God's Passion for His Glory by John Piper & Jonathan Edwards

Author:John Piper & Jonathan Edwards
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Christian Life, Christian Ministry, Old Testament, Evangelism, Creation, Christianity, Glory of God, Religion, Early Works to 1800, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation, 18th Century, History of Doctrines, General, Christian Theology
ISBN: 9781581340075
Publisher: Crossway Books
Published: 1998-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

148

The End for Which God Created the World

sessed these attributes, if they never had been exerted or expressed in any effect. But then, if the attributes which consist in a sufficiency for correspondent effects, are in themselves excellent, the exercises of them must likewise be excellent. If it be an excellent thing that there should be a sufficiency for a certain kind of action or operation, the excellency of such a sufficiency must consist in its relation to this kind of operation or effect; but that could not be, unless the operation itself were excellent. A sufficiency for any work is no further valuable than the work itself is valuable.24

[50] As God therefore esteems these attributes themselves valuable and delights in them, so it is natural to suppose that he delights in their proper exercise and expression. For the same reason that he esteems his own sufficiency wisely to contrive and dispose effects, he also will esteem the wise contrivance and disposition itself. And for the same reason, as he delights in his own disposition to do justly and to dispose of things according to truth and just proportion, so he must delight in such a righteous disposal itself.

[SUPPOSITION TWO]

It is most fitting that beings exist to know

what God can manifest of his excellency

[51] It seems to be a thing in itself fit and desirable that the glorious perfections of God should be known, and the operations and expressions of them seen, by other beings besides himself. If it be fit that God’s power and wisdom, &c. should be exercised and expressed in some effects and not lie eternally dormant, then it seems proper that these exercises should appear and not be totally hidden and unknown. For if they are, it will be just the same as to the above purpose, as if they were not. God as perfectly knew himself and his perfections, [and] has as perfect an idea of the exer-24 Edwards’s own footnote: “The end of wisdom” (says Mr. G. Tennent, in his sermon at the opening of the Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia) “is design; the end of power is action; the end of goodness is doing good. To suppose these perfections not to be exerted would be to represent them as insignificant. Of what use would God’s wisdom be, if it had nothing to design or direct? To what purpose his almightiness, if it never brought any thing to pass? And of what avail his goodness, if it never did any good?” [In his own sentence, Edwards does not mean that God is no more valuable than creation is valuable. He means that when a divine attribute is regarded as a sufficiency for action, the value of the sufficiency as such is coordinate with the value of the potential operation. As the next paragraph makes plain, the value of the effect comes from the value of the attribute, not vice versa. This is the opposite of utilitarianism in God.]

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.