Herman Bavinck: Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation
I. God’s Incommunicable Attributes
A. To understand the Trinity it is necessary to understand the divine nature. The Bible supports understanding God’s nature before understanding the Trinity since God’s nature was revealed in the Old Testament before the Trinity was revealed in the New Testament.
B. Independence has also been called by many names including: aseity, infinity, self-begotten self-existent, and greatness. The name YHWH expresses this attribute, he is pure, absolute being. He is independent in his works, decrees, and perfections.
D. Infinity
1. Infinity is divided into time and space. In regards to time, God’s immutability is eternity and in regards to space it is omnipresence. God is not limited to anything that is “finite and creaturely” (160).
2. Eternity – There is no reference in Scripture to God’s beginning or end. He is described as entering into time but he transcending it, and being at the beginning and the end of time. God’s eternity should be viewed as an “eternal present without past or future” (163).
3. Omnipresence – God is not confined by space. This is clearly taught in Scripture especially in verses that speak of heaven and earth cannot containing him (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6). Augustine at first believed that God was like ether spread throughout space but he came to see God as transcending space and location, yet filling heaven and earth with his presence.
E. Unity – God’s unity is expressed in “unity of singularity and the unity of simplicity” (170). The unity of singularity means that that there is only one divine being and that “all other beings exist from him, through him, and to him” (170). He is said to be the Creator of the world (Gen. 1 and 2) and only Lord (Deut. 6:4) who is God and there are none besides him (Deut. 4:35).
F. Simplicity – All of God’s attributes are identical to his essence. If God is made up of parts, then he would not be perfect, one or independent. Every name of God refers to the same full being, God is “simple in his multiplicity and manifold in his simplicity” (177).
II. God’s communicable Attributes
A. God’s Spiritual Nature
1. There is nothing in the Old Testament that says explicitly that he is spirit but it does say that he is invisible (Exod. 33:20) and without form (Deut. 4:12). In the New Testament he is called spirit. He is called invisible by the apostles.
2. Corporeality and Anthropomorphism -God is “a unique substance, distinct from the universe, immaterial, imperceptible to the human senses, without composition or extension” (185). God’s immateriality and invisibility can be described analogously to the soul of man and the “spirit of angels” (186).
3. Invisibility – God as spirit cannot be perceived by the senses of man. We can only see God with the soul or spirit. The Bible says the blessed will view God in heaven but does not say how but the Reformed do not believe that we will see a vision of God’s essence.
B. Intellectual Attributes
1. Scripture speaks of God being and dwelling in light (1 John 1:5) the implication in this term is that God is “conscious of himself, that he knows his entire being to perfection, and that nothing in that being is hidden from his consciousness” (191).
3. Foreknowledge – God cannot really be said to have foreknowledge since all future events are present to him, so foreknowledge becomes knowledge. Past and future are present to him. Free will is not violated because the decisions of men are included in his will.
4. The Problem of Middle Knowledge – the Jesuits tried to solve the problem of foreknowledge and freedom of the will by basing foreknowledge on conditional events. This makes man the decision maker. God’s will depends on man.
5. Wisdom is related to life, it is ethical, it is the right use of knowledge. In Scripture it is viewed as fearing God and conforming to the law (Prov. 1:7), as an attribute of God (Rom. 16:27), as revealed in Christ (1 Cor. 1:24) and the foolishness of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18).
6. Trustworthiness in the Scriptures is a combination of truth and faithfulness. The name YHWH expresses that God remains who he is. He is faithful and without deceit, he is the true God, he is not like man who lies or changes his mind He swears an oath by himself to confirm his word. He remembered his covenant and kept his promise to Abraham.
C. Moral Attributes
1. Goodness – He does not become good but is good absolutely. The church has “located supreme good in God, and it did not enter their minds to locate it in some moral deed or virtue of creatures” (212). God’s goodness is demonstrated in his steadfast love, his mercy, his patience to those deserving punishment and grace.
2. Holiness – The word “holy” is often linked with YHWH (Joshua 24:19) and Isaiah uses the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” (Is. 29:23). His holiness is the cause of Israel’s redemption, will be vindicated by revealing that he is Lord, and is a chastisement and punishment. Christ is revealed as the Holy One of God.
