None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God

by Matthew Barrett

There is none greater than this God, not because he is merely a greater version of ourselves but because he is nothing like ourselves.

Our “situation would surely have been hopeless,” exclaims John Calvin, “had the very majesty of God not descended to us, since it was not in our power to ascend to him.”1

You are clothed with splendor and majesty. PSALM 104:1

“Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” . . . “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. . . . “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.”1 Much like Job, the more I fathomed

“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Ps. 50:2).

For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.”

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...

Not only do I believe each and every attribute is key to each and every other attribute in God, but I am convinced that we can 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.

picking the right friends to travel with can be the difference between reaching the celestial city and not. Friends can corrupt us, or they can lead us home.

A. W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

As Augustine so famously prayed, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”9

Paul Helm says, “In the Christian theological tradition metaphysics”—the study of God’s being or essence—“is but a prelude to worship.”10

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.

“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.”

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 I believe so that I may understand.”12

God may be incomprehensible, but he is not unknowable. Any doubt

is removed the moment God opens his mouth.

If we know anything about God, it is because he has chosen to make it known; revelation is a gift.

God’s works, not his essence, arrest our attention.

[God’s] infinite perfections are veiled under finite symbols. It is only the shadow of them that falls upon the human understanding.

We discovered in the last chapter that we can know God truly even if not comprehensively. 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.”5 We may not have “absolute knowledge” of God, which no finite creature could possibly have of an infinite being, but we can have “relative knowledge” of an “absolute Being”—that is, knowledge that knows in part something true about an infinite being.6

We also learned that knowledge of God is a gift God himself gives.

“This is not God; God is more than this: if I could conceive him, he were not God; for God is incomprehensibly above whatsoever I can say, whatsoever I can think and conceive of him.”

There is something about getting older that turns us off to wonder, making our visits to Narnia less and less common.

Could it not be more evident that God is not merely above us but different from us?

What must be true of God if he is the most perfect being?

God is, as Anselm so famously said, “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.”

God is a different kind or type of being altogether, not in the same class at all.

God is “the fullness of Being itself, the absolute plenitude of reality upon which all else depends.”8

Augustine explains, “The

truest beginning of piety is to think as highly of God as possible; and doing so means that one must believe that he is omnipotent, and not changeable in the smallest respect; that he is the creator of all good things, but is himself more excellent than all of them; that he is the supremely just ruler of everything that he created; and that he was not aided in creating by any other being, as if he were not sufficiently powerful by himself.”9

Sin against an infinite God cannot be atoned for by a Savior who has emptied himself of his divine attributes. No, it is his divine attributes that qualify him to make atonement in the first place. Sin against an infinite God can be met only by a Savior who is himself deity—and all the perfections identical with that deity—in infinite measure.

Anselm: “And clearly any good thing that the supreme nature is, it is that thing supremely. It is, therefore, supreme essence, supreme life, supreme reason, supreme health, supreme justice, supreme wisdom, supreme truth, supreme goodness, supreme greatness, supreme beauty, supreme immortality, supreme incorruptibility, supreme immutability, supreme happiness, supreme eternity, supreme power, supreme unity.”

God does not need you.

Not one breath we take, not one minute of time, and not one single dollar is truly ours.

Therefore, when we serve God and when we give to him, we should do so out of thanksgiving, remembering that all of this is his to begin with.

Isaiah asks rhetorically, “Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” (40:14).

Latin there are several words that convey this truth:

esse God is the supreme being. verum God is the supreme truth. pulchrum God is the supreme beauty.

In the end, aseity is the key that unlocks all other attributes. Without it, every other attribute cannot be what it is. With it, we see why God is who he is.

Biblical worship is due to God not because he needs us but because we need him.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

What good news it is, then, that the gospel depends on a God who does not depend on us.

Is something good because God wills it to be good, or does God will something because it is good?

“Simplicity in respect to essence, but Trinity in respect to persons,” says Francis Turretin.40