The Attributes of God

Sean We’re not Presbyterian, so we don’t have Presbyterian police measuring what we say up against the Westminster Confession.

Philip We do.

Sean Well, we haven’t self-identified as submitting to it, whether or not we agree with the Westminster.

Philip They’re measuring us up. We just might not care.

Sean Right.

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours, the next episode — episode thirty-one. And counting. We’ll see how far we get.

Sean All of the previous episodes are also yours.

Philip Correct. Anyone could go back and re-listen. Agree, disagree — let us know. If you disagree, you should especially let us know. We’re eager for that.

And maybe even this episode there’ll be some disagreement. Maybe not disagreement between Sean and me — we’ll see how things play out.

Sean What if we played up the disagreement?

Philip Yeah, just to get — yeah. There you go.

I think we got some decent feedback from the last episode, about when your wife is freaking out. If you missed that one, you can check it out. It’s supposed to be a playful title.

Sean Right. Now, what have I gotten feedback on for that episode? Minimally. I do think my wife saw the title and maybe was not as excited about it.

Philip Okay, yeah.

Sean But then I know that she didn’t know —

Philip She’s one of those people.

Sean Yeah. She then did listen to it, and she had other thoughts about it. Not necessarily good or bad on the framing of it that was playful. Because somebody told us it was clickbait.

Philip Right.

Sean And I said, I’m sure, I guess. If we were totally super serious here in any given moment, a title like that would have to be obnoxious. But I thought it was playful.

Philip Yeah, I don’t know. I think I define clickbait as something that is provocative and not defensible — kind of like a bait and switch. But we did actually use that phrase, and that is what the episode was about.

This one will be more serious and substantive.

Sean Also, at least one other person has given me feedback — which must now be on the two episodes previous to this — about the All Are Yours conference. At least one person has said to me, “We gotta do it.”

Philip There you go. It must be done.

Sean Nobody has cursed us or said “anathema on your extra-evangelical conference, why are you doing that, we have the church.” Nobody has said that, at least.

Philip Yep. And just because Sean said we should mention it — here it is being mentioned.

Sean Let me mention it.

Philip Okay, all right.

Sean So, unlike me, you have another podcast.

Philip I am on the internet.

Sean Yes. And you have a landing page to get to all the different places where you post things or have been interviewed by other people on their podcasts. But you have your very own other podcast, called Business300. We’ve mentioned it here, we’ve given shout-outs to Business300 before.

They’re all under five minutes. In case you don’t know, you can search Business300 on your podcast app of choice — including Spotify, which is not technically its own podcast app, but whatever. Five minutes or less, with different little lessons on business. And it’s not just 300 seconds — you are about ready, on Wednesday. You’ve recorded it, and it is set to publish on Wednesday: episode 300.

Philip Boom.

Sean Which is it. That has been your goal from the beginning: 300 episodes of 300 seconds or less. This is a huge project. So, five years it’s taken to get that far?

Philip Yep. Nearly five years.

Sean Five years, and this coming — well, it’ll probably be out before this podcast goes out. So that’s awesome. Go find the 300th episode. Obviously you’ve recorded it, it’s scheduled to go. Can you give us a hint on what the final theme is? Is it a wrap-up, or is it its own whole next lesson?

Philip The very first episode, episode one, was called “Business Is Good.”

Sean Okay.

Philip Episode 300 is called “Business Is Really Good.”

Sean Okay.

Philip So there you go.

Sean When you are married to your business, then it’s very good. Like when God brought Eve to Adam, then it was very good.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Okay. Business is very good.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Look for episode 300. It’s going to be less than 300 seconds to listen to it. It will be quick, as they all are.

So, congratulations. That’s actually very exciting. I can appreciate that kind of plodding work to get that far. You’re writing episodes at times when you’ve been driven from one place to another — writing episodes in the back of the car, with the free time you could find. Because that’s not currently your day job; you have other work to do. So this has been a labor of love, because you do actually love business things.

Philip Yeah. The whole project has been for — for myself ten years ago, or fifteen years ago. Starting off in business, trying to learn things, I would have appreciated some kind of content that is short, to the point, not wasting my time. Give me what I need to know and let me move on to doing the work of building the business. And also kind of encompassing different topics within business. So that’s what that’s for.

