Sermon Tone Analysis

The attributes we consider in this chapter are called “communicable,” because they are predicated of God and creatures, though always analogically

Omniscience and Omnipotence: God’s Knowledge, Wisdom, and Power

Where does Scripture teach us about God’s infinite perfection

What is God’s knowledge?

That perfection by which, in an entirely unique manner, through His being and with a most simple act, He comprehends Himself and in Himself all that is or could be outside Him.

In Scripture, God’s knowledge and wisdom are closely related to veracity or truth (OT: ʾĕmet, ʾĕmûnâ, ʾāmēn; NT: alēthēs, alētheia, alēthinos, pistis).

God is truth—in an ethical sense (i.e., fidelity: Nu 23:19; Jn 14:6; Ro 3:4; Heb 6:18) and in a logical sense (i.e., knowing how things really are).

These characteristics converge in the prominent biblical theme of God’s faithfulness (Heb.

ḥesed), which is defined by his commitment to his covenant.

It is this faithfulness that is on trial in covenantal history, involving Israel and Yahweh in the interchanging roles of judge, defendant, and witness—with testimony and countertestimony mediated by the prophets.

A. Free Agents and the Infinite-Qualitative Distinction

Often, debates over divine and human freedom share a common misunderstanding of agency (willing and acting) as univocal for God and humans.

Therefore, the debate turns on who has more power over the other.

Although open theism clearly constructs a straw opponent when it accuses Augustinian/Reformed theology of teaching that God is the only cause of all things (omnicausalism), there are extreme examples outside the mainstream that give life to the caricature.

Hyper-Calvinism shares with Arminianism (and especially open theism) a rationalistic tendency toward a univocal interpretation of the noun “freedom.”

The one begins with the central dogma of omnicausalism and the other with the central dogma of libertarian free will.

However, if even freedom is predicated of God and humans analogically, then there is not a single “freedom pie” to be rationed (however unequally) between partners.

View the image in this section of the text.

The two circles help with the analogy.

Human Freedom (ectypal: “In him we live and move and have our being”)

God’s Freedom (archetypal: God is the source of all creaturely freedom)

Since all of our knowledge is analogical and accommodated, we can know only that, not how, God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are perfectly consistent.

God is a producer, not a consumer, of our creaturely freedom, and his presence fills our creaturely room with the air of liberty.

Precisely because God alone is sovereign, p 262 qualitatively distinct in his freedom as Lord, creaturely freedom has its inexhaustible source in abundance rather than lack, generosity rather than a rationing or negotiation of wills.

B. Sovereignty and Omniscience

God knows our thoughts exhaustively (Pss 44:21; 94:11), but God’s thoughts are inaccessible to us apart from revelation.

It is not simply that God has more thoughts, better thoughts, or deeper thoughts, but that his way of knowing is his own, never overlapping with creaturely knowledge.

On one hand, Scripture teaches that God has predestined the free acts of human beings; on the other hand, God represents himself as a genuine partner in history.

God’s revealed will is often disobeyed, but his sovereign will (i.e., that which he has predestined) is never thwarted.

What are we to do with this obvious tension?

Man’s will or desire is set over against God’s will or desire.

Man’s will prevails.

Can human beings reject God’s purpose for them?

Does God know everything exhaustively or everything that is knowable?

Sovereignty and Ominpresence

A Biblical view of God’s sovereignty must always bear in mind the following correlates:

First, only when we recognize that God is qualitatively distinct from creation can we see that God is free to be the creator and redeemer, while we are free to be creatures and the redeemed.

Second, only when we understand God’s sovereignty in the light of his simplicity—that is, the consistency of his willing and acting in accordance with his other attributes—can we avoid the notion of a divine despot whose sovereignty is unconditioned by his own nature.

Third, we must always bear in mind that in every exercise of his will and power, God is not a solitary monad but the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

The Father always wills and acts in the Son and by his Spirit, as well as through contingent agency.

Therefore, God’s sovereignty cannot be conceived as brute force or control.

II.

Goodness, Love, and Mercy

God’s knowledge, wisdom, and power are inseparable from his goodness.

Because God’s attributes are identical with his essence, God not only loves; he is love

If God’s love could trump his other moral attributes, then the cross represents the cruelest waste.

The cross is the clearest testimony to God’s simplicity—that is, his undivided and indivisible character.

The reformers understood grace (Melancthon) as God’s disposition toward as.

III.

Holiness, Righteousness, and Justice

Thus, God’s holiness especially marks the ontological distinction between Creator and creatures as well as the ethical opposition between God and sinners.

However, because of God’s mercy, God’s holiness not only highlights his difference from us; it also includes his movement toward us, binding us to him in covenant love.

In this way, God makes us holy.

That holiness which is inherent in God alone comes to characterize a relationship in which creatures are separated p 269 unto God, from sin and death.

Only in Christ can God’s holiness be for us a source of delight rather than of fear of judgment

Against Albrecht Ritschl’s view, which collapses righteousness into mercy, Barth affirms that God’s righteousness includes the concept of distributive justice—“a righteousness which judges and therefore both exculpates and condemns, rewards and also punishes.”

How can Christians be more active in making sure God’s justice is felt in society?

Opposing oppression, systemic racism, and misogyny

IV.

Jealousy and Wrath

Like mercy, grace, and patience, jealousy and wrath are aroused only in the context of an offense.

Robert Jenson is probably not saying too much when he suggests, “In the Scriptures … it is first among the Lord’s attributes that he is ‘a jealous God.’ ” Yet once again this claim must be situated in its covenantal context.

In the ancient Near Eastern treaties, the suzerain (great king) who liberated a lesser nation required the vassal to serve him only, refusing any backroom alliances with other suzerains.

Jealousy, then, was the appropriate response of the suzerain to the treasonous conspiracy of the servant with his enemies.

However, even this suzerain-vassal relationship is an analogy, and in Yahweh’s unique performance the role of “jealous suzerain” is transformed.