3. Righteousness (Justice) – According to the law of Israel the judge and the Israelites were to uphold justice by not perverting it by denying it to the unprotected in society. But Israel did not remember their duty and the prophets looked forward to the Messiah who would judge in righteousness. This righteous judge is God. He alone can judge justly.
D. Attributes of Sovereignty
1. God’s Will as Ultimate – All things derive from the will of God including acts of creation, salvation, preservation and all the daily occurrences in life including death. God wills for the sake of his name. God does not will for the creature’s sake but he’s own.
2. Free and Necessary Will of God – God has created his creatures distinct from himself but not independent. His creatures are not the object of his will in the same way he is. God does what he pleases. He is free to do what he wants because he is the Creator.
3. Nominalism -Dun Scotus applied the Peligain view of the “freedom of the will absolute indifference” to God (235). God’s will is supreme over his nature and his knowledge. The reason God wills is that the will wills.
4. The Problem of Evil – God is sovereign over evil but he does not will it in the same way that he wills good. There is a difference between what God wills us to do and what he does. God condemns sin yet he rules over it. He wills salvation for all mankind yet he does not provide mercy for everyone.
5. Revealed and Hidden Will -God’s actual will is his secret will. God’s revealed will (perceptive will) is what he commands us to do. It is not what he will do but what we are to do. The secret and revealed will are not opposed to each other, it is through the revealed will that the Lord brings about his secret will. It is through the commandments that God reminds us that we are his and we must do as he commands.
6. Omnipotence – There are no bounds to God’s power in Scripture. He is called the “Mighty One of Israel,” the “great and mighty God,” and “strong and mighty.” And in the New Testament he is called “the great king” and the “King of kings.” God’s power is revealed in his acts of creation, providence, the exodus, nature, Israel, redemption, and the resurrection of Christ..
E. Perfection, Blessedness, and Glory
1. All the attributes of God can be summed up in his perfection. This does not just mean in a moral sense but the “sum total of all his perfections” (250). And since he is perfect, he is blessed. God’s blessedness has three components: absolute perfection, God knowing and delighting in his absolute perfection and resting in himself.
2. The Glory of God – the “slender and brilliance” that is associated with his attributes and revelation both in grace and nature, the form in which he reveals himself to his creatures (252). It was revealed to Israel (Ex. 16:7) and is manifested in Christ (John 1:14) and in the church through Christ (Rom. 15:7). God’s creation reflects his glory faintly and analogically.
John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion
I. The glory of God is corrupted by falsehood when he is replicated in any form. God condemns images in his commandments. The sun was worshipped by the Persians, the sun by the pagans, animals by the Egyptians and human forms by the Greeks but God condemns them all equally.
II. Moses reminded Israel that they did not see a form when God spoke to them at Horeb (Deut. 4:12). And Isaiah stated that the majesty of God was defiled by making a visible image of the invisible, “the spirit into an inanimate object” (101) and the immeasurable into an object that can be held with hands. Paul makes the same point (Acts 17:29).
III. Though God has appeared in symbols that do not mean that he is not invisible or that an image can be made to represent him. The Spirit appearing as a dove quickly disappeared. God came as a man to prepare for his future revelation in Christ.
IV. The Bible makes it clear that images are made by man and that it is folly to worship them and confer the honor of God on them. Isaiah paints a portrait of the idol maker who uses the same wood to make his idol as he does to bake his bread (Is. 44:12-17). He rebukes them for not understanding from the foundations of the earth the immensity of the God that they are to worship.
V. Gregory says that “images are the books of the uneducated” (105) But since Jeremiah says that “wood is a doctrine of vanity” (Jer. 10:8) and Habakkuk “a molten image is a teacher of falsehood” (Hab. 2:18), anything that man learns form statues is false.
VI. The Council of Elveria decreed that there would be no pictures in the churches. Augustine stating what Varro says of the statues of the gods, they “removed fear and added error” (106). It’s amazing that a pagan can understand more than the church that images diminish the fear of God as they are introducing error.
