Bavinck 2: God and the Trinity

The Certainty of Spiritual Things

From our earliest youth, we are all aware of psychic, spiritual, and moral realities such as faith, hope, and love that are just as, if not more, real to us as purely material forces such as gravity and temperature. The marvel of self-consciousness is proof of this. We think and are aware that we are thinking. Augustine was right when he wrote that the truth of spiritual things is much more certain than that of visible things. Nothing can be more absurd than to say that the objects we see with our eyes have being while the things we discern with our intellect do not, since only a fool would doubt the fact that the intellect is of incomparably higher rank than the eyes. Universal and necessary truths can only originate in the mind. We must not discount the things we can discern with intellect because they can’t be proven through natural sciences. p. 158

Nature and God

As a microcosm, a human being as such is an excellent workshop for the innumerable works of God. But this is also true of the entire realm of nature, which, speaking reverently, we may even call God. p. 160

Augustine’s View on Describing God

Augustine says “all things can be said of God, but nothing can be said worthy of him.” p. 169

God in Every Atom

Calvin says “there is not an atom of the world in which one cannot discern at least some bright spark of his glory. It can be said reverently provided it proceeds from a reverent mind, that nature is God.” p. 170

Incommunicable and Communicable Attributes

Reformed theology defines God’s attributes by incommunicable and communicable. Incommunicable accents the distinction of God, especially over against all forms of pantheism, while communicable underscores God’s relatedness to all creatures, combating deism. Incommunicable includes oneness, simplicity, immutability, eternity. Communicable includes attributes of intellect, knowledge, wisdom, will, goodness, righteousness, Holiness, and power. We must remember, however, that although this is helpful, we must also realize that all of His attributes are both incommunicable and communicable, depending on the sense in which we use them. Knowing that God is incomprehensible is itself some form of knowing God. We know that He is holy, good, and righteous but in a manner unlike that of His creatures. That is the reason we can say that all attributes are simultaneously ascribed and denied to Him. God is simultaneously the possessor of all names and the possessor of no names. We can know His attributes positively in a limited way. We know love in a limited way, and so too we know God’s love in a limited way, but because we can only know creaturely limited love, we can also in another sense not know God’s love. We often come closer through negation. We know what it is to be finite, and through its contrast, we might glimpse at the concept of the infinite. Ultimately, God is the affirmation of all things and the negation of all things, the cause beyond all affirmation and denial. p. 179

Free Will

Summarized, we have free will in the shadow of God’s true free will. In being His creatures made in His likeness, we receive a limited free will dependent on and through His true free will. p. 187

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Time

We must distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic time. By extrinsic time, we mean the accidental and arbitrary standard by which we measure motion. We derive it from the motion of the heavenly bodies which is consistent and universally known. Time, in this sense, will one day cease. But intrinsic time is the mode of existence by virtue of which things have a past, present, and future. Accordingly, the essential nature of time is not that it is finite or endless, but that it encompasses a succession of moments: a period that is passed, that is present, and a period that comes later. Quote from Augustine “to God all things are present. Your today is eternity. Eternity itself is the substance of God, which has in it, nothing that is changeable.” p. 190

God and Time

God experiences no future or past time. All things and all time are experienced as an eternal present for God. Time moves on for us, but for God, all is present. p. 199

Divine Ideas and Creation

For Augustine, creation is the product of divine thought. God knows a thing perfectly and expresses that “idea” through creating. Thus, the wisdom of God, by which all things have been made, contains all things according to a design before He makes them. All things were created by reason, for nothing was made unwittingly. Knowing them, He made them. These ideas, of course, are not outside God but are original, coming from His very being. It is in this sense alone that we can speak of creatures participating in God’s being. The nature of this participation is not such that creatures are modifications of the Divine being or that they have in some realistic sense received this Divine being into themselves. Rather, they participate through the Divine wisdom displayed in the multiplicity of beings God has created. All that is displays the Divine wisdom in which a focus creates. p. 201

The Nature of Evil

It is clear that sin has no being of its own. It is not a realization of the Divine wisdom; it is a diminution of being, privation, and defamation. Although it is an object of God’s knowledge and is made subservient to His glory by His wisdom, yet in itself, it is not an idea of His wisdom, nor an array of His light. Evil is known in light of the idea of the good of which it is the privation. By contrast, wisdom is and remains the “master worker” (Proverbs 8:30). The fashioner of all things, which creates and governs all things, leading them onward to their destination, which is the glorification of God’s name. p. 202

Truth and God

God is truth in a logical sense as He conceives things as they truly are, or better said, things are as He conceives them to be. As Augustine says, “God is the truth in, by, and through whom all truths are true.” Lying is a sin against ethical truth. p. 203

The Will of God

Augustine asserted that the will of God is the final ground of all things. There is nothing deeper to the question, “Why did God create the world?” The answer is because He so willed. Those who then proceed to ask the cause of that will demand something greater than the will of God, but no such things can be found. p. 210

The Relationship of the Father and Son

The Father is not the Father before the existence of the Son but through the existence of the Son. They are like the Sun and its rays, the spring and the stream. p. 225

The Trinity as Thought and Speech

The generation of the Son is spiritual; it does not create division and separation. Therefore, the most striking human analogy is thought and speech. Scripture suggests this when it calls the Son Logos, which means speech, word, or reason. Just as the human mind objectifies itself in words, so God expresses His entire being in the Logos. For God to beget is to speak, and His speaking is eternal. p. 236

The Trinity and Love

Augustine’s favorite analogy for the Trinity is from love itself. In love, there is always one who loves, that which is loved, and love itself. Always a subject, an object, and a bond between them. Although speculative, this analogy has clear biblical resonance. p. 243

Predestination and Circumstance

Predestination Quotes

“When God made Adam, His eyes were on Christ.” p. 257

“Being born to Christian parents is a gift; you didn’t choose that. Our having free will to choose God doesn’t suddenly make condemnation fair; our lives are still products of circumstance and ultimately God’s complete control.” p. 257

“The entrance of sin into the world did not take God by surprise but was willed by Him.” p. 257