Amazing Grace by Timothy George

Author:Timothy George
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Theological Anthropology - Christianity, Theological Anthropology, Grace (Theology), Christian Life, Baptist, Christianity, Religion, Baptists, General, Baptists - Doctrines, Christian Theology, Soteriology
ISBN: 9781433515484
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2011-01-04T22:00:00+00:00

“Discourse on the Trinity”

From Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 21, Writings on Trinity, Grace, and Faith, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 2003), 113–14, 131–32.

When we speak of God’s happiness, the account that we are wont to give of it is that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, his own essence and perfections. And accordingly it must be supposed that God perpetually and eternally has a most perfect idea of himself, as it were an exact image and representation of himself ever before him and in actual view. And from hence arises a most pure and perfect energy in the Godhead, which is the divine love, complacence and joy.

Though we cannot conceive of the manner of the divine understanding, yet if it be understanding or anything that can be anyway signified by that word of ours, it is by idea. Though the divine nature be vastly different from that of created spirits, yet our souls are made in the image of God: we have understanding and will, idea and love, as God hath, and the difference is only in the perfection of degree and manner. The perfection of the manner will indeed infer this, that there is no distinction to be made in God between power or habit and act; and with respect to God’s understanding, that there are no such distinctions to be admitted as in ours between perception or idea, and reasoning and judgment—excepting what the will has to do in judgment—but that the whole of the divine understanding or wisdom consists in the mere perception or unvaried presence of his infinitely perfect idea. And with respect to the other faculty, as it is in God, there are no distinctions to be admitted of faculty, habit and act, between will, inclination and love: but that it is all one simple act. But the divine perfection will not infer that his understanding is not by idea, and that there is not indeed such a thing as inclination and love in God.

That in John, “God is love” [1 John 4:8;16], shows that there are more persons than one in the Deity: for it shows love to be essential and necessary to the Deity, so that his nature consists in it; and this supposes that there is an eternal and necessary object, because all love respects another, that is, the beloved. By love here the Apostle certainly means something beside that which is commonly called self-love, that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of an exceeding diverse nature from that affection or virtue of love the Apostle is speaking of.

The sum of the divine understanding and wisdom consists in his having a perfect idea of himself, he being indeed the all-comprehending Being, he that is and there is none else. So the sum of his inclination, love and joy is his love to and delight in himself. God’s love to himself, and complacency

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