VII. If they had done their job, then there would not be “uneducated” in the church. When the word is preached the Lord intends that the same doctrine by given to all but images are an error that distracts from that message because it contradicts it. The church turned to idols because they were mute. Just preaching the gospel from Scripture (Gal. 3:1, 13; Heb. 10:10, Rom. 5:10) would have taught more than thousands of cross made of wood or stone.
VIII. Man desires a deity that he can see. Man nature is a “perpetual factory of idols” (108) and he has been making them since the beginning of the world.
IX. The use of any idol leads to idolatry. Even though they do not believe that the idol is a god but only represents a god, they still look at that idol as containing power of a god and it becomes superstition. It makes no difference that they worship an idol or “God in the idol” (109). The Israelites believed that they were creating an image of the God who brought them out of Egypt.
X. Augustine believed that those who look to an idol and prayed would be assured that they were heard, their prayers would be answered and they would get what they want. The fact that they do not call their images gods does not matter since the Jews did not call their images gods either and yet they were still rebuked for it (Jer. 2:27; Ezek. 6:4ff).
XI. They allege that they are serving the idol not worshipping it. Calling it by another name while doing the exact same thing does not change their activity.
XII. There is a legitimate use of art but God cannot be represented without diminishing his glory. Art should be of the things that the eye can see.
XIII. The early church thrived and flourished for five hundred years without images. It is wrong to bring images into the church when the church has its own symbols of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
XIV. The Council of Nicaea decreed that images could be used in churches and worshipped.
XV. They misuse Scripture to support their adoration such as the adoration of Pharaoh (Gen. 47:10), Joseph’s rod (Gen. 47:3), the pillar of Jacob (Gen. 28:18), “worship his footstool” (Ps. 98:5) and his holy mountain (Ps. 98:9).
Francis Turretin: Institutes of Elenctic Theology
I. The Decrees of God in General and Predestination in Particular
A. God’s degrees are in God. Nothing takes place outside his will (his perfection would preclude it) and he knows all events both contingent and future from all eternity. The decrees of God are essential and not accidental or inherit. The will of God is the essence willing.
B. The decrees of God are eternal. The Scripture views God’s degrees as eternal. The kingdom of God was prepared (Matt. 25:34), election (Eph. 1:4), and foreordination of Christ (1 Pet. 1:20) are said to be before foundation of the world. God’s accommodation to man in promising judgment or salvation based on man’s response does not mean that his decree has changed since it was made in eternity.
C. The decrees are not conditional. Since God’s decrees are eternal they cannot be based on a condition that takes place in time. God’s decrees are based on his will and cannot be superseded by anything outside of God. God’s decrees are immutable. A decree based on conditions is mutable but that does not mean that decrees do not contain conditions, the conditions depend immutably on God (either permitting evil or effecting good things). God uses the prayers of his people to accomplishing his will not in changing it.
D. The decrees of God necessitate future things and the reasons are: they are decreed by God’s counsel which is eternal and unchanging, Scripture makes it clear that God’s decrees come to pass (Mt. 18:7, 26:54), causal and fortunate events take place necessarily (Ex. 21:12, 13), since God’s foreknowledge is infallible (Acts 15:18), so these things must happen, since the word of God cannot be broken or fail, these things must take place.
E. The time and circumstance of death has been decreed by God, nothing man does lengthen or shortens that time. This can be proved by Job 14:5 and Job 7:1 which implies that man has been granted a certain number of days. Further support can be found in Ps. 39:4, 5 and Matt. 10:28-30. Deaths were predicted in the Bible: Moses’ (Deut. 31:14), David’s son (2 Sam. 12:14) and Peter (John 21:18).
F. Predestination should be taught because Christ and his apostles taught it (Matt. 11: 20, 25 Romans 9), it is a primary doctrine of the gospel, knowing it makes us grateful, humble and gives us confidence through temptations and it is necessary to correct errors. The revealed things belong to use and not to teach them would be ingratitude.
G. Predestinate means to determine something beforehand and direct it to that end. It is used of God’s decree concerning the ultimate end of man, his ultimate destination whether salvation or damnation. It is proved by: the acts of the wicked that lead to the crucifixion of Christ had been predetermined (Acts 4:28) and the wicked are appointed to condemnation (Rom. 9:22).
