“Every attribute of God is precious to believers” by Herman Bavinck

“Every attribute of God is precious to believers. They cannot do without any of them.

They desire no other God than the only true God, who has revealed Himself in Christ, and they glory in all His perfections in truth.

Their adoration, their love, their thanksgiving, and praise are aroused not only by God’s grace and love but also by His holiness and righteousness, not only by God’s goodness but also by His omnipotence, not only by His communicable but also His incommunicable attributes.

Now, when we attribute supreme perfection to God, we thereby acknowledge that all the perfections we discover either positively or negatively in observing God’s creatures belong absolutely and preeminently, that is, to the highest degree, to God.

This implies, however, that they cannot all be attributed to Him in the same sense. Some attributes belong to Him characteristically, such as eternity, simplicity, and so on, which after all are not found in creatures.

Others, such as intellect and will, belong to Him preeminently, and because a faint reflection of these can also be discerned in creatures.

Still others are ascribed to Him only figuratively, such as physical sight and hearing, because these attributes are present in Him in a divine way, not in a literal creaturely sense.

But whatever difference this may make in the way in which we must ascribe this or that attribute to God, He nevertheless remains the sum of all conceivable perfections, the highest perfection in person, infinitely far removed from all defects and limitations.”

–Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, Ed. John Bolt, and Trans. John Vriend (vol. 2; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 2: 250.