Sean Yeah, because there were a lot of leadership lessons, which obviously belong in a business context. But a lot of personal character issues too, not just spreadsheets and budgets — though there are multiple very practical subjects you deal with as well. You’ve got character issues, you’ve got actual profit issues, everything in between. But in less than 300 seconds in any given episode. That’s excellent. Again, congratulations.

Philip Yep, thanks.

Sean We are at a tenth. We’ve recorded a tenth of your Business300 episodes.

Philip Yeah, but these are longer. These are longer.

Sean They’re less interesting. Or maybe that’s wrong — I know we should probably not talk badly about our own efforts here. But with the 300 seconds, you’ve written them out. There are no wasted seconds. Whereas in a conversational sort of podcast — and in general I think we do a good job of getting to our discussion as opposed to meta, “how’s your day” —

Philip Right.

Sean — but still, in a conversational podcast you’re going to get some of that sort of wasted time, maybe. Apparently people like that. Or enough people like that, because they still listen to podcasts, or watch them on the YouTube or whatever.

Philip Right.

Sean So there you go. Here we are, trying to catch up to Business300.

Philip There you go. All are yours: business and theology. So this one will be a little bit more about theology.

Sean Do you want to say — because I think I know — what are you going to do with that time? What is next in the Business300 trajectory?

Philip Yeah, I have projects putting it all together. I think there’s more work to do. I do have some business-type books in the works as well.

The Business300 podcast kind of covered three general themes. The first one is a Christian business worldview, and even a certain kind of abundance mindset for how Christians should be approaching business. The second theme was leadership and management, and how that affects the leader himself and then how he approaches leading other people. And the third one was just business competencies: strategy, sales, operations, administration, finance.

So there are a few different books in the works regarding those things that I think would be helpful to compile. Some of that will be in the works, and then we’ll see what other projects could come out of it.

Sean That’s fun.

Philip Yep. All right. So, getting to the point of this episode.

Sean Did you already decide on a title?

Philip We’ll see. I always have preliminary titles, and then based on whether we say something more interesting here — but something about the attributes of God is what we have going on.

Sean That would be a very clickbaity title. “Something About the Attributes of God.”

Philip Yeah. So, something that — I mean, we’re not actually supposed to talk about this, but I guess we decided we will.

Sean You know, I’ve never actually seen the movie.

Philip I have not either.

Sean I looked it up on the parents guide, because I was thinking about watching it a couple weeks ago. And obviously now this is a tease, because we haven’t even said enough for them to know what movie we’re talking about.

I was looking it up because I think it actually is supposed to be a good story. It’s got a good twist, I think. But since I’d never seen it, I was looking it up on the parents guide in case I was going to watch it with one of my kids. And I forget what the number is, but it’s got like decades’ worth of F-words, let alone some other things. So I didn’t watch it yet.

Philip Okay.

Sean But: Fight Club.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And that’s what you’re not supposed to do. The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.

Philip Right. That’s the quote that I hear all the time, yes.

Sean Yeah. But we started one at our church. And I don’t have access to the stats of how many thousands of people listen to this podcast.

Philip Millions.

Sean In fact, I was talking with a guy last weekend whose main job, I think, is being a podcaster. He’s got a lot of people who listen to his podcast, a lot of social media followers, things like that. We were in a conversation with somebody else, and they asked if I also had a podcast, because they knew him as a podcaster. And I said —

Philip “Yes, to my shame and disappointment.”

Sean “Don’t you have to? Some other guy in my church made me join him on a podcast.” And the professional podcaster guy said, “Oh — well, who’s your audience?” And he meant it as in, who are we aiming it for. Not, “does anybody even listen to your podcast?” But it was funny for a few moments.

Anyway, I said in that conversation: yeah, it is primarily, we think, for the people at our church first.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean I’m not trying to limit it to that.

Philip Right.

Sean But probably the people who are most interested currently would be people we know who can’t get enough of our voices.