H. The predestination of angels is clearly attested by Scripture in the use of “elect angels” (1 Tim. 5:21) and those who are reserved for judgment (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6).
I. Man creatable was not the object of predestination. The reasons are: nonentities cannot be the objects of predestination, creation and fall would be the means of predestination, that God would not have damned sinners but permitted them to become sinners so that he might punish them, the elect are chosen out of the world, the election of men is in Christ and those in Christ are redeemed by him, and the vessels of wrath and mercy are made from the same lump.
J. Christ is not the cause of election since the cause of election is the will of God. Election depends on Christ since he was ordained as Mediator but the effects are not the cause. Believers are elected in Christ, not existing in him. No one can be in Christ unless he was given by the Father. We are elected in Christ to be holy, if believers existed in Christ, they would be holy already.
K. Election is of the grace of God alone, not faith or works and the reason for this is that faith and works are a fruit of election not the cause of it (Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:4).
L. There is a fixed number of mankind who has been elected to salvation, that number is constant and immutable. The decree is so certain and immutable that the elect must be brought to salvation. This is proven by the fact that the decrees of God are immutable, that God knows who belongs to him, the elect cannot be deceived, those who are elected will be glorified, and the names are written in the book of life.
M. The believer can be certain of his election. Believers know they are sons of God and they believe (as the apostles did – John 6:69; Mark 9:24) because adoption and faith are the effects of election. Their election is confirmed by God’s inscription and by the sealing of the Spirit, the certainty of the saints such as Abraham, David and Paul.
N. The decree of reprobation is absolute and depends on God’s good pleasure alone and sin is not its proper cause. God denies grace to those he chooses and they are unwilling to accept it. He does not deny the grace so that they sin but they be punished. He did this to demonstrate his justice and election.
O. God does not pity the fallen race and did not send Christ as the Mediator for all mankind. There is no universal mercy. This can be proved by: the fact that mercy is said to be particular not universal in Scripture (Rom. 9:11-18), God has not willed the means to salvation, God has not called all to faith, and there is a distinction between the “seed of the woman” and the “seed of the serpent” (Gen. 3:15).
P. The order of the divine decrees in predestination are: the creation of man, the fall of man, the election of some to salvation, the sending of Christ to pay the sins of the elect, and then calling the elect to salvation. This is proved by the fact that Scripture views Christ’s mission and redemption as subordinate to election (Eph. 1:307; Rom. 8:29, 30).
II. Creation
A. What is creation? The works of nature are creation and conservation. Creation was ex nihilo. Creation is either active (an act of God) or passive (the creation of the creature by God) and is the foundation of the relationship between Creator and creature.
B. The ability to create is not communicable to any creature, it belongs to God alone. God states that he alone is Creator (Is. 44:24) and this distinguishes him from idols and false gods (Ps. 96:5). God created everything through the Word, through the Son who is the same in essence of the Father, who with the Holy Spirit are the sole cause of creation.
C. The world was not created from eternity. Scripture states there is a beginning to earth (Gen. 1:1), the earth was created (Ps. 33:6), and God’s decrees were from before the foundation of the world (Ps. 90:2; Eph. 1:4).
D. The world was created in the autumn. Israel’s calendar started in autumn (Ex. 23:16) and it should have been created in the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:9).
E. Augustine believed that the world was created in a moment. The six days should be read as allegory of “angelic cognitions” (444). But Moses describes a work to each day, the commandment to rest linked to the seventh day which was God’s day of resting from creation and there is no reason for the order if creation happened in a moment.
F. The works of creation can be regarded collectively (“the world” or “universe”) or distributively (the various parts of creation). God’s power was demonstrated in creation.
G. From the use of the luminaries posited by Moses judiciary astrology cannot be built up. God prohibits astrology and threatens astrologers, the knowledge of the future has been denied to men, and man’s actions are free and cannot be determined by a constellation.
H. Adam was the first mortal created. Scripture makes clear that Adam was the first man created (Gen. 3:20), his name is first on the genealogies (Gen 5), and he is compared to Christ as the head of created man as opposed to Christ who is the head of redeemed man (1 Cor. 15:47-48).
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