are no limitations in terms of God's relationship to time. He is the sovereign Lord over time in terms of scriptural support. So I'm 90, about 102, 93, Isaiah 40, important text, 1 Timothy 1, 2 Peter 3. It's probably the case that almost all theologians would in some sense want to affirm that God is eternal. By this we mean that God has always existed and that he will never come to an end. But when we ask what that means, that's when the theological arguments start. There are really two major views here of divine eternity. And on the face of it, these two views are mutually exclusive. We may call them autemporalism and temporalism. Or we can give them a little bit different words here. Autemporal eternality and endless temporality. Let's look at both of these very quickly. First of all, the autemporous view. It's one that has a very, very long history in the church. It was held by such ancient theologians as Buitheus, Athanasius, Augustin, Enselm, Aquinas. This position holds that God is completely and utterly outside of time. Time in no sense applies to God. God holds all of his own existence in one timeless, I was going to say moment, one timeless point. There's no sequence, there's no before, there's no after. Further, he holds all of human history in one simultaneous glance. He knows the future and he knows the past exactly as he knows the present. They are essentially no different for him. The autemporous view holds that there are really two separate modes of existence. Time and eternity. Man exists in time but God exists in eternity. This means that since God exists outside of time, since he exists in eternity, temporal statements are irrelevant to him. Okay? Does it make sense, guys? I don't know, shake it and head down. I'm not sure it makes sense to me, but we'll get second view. The temporal view. This position holds that time does apply to God, just as it applies to us. There is sequence within God. There is before and after. He's aware of the sequence of events. He knows the present and he knows the future, but he doesn't know the present or the future in exactly the same way that he knows the present. God remembers the past and he anticipates the future. Now the real force or power for this position derives from the fact that timeless eternity is incoherent for human beings. We can talk about it, but we can't understand what we've said, actually we've said it. In fact, most of the arguments for the temporalist position are really arguments against a temporalism. Let me give you some examples of some of these arguments. The temporalist will argue that odd temporalism really makes it impossible for God to work in the world. You see, the world that we live in is time bound, but if God is an eternity, he can't work here. If temporal statements have no relationship to him and for him, he can't work here. The claim that a timeless God works in time is by definition absurd. If God works in time, he must be in time. Second, the notion of a timeless person is also in coherent. A person in order to be a person must be able to remember, anticipate, reflect, deliberate, intend, so on and so forth. All these are time bound events. But beyond that, there are things that take time. There's a certain amount of duration. It takes time to remember something. It takes time to deliberate something. These are actions that, by their very nature, are subject to temporal succession, duration, extension, relationship. Third, this one's a bit more positive. Oscar Coulmond, 1960, in his book Christ in Time, argued that the idea of timelessness is not a biblical concept at all. It's rather an improper import from Greek philosophy. The Bible knows nothing of a time and eternity distinction at all. What the Bible actually articulates is a distinction between limited time, our time, and God's unlimited time. We might even call it our timeliness and God's time fullness. For example, when Scripture speaks of God as being eternal, it does not say timeless. What is translated as eternal is in Greek a phrase which might better be translated into the ages of the ages, or sometimes it appears as the ages. Our English word forever might actually be a better choice. If we're raised, we have a beginning point and we go on forever, then what's being suggested here is that God is a line. He has always existed. He will always exist. He is not a point. We might take these two traditions and categorize them this way. This is the odd temporalist position. Time is irrelevant to God. This is the temporalist position. That time is that God is in time. Robin, I'm not done yet, but you might go ahead. Okay. So I may cut you off. Does that make sense? I may answer your question for you to get there. The odd temporalist responds here. But haven't you just made God a creature of time? The temporalist position misses the important biblical fact that time is a creature of God. God is not a creature of time. Time is a created reality. As an essential feature of a created universe, time came into being, along with matter at creation. And God existed before creation,
and therefore God is independent of time. Well, let's see if we can resolve this. If you read Braised Treatment on time, you probably are more confused now about time than you were before you read Braised Treatment on time. Philosophical and theological reflections on time have proven to be very complex, very convoluted creatures. Perhaps both of these positions are speaking some truth. Perhaps both of them are partly right. I think the odd temporalist position is right in saying that God is the sovereign Lord over time. That he's not a constituent of the created order.