Philip That’s right. I think it’s for the people of our church — for them directly, and for them to be able to have opportunities to make connections even outside of our church. So again, we’re trying to build doors that we could invite others in through, that we could expand and send our people out through. This is just another avenue for that.

Sean For sure. We are like an Obsidian graph, where the nodes just keep growing, expanding, linking.

Philip Exactly. That’s right.

Sean But at our church —

Philip We have a fight club.

Sean We have a Theology Fight Club. We hadn’t met all in person before; now we know each other in person. Are there nine of us? Does that sound right?

Philip That sounds about right.

Sean But we do it in a group chat. There are reading assignments week by week, and then there are papers about once a month that I’m supposed to assign.

It was kind of because you wanted to read a theology book, and then I was like, well, what if we also invited some other guys to do it with us? And you were amenable to that. So we started maybe February.

Philip Yeah, beginning of the year.

Sean We’ve been going for a while. In fact, in our group chat, the picture I chose was a Brad Pitt from Fight Club.

Philip Okay, yeah.

Sean So it’s in there.

Philip There you go.

Sean We don’t really do very much fighting in the chat. In fact, there are a couple of guys who haven’t been in the chat — or maybe they’ve read, but they haven’t posted anything in the chat for a couple of months. One guy just recently wondered why it was so quiet, and that’s because he hadn’t updated the app we use for the chat, so he wasn’t getting any notifications. That was kind of funny.

All that to say — you and I are the only current church elders in the group, and maybe some other guys will eventually be elders. It’s not necessarily only for that purpose, but it’s getting some other guys from our church, getting some common vocabulary. One of them — no, two of them, I think — have read a systematic theology in some kind of undergraduate or even graduate work.

So we’re reading a theology book together: Theology Fight Club. And we got to the long section after bibliology, on theology proper and in particular on God’s attributes. During the middle of that reading we ended up having a bunch of conversations, which then turned into one of the prompts I said could be used as a paper. And you chose the one on the attributes of God as well. So here we are to talk about it together, in recording.

Philip Yes, that’s right. This is Theology Fight Club Live.

Sean Live — but no, we’re the only ones who are live. That’s why everybody else will have to —

Philip Right. And I think talking about God is always somewhat risky, because he is God and we are not. God does reveal himself to us; what he wants us to know about him, he has revealed to us. There are men who devote their life to studying God’s revelation about himself, who get degrees about it. And then there are other guys who do it on their own, on their own time or in their own way. In some sense, trying to do it on your own could be a little bit more risky as well, so it is helpful to have other men setting up guardrails, to help direct and guide.

But our approach — and this is even a foundational block for All Are Yours, and for TEC, and for our movement — is that we want to go to the word. We want to look at the Bible and draw out of it what the Bible says about God, what the Bible says about us, as opposed to coming to the word with already preconceived theological categories or groupings or a theological context, if you may. We’d like to build that context out of the Bible, as opposed to bringing it to the Bible. So there’s some careful work that needs to be done all the time in our theology.

Even in this conversation — the other prompt you had was about the Trinity. And maybe the Trinity is even more of a dangerous thing to be talking about, because you can enter into some kind of blasphemy or heresy really quick.

Sean Yeah, it’s both. I completely agree that we don’t want to say anything that shouldn’t be said. And also, silence is not an option either, because we must know him, fear him, praise him, and speak of him to others. He doesn’t give us the option to just be quiet. We are not to say more than what he says, but we are also not to say less than what he says.

The first time I really wrestled with that piece of it was in college, and we were reading the debate between Erasmus and Luther on the freedom or bondage of the will. Erasmus was saying that even if the bondage of the will is something taught in the Bible, it’s not useful —

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean — and will actually disturb the consciences of younger or less mature Christians. So don’t speak about these kinds of things. Leave it to maybe the professionals, but even they are likely to get things wrong.

And Luther just came back and said: so you’re saying God was wrong in giving us parts of revelation that we can’t handle? That doesn’t mean we fully understand it, doesn’t mean we can’t get it wrong. But if we don’t even try, then we’re just a different kind of arrogant. It masks as humility, but it’s actually just as arrogant to edit God and say, “We can’t speak about these kinds of things.”

