God’s desire to bring glory to Himself: Five Theses
Introduction
In my previous essay on this subject, I tentatively suggested that the persistent biblical theme of God’s desire to bring glory to Himself is a part of His love. Much of my reasoning for this was partially based upon arguing negatives – i.e. I argued that because God is not like a or c, that implies that He is like b. However, although I was not aware of any other potential solutions, I was aware that my argument could easily fall apart if another solution were found. It also suffered from the fact that it can easily be argued that, due to God’s infinite superiority, we need not expect to understand God or be able to explain comprehensively how His different attributes interact with one another. After submitting that essay, a number of questions remained in my mind. In particular, I was concerned as to whether my theory can be proven directly.
In order to discover whether or not this is the case, it was necessary for me to understand how it is possible for us to understand the nature of God. In response to criticism of my previous essay, I have decided to briefly explain reasons for my methodology.
I will argue in the section below on the nature of biblical authority that Jesus has authority to represent God, and that the bible has authority to represent Jesus. Since this is the case, I will argue that the bible can be held to infallibly reveal God, when properly interpreted. Since I have devoted an entire section of this essay to demonstrating and discussing this, I will not attempt to do so at this point. Rather, I will discuss what significance this has for our understanding of how it is possible to understand God.
Scripture describes God as having spoken
to the Jews “in many and various
ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom
he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the
reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being” – Hebrews
1:1-3. In short, Jesus is the
culmination of God’s revelatory activity, and the ultimate form of it. Similarly, Jesus responds to Philip’s request
to see God the Father by stating “Have I been with you all this time, Philip,
and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can
you say, "Show us the Father'?” in John 14:9.
It is clear from
both of these passages that Jesus is a means by which God speaks to
humanity. Indeed, it seems clear that
Jesus is the supreme means by which God speaks to humanity. Since he is “the reflection of God’s glory
and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Hebrews 1:3), we can confidently
state that Jesus reveals the attributes of God.
Having said that, it
is also clear that there is a discontinuity between the person of Jesus and God
– for example, Jesus states that “the father is greater than I” (John
14:28.) It will be obvious that I cannot
in the introduction to this essay explain in depth the mysteries of the
incarnation and the trinity, but I will briefly sum up the historical beliefs
of orthodox Christianity which I will be depending upon in this essay. Firstly, Jesus the man is one person but with
two natures – divine and human.[1] Secondly, the persons of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all divine,[2]
and yet there is only one God.
Historically, this has been understood as the persons of the divine
trinity being one in one sense, but three in another sense. The terminology that has been used is that
they are one being, in three persons.[3]
Thus, if we wish to know who God is, we should look first to Jesus, who reveals the entirety of God’s character, but is nonetheless fully human. God has spoken in “many and various ways” to the Jewish people, through the prophets (including those who are referred to in scripture), and these are certainly reliable; however, it must be remembered that the person of Jesus is the highest and greatest revelation of God, around which the others can be said to revolve. We can demonstrate that something is in keeping with the character of God by pointing to the person of Jesus, although we should not do so to the exclusion of the whole biblical revelation, even those parts which do not explicitly refer to Jesus. I am about to argue that the Bible, when properly interpreted, infallibly reveals God; this clearly means that when it is properly interpreted, it infallibly reveals the theological significance of the person of Jesus when it discusses Him (although it may well get historical details wrong). To demonstrate, therefore, that God’s character is of a certain nature, the first thing we must turn to is who the person of Jesus is, particularly in the Bible, although we must also remember that Jesus existed within the context of the narrative of God’s relationship with the people of Israel, and that this also reveals God.
Biblical Authority
Throughout this essay, I will assume that everything in scripture, when properly interpreted, infallibly reveals God. I am aware that there are numerous types of writings and types of meanings in the bible, and therefore that it is difficult to understand what a text means. I believe that in the author-text-reader trilemma, the focus must be on the text – the text contains actual meanings inserted into it by the original author, who intended them to be comprehensible to the original readers and can therefore be understood insofar as one understands the social construct of the society, but the author himself is very difficult to understand to any degree of reliability through reading the text. I will now very briefly outline my theological reasons for believing in the authority of the bible.
It seems to me from that historical study leads me inevitably to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead.[4] Although there have been philosophical objections made against it being possible for a man to rise from the dead, I do not find any of these convincing. As a way of illustration, I will now outline one.
The philosopher David Hume argued that since our experience has given us consistent evidence that the laws of nature are correct, there could never be sufficient evidence to counter this, aside from first hand eyesight witness (as opposed to the testimony of other witnesses).[5] However, I find this line of argument unconvincing, and I will now outline why.
Firstly, having witnessed some of the experiments and studied some of the mathematics which led to the development of quantum physics with its uncertainty principle[6], my experience is not entirely the same as that of Hume. I do not believe exactly in the existence of laws of nature as such; rather, I would argue that the truth of the matter is somewhat closer to current scientific thinking which views the future as unpredictable.