But the temporalist is also right in saying that God acts in time. And we template bound creatures always experience God in time. I think we can confess God outside of time. That's all we can do. We can't follow him there. We can't speak knowingly, rationally, coherently about God outside of our space time frame. So rather than lacking locking God up in either a timeless eternity, which is really beyond our understanding, I think we'd be better to get the aside of it. Rather than locking God up either in a timeless eternity or making the creature of time, I think we'd be better off to think of God as somehow beyond time yet working in it. What I'd like to suggest here is that God's relationship to time parallels his relationship to space. Time and space are usually thought of as the two fundamentally distinguishing characteristics of the universe, even at the level of physics. When we talked about transcendence, we didn't seem to have any problem whatsoever in thinking of God as being different from us, yet also fully capable of coming close to us. God's relationship to space is that he is not in any sense spatial. He's not located at one moment, one point or another. He doesn't occupy any extension spatially, but he can reveal himself in space. I think the same thing is true regarding time. We should think of God's relationship to time on the same model. God is not located in time. He does not have temporal location. He says much outside of time as he is outside of space, yet he can enter into temporality in the same way that he enters into space. I don't have my glasses on. I have no idea what's on this page for me. Oh, okay. L, L, is L next? Oh, I, okay. Oh yeah, I. God knows all stuff. He is all wise.
The Christian tradition has always affirmed the thesis that God knows all things, including us, that he knows all things exhaustively. He knows all things accurately. Thus we often speak of God as being omniscient. Is that term on your? Okay. The doctrine of divine omniscience is important for us. It's important for prayer. Christians regularly pray for God to intervene in certain situations in life. We also pray that God will guide our lives. Both types of requests, however, assume God's knowledge. In order for God to intervene in our lives, we're assuming that he knows what's best for us. In order for God to guide us, we're assuming that he knows the ends he intends for us. We assume throughout that he knows what's good and what the future will be.
Further, trusting God's guidance, the conduct of our personal affairs assumes that he truly even meticulously knows us and knows what's good for us. Now, the fact is there's a lot of biblical materials that address the nature and extent of God's knowledge. I've divided some of this before you here. And we want to spend a little bit of time here because the issue of God's knowledge has been a particular problem in modern theology. First of all, God's knowledge compared to that of humans. Isaiah 55 verse 9, for example, says this, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts. The near thoughts, we've read that text or something similar like a number of times now. God's knowledge is vastly superior to our knowledge, so much so that we dare not even compare the two. We can't project from things that we know to the things that God knows. Second, God's knowledge of us. We've read Psalm 139 verses 1 through 5 before. Just remind ourselves here. In that text, David says, even before I speak a word, you already know it. And his point there is that God knows him meticulously. David's got no secrets. He's got no hiding places. He's got no special pocket that Lord doesn't know about. Third, the greatness or the extent of God's knowledge, Job 37 16, for he viewed the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. Again, there's no place to hide. And God's knowledge of the future. Turn in your bibles if you will to Isaiah 46 verse 9 through 12. 9 and 10 was read. Remember the former things those along ago. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. God's knowledge, particularly God's knowledge of the future is a hotly debated topic today, even among conservative evangelical circles. In the book, the openness of God written by Clark Pinnock and a number of other scholars, all some about four years ago now, the author's argued that if God knows the future perfectly, then the future is predetermined and predetermined in such a way that it removes all human freedom and responsibility. The authors believe that God's knowledge of the future and human freedom are incompatible. And since our common sense tells us that we're free, then God can't know the future question. We'll get there. But they're right. We'll see that. But what these writers do is they fail to come to terms with the considerable amount of biblical material that affirm both God's knowledge of the future, even his four ordination of the future. And the fact that humans are responsible for their actions. I'm just going to give you a list of texts here. I don't remember if I had these written down or not. Oh, they are there. Okay, I won't bother reading them off. But I want you to notice there's a whole bunch of them. Now we could just leave it here. We could just say, the Bible says that God knows everything and the Bible says that we're responsible for what we do. And we could just leave it there as a kind of unresolved tension, a paradox, and an enemy. We could throw a lot of fancy philosophical language at this thing. God has absolute foreknowledge, yet man is a free moral agent. The Bible, however, doesn't seem to suggest that there's any paradox here. The Bible doesn't seem to suggest there's any tension here. While there are aspects of this issue that are beyond our understanding, I think we can offer some things that can help us get some biblical reality right here. First of all, the nature of freedom. We need to realize that the Bible is not a firm freedom as we in the modern West think of freedom. Scripture when it talks about freedom means the liberty to conform to God's will for us. Do you hear that? It doesn't mean an unrestricted idea to do whatever you want. What the Bible means by true liberty is the ability to conform to God's will. But even without that, I think, wonderful biblical notion of freedom, we need to realize that there are problems with our common sense libertarian notion of freedom. We unreflectively hold to this idea that we are free to do whatever we choose, whatever we please. But if we reflect upon it, we see there are some problems with it. Very typically we think of freedom