So humility, yes, requires not inventing things, accepting what he has said — but then it also requires acknowledging it publicly, for the sake of the glory of his name.

Philip Right. And I think there are scholars, theological scholars, biblical scholars, and there are pastors who maybe have a more formal role or responsibility to study God’s word, to learn about who God is and how he works, both in creation and in redemption. But I do think that every image bearer of God has a responsibility to learn about their maker. If we are to image him, to reflect him, to bear his image, we ought to know what we are supposed to be imaging.

So the Bible is given not just to scholars and pastors. Even in today’s world we are blessed to have such immediate access to God’s written word, and I think with the ease of access we do have a bigger responsibility to use it, to read it, to learn it.

And then it’s hard to imagine a situation where a man — or a woman, I guess — would be in a silo, not having any interaction with others whom they are to instruct or guide or help teach. A father is to instruct his kids and bring them up in the Lord. So a father’s responsibility there is not just to know God for himself, but to know God more, to be able to help his kids know him.

Sean You quoted in your paper, in your response, Deuteronomy 6 — “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” — and that is in the context of dads teaching their kids the nature of God.

Philip Right.

Sean I have a project with high school freshmen. Fourth quarter — we actually just finished it last week — each student creates their own handbook, their pocket dictionary of theological terms. And I don’t let them invent their own definitions, so I give them definitions.

One of the things we read at the beginning of that project is just the introduction to a book. I think the whole book is titled Everyone’s a Theologian, by R. C. Sproul. And we talk about the inescapable concept: it’s not whether, but which. It’s not whether or not you have thoughts about God; it’s what your thoughts about God are.

Philip Right.

Sean Where do you get them from? Everybody has those thoughts — even high school freshmen, and obviously younger than that as well. And our responsibility is, from God’s word, to try to get our thoughts to match the revelation God has given.

So we’re trying to understand, and then whatever he emphasizes, we should proportionally match his emphasis. Whatever he wants comprehensively, we should be trying to comprehensively match that as well. Not just in our attention, but also in our affection — these are reasons that we should love him, should worship him. It’s not just an academic issue but a praise sort of issue. We want to know all that he said so that we can praise him for all that he is and all that he does.

And even high school freshmen — which is your point, that every person has these thoughts — they should try to get better thoughts, or more complete thoughts.

Philip Right. So I don’t think anybody can say, “Theology is not for me. It’s not for me to learn more about God, my maker, my creator, whose image I’m made in and am to bear.”

Sean Second Peter 3:18: grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Philip Yeah, right.

Sean Keep growing.

Philip And that’s something we will be doing for eternity — getting to know God more, because he is infinite and we are not. So for us to learn about him, to know him further, deeper.

And in the Middle Ages, theology was the queen of the sciences. Everything else is then seen in that light. We come to mathematics and art and science, and even business, in the light of who God is and his purposes. His attributes and his emphases ought to color, flavor, direct, and guide all of our other studies and work and ambitions. So it’s fundamental and inescapable for us to get to know God.

Sean So the prompt — after reading a lot of pages on God’s attributes — the prompt related to his attributes was: How does God’s simplicity affect our study of God’s attributes? Should we understand one or some of his attributes as more significant than others? If yes, on what basis, and which ones?

And then I went out of my way to say you can argue, because we’re reading Wayne Grudem’s systematic theology. Some people just turned our podcast off right now, because they’re like, “Why would you even read that?” Whatever. It’s okay. We have our reasons.

So, included around the prompt, I said: you can argue with Grudem, you can argue with me — because I had made some comments in the group chat and in some other conversations. And you set your paper up in an actual Fight Club analogy.

Do you want to talk about what your answer was? How does our understanding of God’s simplicity affect our understanding and comprehension of all of his attributes? Is there one that should be emphasized more than others, or some?

Philip Yeah. Because you had originally brought up that question in our chat. It was something similar about the order of attributes — in what order should we list God’s attributes, or what are the first focuses or emphases we should have? I hadn’t even realized that should be a question.