That said, I do have roughly the experience which Hume describes – of having a general body of evidence which indicates that the laws of nature are, roughly speaking, true. However, I have never had any experience of the laws of nature acting in the same way in all circumstances – I have only experienced the laws of nature acting in a certain way in certain circumstances. I have no evidence to suggest why this is, and therefore the Christian claim that there was something unique about the person of Jesus which led to the laws of nature being altered as a result of God’s unique intervention is not contradicted by my own experience. Either the Christian account of God acting to resurrect Jesus, or the atheist suggestion that Jesus was not resurrected, are equally compatible with my own experience of the laws of nature. However, given the strong historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, it seems highly probable to me that it occurred.
Since Jesus was resurrected, we can say with a high degree of certainty that he had the authority to speak on God’s behalf – it seems highly likely from historical research that He believed that He had this authority,[7] and the act of God in the resurrection certainly seems to vindicate this claim.
It also seems highly likely from historical research that he held that the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures - which are more-or-less the same writings as the Christian Old Testament (and possibly identical, although we lack sufficient documentary evidence of the period to decisively conclude) – to be authoritative.[8] Given this fact, it is necessary for us to accept the authority of these writings ourselves, since (as I have argued above) Jesus had and has complete authority to represent God. It is extremely probable that in some respects He was a child of His time (as we are of ours), but given His total authority to represent God, we must accept the authority of those writings He declared to be authoritative.
Given this, I
think it is highly likely that the current Christian canon is similarly
authoritative. I think this because the
Hebrew Scriptures were the body of writings held as sacred by the Old Testament
people of God, the Jews. Since Jesus
believed that his vocation involved reorienting the people of
I am aware that this explanation is extremely brief and ignores a number of questions which readers will have about my claim, and is thus not as convincing as it potentially could be. However, a longer explanation would be impossible to include in an essay of this subject, length, and scope.
Now that I have briefly explained why I believe in biblical authority and something of what this means in practise, I will begin the essay proper. Since my theory is somewhat complex, I will select a set of five statements to argue, and use them as header statements for sections arguing for them. When I have shown that each of these statements is correct (given my presuppositions), I will have demonstrated that my theory as a whole is correct, since my theory is based upon these presuppositions.
1: God’s love is concerned, and only concerned, with
other persons (and not with abstract qualities).
That God’s love is concerned with other persons is easily demonstrated from scripture. For example, Paul refers to “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). However, it is more difficult to demonstrate that God’s love is only concerned with other persons, and not with abstract qualities, as some persons have argued.[10]
I would argue,
however, that there is a significant amount of evidence that God’s love is only
concerned with other persons. My reason
for this is simple; the character of Jesus, which I have argued above is both
the highest revelation of God and testified to authoritatively in the
scriptures, seems to be in contradiction to this. Jesus is persistently concerned with persons
throughout the gospels, often over and above other concerns like honouring the
Sabbath and keeping the Jewish law. I
cannot here list every single event in the gospels for obvious practical
reasons, but suffice it to say I am familiar with them and am aware of their
content in writing this. (It must be admitted
that he does regularly talk about God’s judgement upon Israel, a subject which
I would argue – although I do not have sufficient space in an essay of this
scope to do so properly- is based upon his inter-Trinitarian love, which causes
Him to desire to see the other persons of the trinity honoured,[11]
and thus anger and judgement when that does not happen.) It must be admitted that an argument from
silence is not always entirely convincing, but in this case the authoritative
nature of the person concerned and the sources with which we are accessing Him
would certainly indicate that the personality of God should be known to us
through these sources. Since that
personality shows every indication of loving persons but not abstract
qualities, we have strong evidence that this is the case.
2: One of the ‘other persons’ this involves is human beings. This is not simply for the sake of God.
It can easily be
demonstrated from scripture that God loves human beings; an obvious passage to
quote is Romans 5:8, which I also referred to in my last essay, in which “God proves his love for us in that while we
still were sinners Christ died for us.”
As I argued in my last essay, “there seems to be strong evidence from
this passage against the idea of love being a subservient aspect of God’s
desire to bring glory to Himself,”[12]
and this passage refers to “a death motivated by love (by my definition of
love, which involves it not being for ones own sake).”[13]
This is based upon a thorough exegesis which is included in my former essay, and which I will therefore not need to repeat here. Since this was based upon simple exegesis, and not extended logical deductions based upon arguing from negatives, the reasons for writing the second essay (as explained above) do not apply to requiring additional arguments that were not included in the former essay, and therefore I shall regard this as sufficient proof for this one of my theses.
3: God’s love is also concerned with the other within
God – i.e. the different persons of the trinity love each other. This is a more significant part of God’s love
than His love for human beings.