as the power to choose to perform or choose not to perform some action. Action A. In such a way that both A and not A could occur, which will actually happen is not yet determined. And it will be determined only by my unconstrained choice. So real freedom for us in the West means I can do A or not A. There's no reason that I can choose that I should choose one or the other. I'm free to do one or the other. Now that's an unreflective, intuitive notion of freedom. But it shouldn't take too much to realize that my ability to do A or not A, I'll say play the violin. Bench press three hundred pounds. Become a US center. Grow hair. All of these things are going to be restricted. They're going to be informed by having the requisite power, skill, opportunity, practical knowledge, determination, and any other number of physical, historical capacities and limitations. The fact is this, the ability to do A or not do A is bounded by all sorts of qualifications. If I ask Robin to come up here, he could do that, but he couldn't fly up here. He couldn't float up here. He only has a certain number of options of how he will locomotive from where he's at to here. Freedom in other words can never be understood as pure spontaneity can never be understood as random choice. The fact is our unreflective notion of freedom in the West is terribly imprecise. We sometimes speak as if the will has the right to randomly act, to randomly choose, kind of willy-nilly without pattern. But in practice, it actually appears that a human will is not so random and not so chance in nature. There's considerable evidence, after all, that humans act according to their characters. We all have lack of veteran natures, patterns of behavior, collections of conditioned responses, call them what you will, and we act according to those. There's also evidence that much of our behavior, much of our actions are determined by heredity. Studies that have been done with identical twins who have been separated at birth, or close to birth, have shown amazing similarities. Similarities in personal taste, the type of people they marry, even the names they give their children. Further, there's considerable predictability about human behavior. We've all learned that we anticipate with a fairly high degree of certainty how a close friend or a loved one will act in any given situation. I just know what my wife will say if I do X. And anyone who's worked professionally in the management of people knows that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. It appears then that there are limitations, or at least circumscriptions on an absolutely free, spontaneous idea of liberty of freedom.
Now that might seem confrater intuitions. We feel like we're free, but the fact is many things that are counterintuitive are true. It's counterintuitive to say that the earth rises rather than the sun rises. What the fact of the matter is, the sun doesn't rise, the earth rises. So we might better speak of freedom. Even apart from the biblical definition again, we might better speak of it as liberty to act in accordance with one's nature. But the second thing we can say here, or we can address the issue of God's relationship to man regarding human freedom and responsibility. I believe that God's
knowledge of the future and our moral agency and responsibility are not incompatible. And thus the position I'm holding here is called compatibleism. Our free moral agency and God's sovereignty are compatible. And again, I'm taking this position because scripture fails to see a problem here. Many times, it's interesting. We have these deep philosophical problems. And every semester, this question has addressed me at least 10 times. That's conservative statement. But it's interesting. Scripture just blows it off, doesn't it? It doesn't see a problem here. That may suggest that this is an artificial, artificially philosophically created problem. Let's see. God works in a number of ways to bring about His will by rendering certain what I will freely choose. Now when you first hear that, you have problems with it. Let me say again, God works in numerous ways to bring about His will by rendering certain what I and each individual will freely choose what He has already ordained. No, God has not for a day that I will. No, I will. God works in a number of ways to make it certain that I will freely choose what He has already ordained that I will. No, God has a number of ways in my life to make sure that I will do what He wants. He chose where I was born. He chose the parents I would have. He chose the people who would come into my life in significant ways. He chose the countless number of experiences and places and all the rest that have made me the person that I am and that have made the free choices that I freely make.
Now, you may be asking yourself here. I'm going to just a little parenthesis, but you may be asking yourself, how do we get from God's knowledge of the future to where we're at? Because we just, we started talking about God's knowledge of stuff and suddenly we're at four ordinations. You all noticed that? I hope you did. It was intentional in my part. Surely there's a difference between God's determining of the future and merely His knowing it, isn't there? No, there's not. Biblically, there's not. In fact, merely knowing the future is, at least from a theological point of view, irrelevant. Let me say it again. God's mere knowledge of the future in terms of a pre-cognition is theologically irrelevant. When Scripture affirms that God knows what the future will be, it means nothing less than that He has decided, ordered, or damed the future. God's knowledge of the future means that the future is sure. If that weren't the case, that He knows the future in the sense that it's sure, no one would care if God knew the future or not. That makes sense? And I know I'm kind of arguing with the Armenian tradition here, but that tradition will affirm just as strongly as I will, that God knows the future. Why do you care? If it's not that He secures the future, that He promises the future, it really doesn't matter if God knows or not. So I agree with Pinnick, that God's knowing the future makes the future absolutely certain. However, it's essential to recognize that God simply doesn't foreordain the ends without also foreordaining the means to the ends. What I want to reject here is fatalism. Fatalism is the view that God just ordains the end, so we're all like puppets going around like this, but He also works through the means and ordains, the means as well. It's not the case that things are going to work out for