And I’m still in the same spot. When I am receiving God’s attributes, I am thinking about them in a way that I can’t receive in my own finite approach. We must order, because we are finite. I think God orders as well, when he’s talking to us, when he’s revealing to us. But when I’m looking at God, I am looking at him in his completeness and his wholeness.

So when the Bible says that the Lord our God is one, part of that is that there is just one God, but also that he is indivisible. He is whole. An integer is a whole number — and so God’s integrity, his oneness, is not divisible.

Then, the simplicity of God — I think Grudem used a different word than simplicity. Unity, maybe he said. But even the point that you cannot break him up into other components. This is the foundational component: God is God, and as he reveals himself, all of those attributes come together. So love and justice and mercy and grace, all of it is to be received as a package deal, as one.

That’s where even the order of the attributes, to me, didn’t seem like a question I could answer, because I am to receive him completely. So that’s where I was with it.

Sean Sure. Do you have a verse for simplicity or unity, other than the Deuteronomy 6 passage?

Now, while you think about that — we also don’t have the word “Trinity.” Maybe it’s the -ity words that are the problem. Simplicity, Trinity. We don’t have the word “Trinity,” at least in the Bible, though we do have verses that show the three persons. We have them together, we have them apart — which was the other prompt.

So how do we avoid, when we talk about God and we talk about the Trinity, emphasizing the triune nature in a way that makes it seem like there are three gods? But also, how do we emphasize the oneness of God without missing how he’s revealed himself as three persons? Which is actually really difficult to do. And it is hard not to observe that the Holy Spirit doesn’t get the same kind of attention as the other persons of the Trinity — even a couple of explicit verses that talk about Jesus saying, “When the Spirit comes, he’s going to point you to me.” So the Spirit doesn’t point to himself the same way as he points to the Son. And of course the Son is the revelation of the Father in flesh.

These are amazing, wonderful, and necessary, because this is what’s real. This is who our God is. Even the beginning of a Christian’s life is to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So we might put the Trinity at an 801-level seminary class, when in fact it’s a 99-level, remedial-level thing. If you don’t worship the triune God, you’re worshiping an idol. So: difficult, and worthwhile to spend time on.

Again, “Trinity” as a name, as a label, is not found in the Bible, but we have verses that talk about it. Simplicity is also not — I’m not opposed to the word or the label, but “simplicity” is not a word that is in Scripture either. That doesn’t mean it’s not taught. Obviously, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

As we’re trying to avoid pluralism, or there being many gods, of course that is key. In Deuteronomy 6 that was especially important in a polytheistic culture, coming out of Egypt and the many gods that were worshiped and acknowledged, that the Israelites would have been familiar with — hence why they weren’t to make partnerships with other nations, because there were other and many gods that the other people worshiped.

But in terms of the attributes of God that we see — I can’t think of a place where we get a command that says you must think about all of me any time you think of me.

Philip Sure. Yeah, I agree with that. That’s not possible.

Even in Scripture, God doesn’t throw up all the attributes at once every time he talks about himself. He reveals himself in different ways at different times, emphasizing different aspects of who he is and what he’s like. And a lot of times when people in Scripture would emphasize one part of who God is at the expense of another part, God would correct them. So I think there are verses where you’re not to lean on one at the expense of the other.

Even the big part about God’s justice and mercy: God is just, God is merciful. These are two, in some sense, seemingly opposing attributes. How can he be both just and merciful? We see how that plays out in Christ’s sacrificial work — those attributes are demonstrated together at the same time. Even in Romans 3, when Paul is talking about Christ being the propitiation for our sins — that is God’s mercy — and then he’s saying, so that God would show himself to be just, and the justifier of those who believe in him. In that way you see opposing attributes being revealed, being put on display together at the same time, as opposed to one negating the other or lessening the other.

So even there, I think that yes, God does emphasize different attributes at different times, and even some attributes more than others. We see certain things talked about in the Bible more frequently than other attributes. But I wouldn’t say that one is more important than the other, more significant. I am to receive all of that together.

Sean Yeah. I mean, we’re trying to be honoring to God. It’s not honoring to — and we’re not trying to make woo, because we’re not Presbyterian, so we don’t have Presbyterian police measuring what we say up against the Westminster Confession.

