<< Summary >>
What does it mean for
God to be who he is?
Here are ten points:
God’s absolute being
means he never had a beginning. This staggers the mind. Every child asks, “Who
made God?” And every wise parent says, “Nobody made God. God simply is. And
always was. No beginning.”
God’s absolute being
means God will never end. If he did not come into being, he cannot go out of
being because he is being. He is what is. There is no place to go outside of
being. There is only he. Before he creates, that’s all that is: God.
God’s absolute being
means God is absolute reality. There is no reality before him. There is no
reality outside of him unless he wills it and makes it. He is not one of many
realities before he creates. He is simply there as absolute reality. He is all
that was eternally. No space, no universe, no emptiness. Only God. Absolutely
there. Absolutely all.
God’s absolute being
means that God is utterly independent. He depends on nothing to bring him into
being or support him or counsel him or make him what he is. That is what the
words “absolute being” mean.
God’s absolute being
means rather that everything that is not God depends totally on God. All that
is not God is secondary, and dependent. The entire universe is utterly
secondary. Not primary. It came into being by God and stays in being moment by
moment on God’s decision to keep it in being.
God’s absolute being
means all the universe is by comparison to God as nothing. Contingent,
dependent reality is to absolute, independent reality as a shadow to substance.
As an echo to a thunderclap. As a bubble to the ocean. All that we see, all
that we are amazed by in the world and in the galaxies, is, compared to God, as
nothing. “All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him
as less than nothing and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:17).
God’s absolute being
means that God is constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He
cannot be improved. He is not becoming anything. He is who he is. There is no
development in God. No progress. Absolute perfection cannot be improved.
God’s absolute being
means that he is the absolute standard of truth and goodness and beauty. There
is no law-book to which he looks to know what is right. No almanac to establish
facts. No guild to determine what is excellent or beautiful. He himself is the
standard of what is right, what is true, what is beautiful.
God’s absolute being
means God does whatever he pleases and it is always right and always beautiful
and always in accord with truth. There are no constraints on him from outside
him that could hinder him in doing anything he pleases. All reality that is
outside of him he created and designed and governs as the absolute reality. So
he is utterly free from any constraints that don’t originate from the counsel
of his own will.
God’s absolute being
means that he is the most important and most valuable reality and the most
important and most valuable person in the universe. He is more worthy of
interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment than all other realities,
including the entire universe.
John Piper, - Doctrine
Matters
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