John
One might incorrectly interpret the first as indicating that Jesus’ love for the father is only in order to fulfil another end, and thus not love as I would define it;[14] however, this is shown to be incorrect by a thorough reading of the passage. Jesus obeys the Father’s command (in being willing to be subject to the prince of this world[15]) in order to reveal to the world a love which, it is clearly implied, is independent of, and logically prior to, Jesus’ decision to reveal that love to the world (and this decision is the cause of Jesus’ willingness to be subject to the prince of this world.)
4: God’s acts in bringing glory to Himself are at
least partially motivated by an inter-Trinitarian love.
John
Since Jesus does
things to glorify God out of love for Him, and as we have seen above Jesus is
the ultimate revelation of God and can only be taken as unrepresentative of God
insofar as God’s status as a trinity means that one member of the trinity
cannot be representative of all three, it seems virtually certain that each of
the persons of the trinity seek the glory of the other persons of the trinity
out of love for them. Jesus displays the
attribute of God that each seek the glory of the other persons of the trinity
out of love; however, since Jesus is inevitably one person of the trinity, this
attribute of God was displayed in a different way in Him to in the others, in
that the content of the ‘other’ persons of the trinity is different. This could potentially be an attribute of God
which seeks the glory of the Father (i.e. each of the three persons, the father
included, seek the glory of the Father), but this is wrong for two
reasons. Firstly, I am shortly to argue
as thesis five that individual persons of the trinity to not seek their own
glory. Secondly, John
5: God’s desire to bring glory to Himself is not a part of individual persons of the trinity’s desires to bring glory to themselves.
This passage is relatively easy to demonstrate as being correct. The significance of John 7:18 in its description of Jesus (i.e. contrasting Him against persons who seek their own glory) similarly ultimately contrasts the other persons of the trinity, whom Jesus also reveals, against persons who seek their own glory. Jesus is not someone who seeks glory for Himself; he is someone who seeks glory for other persons. Since Jesus reveals the whole Godhead, the other persons of the trinity must not be persons who seek glory for themselves, but rather for other persons.
Conclusion
In this essay, in order to demonstrate more convincingly some aspects of a theory I came up with in an earlier essay, I have looked into how we can know about God, and have concluded that we can know about Him primarily through the person of Jesus. Because we can know about him through this method, we can know firstly that the Bible is reliable for understanding God, and secondly that the Bible is an authoritative record of who the person of Jesus is. As a result of logical deductions based upon these methodological conclusions, I have demonstrated that the following aspects of my earlier thesis were correct:
1: God’s love is concerned, and only concerned, with other persons (and not with abstract qualities).
2: One of the ‘other persons’ this involves is human beings. This is not simply for the sake of God.
3: God’s love is also concerned with the other within God – i.e. the different persons of the trinity love each other. This is a more significant part of God’s love than His love for human beings.
4: God’s acts in bringing glory to Himself are at least partially motivated by an inter-Trinitarian love.
5: God’s desire to bring glory to Himself is not a part of individual persons of the trinity’s desires to bring glory to themselves.
Bibliography:
Referenced:
Raymond E. Brown The Gospel According to John
XIII-XXI
In
Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Nothing Greater, Nothing Better:
(ed.) Theological Essays
on the Love of God Publishing Co., 2001
Alister
2001
E.P. Sanders The Historical Figure of Jesus
Mel Thompson Philosophy of Religion
N.T. Wright Jesus and the Victory of God
Christian Knowledge, 1996
N.T. Wright The Resurrection of the Son of
God
Christian Knowledge, 2003
Educational, 2003
1993
Consulted, but not referenced in the main body of the
essay
Don Carson The Difficult doctrine of the
Love of Leicester: Inter-Varsity
Press,
God 2000
C.E.B. Cranfield Romans 1-8
Jonathan Edwards ‘The End for Which God Created the
World”
In
John Piper God’s Passion for His Glory Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books,
Ronald Norman
Frost Richard Sibbes’
theology of Grace Ph.D.
Dissertation, University
and the division of English Reformed of
Theology 1994
John D. Hannah To God Be the Glory (Today’s Issues)
John Piper Desiring God: Meditations
of a
Christian Hedonist Inc,
2003
John Piper The Pleasures of God
Inc,
2000
1998
D.M.G. Stalker Ezekiel
W. H. Vanstone Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense:
The Response of Being to the Love of Todd Ltd, 1981
God
R.R. Williams The Letters of John and James
University Press, 1965
2000
[1] Alister E. McGrath Christian Theology: An Introduction (
[2] Ibid, pg. 320
[3] Ibid, pg. 321
[4] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection
of the Son of God (
[5] Mel Thompson Philosophy of Religion (
[6] Which in many ways runs counter to the very concept of the laws of nature, as Hume would understand them.
[7] E.P. Sanders The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1993), pg. 238
[8] Ibid, pg. 224
[9] N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1996), pg. 466
[10]
[15] Raymond E. Brown The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI (New York: Doubleday, 1970), pg. 656