None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God

by Matthew Barrett

Our knowledge of God is “grounded in God himself.” Our knowledge of God “can only exist through him.” Our knowledge of God “has as its object and content God as the infinite One.”

God possesses the “variety to increase” our “delights” as well as “eternity to perpetuate them.” God is more like a fountain than a cistern. Cisterns only contain so much water, but the water never stops gushing over from a fountain.64 He is a fountain of eternal delight.

If God is the supreme, perfect being, someone than whom none greater can be conceived, then he is the only one in the universe who has the right to elevate himself, and his own glory, above all else. If he is the summum bonum, the highest good, then he does not look to someone or something else for fulfillment. Instead he looks to his own self, for that is where perfection itself is to be found. Should he not value himself above all else, he would not be a righteous God. A righteous being values that which is most valuable; a righteous being loves that which is most lovely.15 However, God need not look outside himself; he himself is the object of his own love, glory, and happiness because he himself is that being which is most valuable, lovely, and worthy of adoration.16 He is, after all, the “Being of beings, infinitely the greatest and best of beings,” says Jonathan Edwards.