Philip We do.

Sean Well, we haven’t self-identified as submitting to it, whether or not we agree with the Westminster.

Philip They’re measuring us up. We just might not care.

Sean Right. So again, we’re trying to appreciate God’s word. And my question — I do think I have a different emphasis on it. I wouldn’t say that one attribute is meant to negate another. And in fact, as they complement each other, is it also possible that some attributes serve other attributes — and in some sense they can serve going both ways? So mercy and justice actually serve to increase the glory of both of them. The more you consider mercy, the more appropriately you would consider justice. The more you consider justice, the more amazing mercy actually seems as well.

I do have some passages, because that’s what we’ve talked about in terms of trying to get our understanding from Scripture itself. But I’ve wondered if this is a good analogy — and obviously analogies break down, and of course our finite minds don’t get up to infinite anyway.

If we had a painting, we’d recognize that if you removed any color from it, it would be a different painting. You need all of the colors. In my mind I’ve got the almost wall-sized sort of paintings from when we went to some of the museums back on the East Coast. Huge painting, gold frame. Remove any of the colors and it’s a different painting.

And at any given time you could actually focus in on a part of it. If you were a professional artist, connoisseur — whatever those people are called, critic, art critic — you could study a masterful painting and just take a section of it and spend all of your life studying just that section, writing papers about it. And maybe even be able to do that without forgetting the larger context, the fullness of the painting that it’s part of.

So sure, you could drill down on any particular color, on any particular section, seeing how the colors play off each other, while remembering that it’s part of a bigger context. And again, remove any color or any part and you don’t have the same painting.

Is it possible that still, within that kind of one painting, where each piece and color and tone and contrast is necessary — is it also possible that if you stood back, there would be some patterns, or even particular colors, that made a bigger impression from your view? And the thing is, that’s obviously true when it comes to an actual painting. Whether the analogy applies to God or not perhaps remains to be seen. But clearly that’s true in paintings.

So: darkness in the right places, even shadows in the right places. You can’t remove the shadow and still get the same emphasis on the part that’s not the shadow. You can’t remove the dark around it and still be able to focus in on the thing at the center that has the most light shining on it, the brighter colors.

So is it possible that in the overall picture God gives us in his word, revealing his nature, there are some — you can’t remove them, and I’m not even saying that the others are less important. When we’re talking about emphasis, is that the same as importance?

Philip Mm-hmm. You did use the word “significant” in the prompt.

Sean Okay. Yeah — some that might end up provoking our praise better, or more. Again, “important” maybe is not the right word. But I do think that it is God’s aim to get us to think some things about himself more than he is trying to get us to think about other things of himself.

Philip Is that because we are finite? Meaning, we can’t hold everything at once, or in the same order of importance. And so if we’re going to hold on to something — remember these things.

Even God’s law does operate in a summary sort of fashion. A lot of the specific laws can be summarized in the Ten Commandments, which can be summarized by the greatest commandment and the second greatest commandment, which Christ said all the law and the prophets are built upon. So there are these nuances that then are summarized for us to be able to hold on to them.

So are we to think about it that way because of our finite nature — we could only hold on to three things at a time? Or —

Sean If we’re a dude, we can only hold on to one.

Philip That’s right.

Sean No multitasking.

Philip That’s right. Or is it because some of God’s attributes are more significant than others?

Sean Yeah, again, we’re trying to accept what God says about himself. That is what, in your view and in mine — whether we’re eating different parts of the elephant, or whatever that analogy is, but the same elephant — we are both actually trying to submit to what God says.

Philip Right.

Sean I’m willing to consider, for sure, that this is an issue of him acknowledging our weakness, and therefore not trying to make us hold all the things in there at the same time, because he didn’t make us to do that. I’m willing to consider that it’s a “know your audience” motivation on God’s part. But I don’t actually think that’s what I would say this is about.

I do think that as God is distinguishing — it’s not just that he’s distinguishing, but it’s part of his sovereign plan, his ordained will. This is clearly not his revealed will, because the first command is “you shall have no other gods before me.”