me, how they're going to work out for me no matter what I do. It's not the case that I'm not responsible to lift my hand in the morning to get my clothes on. They're just going to jump on. That's not going to happen. Now to some people, what I call this compatibles view is far too complex. Okay, you're telling me that God goes before you in such a way that you freely choose. He's so meticulously ordered things that you're going to choose the things that He wants you to choose. Oh, come on. You're going to tell me that God's handling all that for all the bazillions of people on the face of the earth. Think of all the circumstances that God must know, initiate, and control. But that is, that may not be nearly as difficult as we might first think. We now have computer programs that do exactly that. How were the Americans able to so handily defeat the Iraqis in the Gulf War? They had played the scenario out in computer in computer games with every possible variable and they were able to head them off. If people can do that, now I don't mean to suggest that God is merely a big computer, but the comparison does help us realize what variables can an infinite God handle and get the boat where he wants the boat to go. Hang on a second, I'm going to roll this to the discussion and take a break. Finally on this issue, let me say this, if we look at the problem of God's knowledge, His war or nation, our freedom and responsibility, as purely philosophical problems will tie ourselves in knots. You'll never get to the biblical answer that way. Let me put it in a different context. As a father, I seek to manage situations for my children. Even control them. And it doesn't matter whether it's getting my oldest to go back to college, which he's recently done, or getting my youngest to stop playing with guns and start playing with blocks, which he's nowhere near. Now, in both of those matters, it would be best if I could persuade my sons to get them to do that which I desire for them. I think that's that this model coming as it does from the way we actually experience reality is closer to the reality of God's sovereignty of our lives and the poor ordination and his poor ordination of the future, and that God's doing a lot of work all the time, convincing us. But of course, it's also the case that I sometimes dictate the situation to my kids. You must clean your room. You're not allowed to hit other children or say no to your mother. And sometimes I pick up my three-year-old when he's standing too close to the curb and I carry him to the house. And I don't ask him if he wants to go. You see, a certain level of determinism is good for us. A certain level of God simply saying, you're going to do what I tell you to is the best thing for us. And that too conforms to the biblical picture of God. What I'm suggesting here is that the biblical imagery that we talked about last week of God's Father, King, Husband, Shepherd ought to guide these questions. If God is a Father, how would a loving Father relate to his children? Wouldn't he seek to have all the knowledge that he can? Wouldn't he as a loving parent seek to control certain things? To know that he is the competent one and not them. Most of what we see as philosophical problems would be better served if we dealt with them as personal relational issues. Jay in our list here and it's related to what has just gone before is that God is just. God is just. Talking about God's knowledge of the future and noting that he ordains human events raises the question of God's relationship to sin. We'll talk more about this when we discuss the issue of providence. But since it comes up naturally as a consequence of divine foreknowledge, we should say something about it here as well. To say that God is just is to affirm that he is righteous and he is holy in all his dealings and relationships. Scripture is insistent that God does not sin, that God leads no one to sin. Yes, somehow God controls all things, but he is holy and righteous. Again, what this suggests is that we may never lap off one side of the God man relationship. Sometimes we Calvinists want to give so much glory to God that we speak of human beings as if they are not historical agents. Scripture does not go there. Scripture does not present man as a puppet. We are responsible for our lives for the things that we do. But it's also the case that God is active in history. What Scripture will affirm is that God is sovereign. You saw that in Isaiah 49. I determine the ends from the beginning. But it's also the case that you and I are responsible. Well, there are some consequences here of the fact that God is just. First of all, he is the log error. He establishes good and evil. And he does so not only by the things that he says in terms of his commandments, but also by his actions. We see, if God were not really righteous, his law could not compel obedience. His law could not compel trust. Something is not good after all simply because God says so. He must conform to it as well. Pretty good. Yahweh is not Allah. The God of Islam, his word is true simply because he says that it's true. It's not the case with the biblical God. He himself must conform to his justice. Second, God is the judge. And he must punish sin. And if God did not punish sin, then righteousness and sin would be relativized into absurdity. This is one of the biblical realities that many people have problems with. Why must God judge sin? If he did not, then those things would not mean anything at all. Third, God is concerned for the oppressed and the downtrodden. And fourth, God's righteousness and his concern for righteousness is what brings salvation. Okay, God is good. God's goodness means that he deals generously and benevolently with his creatures. If you think about it, we could call the fact that God is good a character trait rather than a natural good. Remember last week when we talked about different things when we mentioned character traits? But then there's really no distinction. That's the only reason I put God is good here on the end anyway. What we've been talking about, God's attributes, his capacities, his abilities, we could call character traits as easily as attributes. And once we see all that all of these things are simply aspects of who he is, we could start adding many many other things indeed. God's goodness, his long-suffering attitude toward mankind in general and toward his people in particular, his love, the fact that he's merciful and gracious, his jealousy, these are all just as much a part of who he is, as is his transcendence, just as his power or anything else.