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There is none greater than this God, not because he is merely a greater version of ourselves but because he is nothing like ourselves.
“Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.”
(354–430)
it is Augustine’s reflections on the ever-so-delicate balance between divine transcendence and divine immanence that will prove enlightening.
deeply hidden yet most intimately present,
you are jealous in a way that is free of anxiety,
God is immanent (“intimately present”), but he remains transcendent and incomprehensible (“deeply hidden”). Yes, he effects change in the world (“changing all things”), but he never changes in himself (“immutable”). Yes, he creates and renews, but he himself is timelessly eternal (“never new, never old”). Yes, he nurtures others, but he is never one in need of nurture. Yes, he brings the world into maturity, but he never matures, nor is he ever in need of reaching his potential or being activated; he is maximally alive, pure act (“always active”), never changing (immutable). Yes, he loves, but
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Augustine’s prayer, is a foundational premise: the attributes sing in harmony.
up of parts, but he is his attributes
And if he is the most perfect being conceivable, then certain perfect-making attributes—or perfections—have to follow, perfections like infinitude (chap. 3), aseity (chap. 4), simplicity (chap. 5), immutability (chap. 6), impassibility (chap. 7), and timeless eternity (chap. 8),
Thinking about God was always from the bottom up—that is, from my experience to who God is. But with the help of Augustine and Anselm, that approach now seemed dangerous, always flirting with the possibility of creating a God in our own image, always defining God’s attributes according to our own limitations.
Most inspiring is Anselm’s belief that God is “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.”a
For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.”c
What was so different about the God of Augustine and Anselm was that they first thought of God as one who is not like us. They started from the top (God) and then worked their way down (to humanity). They moved from the Creator to the creature. And this approach seemed far more
aligned with the way the biblical authors approached God. As David says, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light” (Ps. 36:9).
only understand God’s attributes in all their glory if such attributes originate from one core conviction: God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived.
What must be true of God if he is the most perfect being?
terribly unpopular in our own day. Modern and contemporary Christian thought has either despised them or neglected them altogether, preferring instead a God who is like us rather than distinct from us and above us.
A-team: Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas.
Their picture of God has sometimes been referred to as “classical theism.”
God of classical theism is simply the God of the Bible.
A. W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about
God is the most important thing about us.”8 If Tozer is right, then knowing God, as he has made himself known, is at the very center of our identity.
In that light, the Christian life really is a quest for the truth about God, a pilgrimage that should lead us into a personal encounter with the living God.
Our goal is not to walk away with mere knowledge. Rather, this knowledge of God is meant to lead us into worship.
Our aim, ultimately, is to know God’s perfections and in so doing learn what it means to actually know God in a saving way.
The proper way to experience the sun is through its effects. Its rays warm us, and its beams give us light where there is darkness. But look at the sun? No way. Impossible.
God’s essence is beyond the reach of finite mortals like you and me.
What is abundantly evident from Isaiah 40 is that this God is not just a greater being than us, as if he were merely different in degree, a type of superman. No, this God is different in kind. He is a different type of being altogether. He is the Creator, not the created.
Creator-creature distinction—every
“We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend him, however, is totally impossible.”
“The infinite cannot be contained in the finite. God exists infinitely and nothing finite can grasp him infinitely.” Aquinas concludes, “It is impossible for a created mind to understand God infinitely; it is impossible, therefore, to comprehend him.”
They certainly do reveal God truly, just never exhaustively.
Autonomous reason was not so autonomous, as it turned out. In fact, it was idolatrous, attempting to remove God from his throne and replace the Creator’s authority with the creature’s intellect instead. The follies of the Enlightenment should forever remind us that attempting to scale the ladder of heaven to pull God down is the height of human hubris. It is the tower of Babel all over again.
A much better approach couples the quest for knowledge with humility, a humility that looks to God’s revelation of himself for understanding.
It is the approach of faith seeking understanding. As Anselm prays, “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but ...
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God’s Word, the holy Scripture, opens the door for us to have a true knowledge of God. Yet the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.
God may be incomprehensible, but he is not unknowable. Any doubt is removed the moment God opens his mouth.
It is because we have given up any reconciliation between God’s transcendence and immanence.
“Absoluteness and personality, infinity and causality, immutability and communicability, absolute transcendence and likeness to the creature—all these pairs seem irreconcilable in the concept of God.”
“we are aware that our thoughts are quite inadequate to their object, and incapable of grasping him as he is.” Yet Scripture commands us to “think about the Lord our God always,” though we “can never think about him as he deserves.” How, then, should we approach him?
It entails an acknowledgment that we are the recipients and beneficiaries, not the originators and creators, of divine revelation. If we know anything about God, it is because he has chosen to make it known; revelation is a gift.
but for us to contemplate him in his works whereby he renders himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates himself.” Echoing Augustine,
we ought to gaze upon his works, that we may be restored by his goodness.”
God’s works, not his essence, arrest our attention. We may probe the former, but we restrict ourselves to marveling at the latter.
As unbelievable as it may seem, the infinite, incomprehensible God has made us for the distinct purpose of knowing him, even enjoying him, and reflecting his image to the world around us.
The church father Origen, for instance, liked to compare God to a parent talking to his two-year-old, speaking “inarticulately because of the child” since it is impossible for the parent to be understood by the child apart from “condescending to their mode of speech.”
Calvin called this “lisping.”
It may be impossible to comprehend God in his essence, in all his glory and radiance, but that does not preclude us from knowing God as he has made himself known to us. God “cannot be comprehended,” but he “can be apprehended.”
Since he is the Creator, his knowledge is original, the archetype. Our knowledge, by contrast, is the ectype, meaning it is derivative and a copy, only a likeness of the original.