Philip True.

Sean No idols allowed. That’s number one. And also, in his ordained plan, he let men come up with a bunch of idols. And in doing so, he continues through the story to distinguish himself from them. The famous ones are: not only am I the boss, I can tell you what’s going to happen in the future, and your gods can’t do that. They don’t predict anything. They don’t know with certainty. So his foreknowledge is distinct from all those other gods. Not only are we not allowed to worship other gods — he seems to enjoy juxtaposing himself to those false gods to show what he is really like.

Again, in his ordained will, what was he really trying to show off about himself by including in the story that Adam was going to sin, and that there would be sin and death? Because it happened, and because we know God is sovereign over all things, therefore that was part of his plan. So without making Adam sin, he did plan and ordain for Adam to sin. And why? Well, to show off himself, and clearly to show off justice. How are you going to show off justice, righteousness, without unrighteousness?

But even in that showing off of his righteousness against unrighteousness, I do think the story overall — the color you would see on the painting would be red, in terms of love. His love overcomes unrighteous rebellion and wins men back into reconciled fellowship and eternal life with him. Without denying that justice is then demonstrated toward those who are not elect.

In Romans 9 there’s a juxtaposition between vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. And even the way Paul describes that, Romans 9:22–23, is emphasizing God’s sovereign mercy. How the sovereign mercy gets even more appreciated is that there are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction as well.

But I don’t take from that — even in the context of what Paul is trying to argue — I don’t take it that we’re supposed to appreciate vessels of wrath being fitted for destruction and vessels of mercy being prepared for glory in exactly the same way. In fact, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction make their own point. You can’t remove that from the picture. They make their own point. You can study that, you can see that it is consistent with how God is showing off his justice and righteousness. You can’t remove it — but it seems to serve even more to emphasize the sovereign grace and mercy shown to the other vessels that then get glory.

So is God getting glory for himself both ways? Yes. Does it appear that what we’re going to be praising him for more is the vessels of mercy prepared for that glory? Is that a more significant part of what God is showing off? I think that’s worth considering, and for the time being at least, that is more compelling to me, as one example.

So, in Genesis 1, before there’s any sin — and again, there’s more to the story, and like you said, he reveals different parts and different corrections at different times — but even right from the beginning, he’s showing off his power, agreed. Sovereignty, wisdom, creativity. And even in Romans 1, that makes every man guilty, because they know that there’s a God: power, wisdom, his divine nature. Yes — all to show off his generosity and care for the human beings.

Does that mean his blessing on the fish and on the birds and on the beings that walk on earth, that his blessings to them are not great? No, his blessings to them are definitely great. But even they seem to be part of serving God’s gladness to show off to man what he’s made for man. Obviously man is in his image — but what does man get? Man gets God’s omniscience and omnipotence, not just as categories, not just that he can beat us up, but that he’s that generous. Fearing him because of his power, but being amazed that his power even serves his own people, serves the loving fellowship and care — that seems to me a color you’d notice even more than the rest of the colors that are serving to highlight it.

I can stop ranting. Those are a couple of examples of how I could see that individual attributes can’t be removed, individual attributes can be considered, individual attributes are part of God’s nature — how dare we de-emphasize them, let alone negate them. Agreed. But is it possible that some serve to highlight other colors more strongly? In my mind those are a couple of examples to start with of how that could work.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Push back. Fight club.

Philip Yeah, that’s right. I do see different examples of certain attributes highlighting other attributes and vice versa. John 3:16 reveals that God’s love was the reason for sending his Son into the world — “for God so loved the world that he…” Romans 3:26 then reveals that sending Christ as propitiation was to demonstrate his righteousness. So we have different —

Sean Even there. Righteousness for what? Because that righteousness breaks into two.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Demonstrating his righteousness, that sin has to be dealt with. But when he is dealing with sin, in that case in the Romans passage, it’s in order that he might share that righteousness with us. Not just to declare that he hates sin, but that he hates sin and will then, because of his love, be able to give his righteousness to his people.

Hell demonstrates his righteousness, and heaven demonstrates his righteousness. Is there one that God delights in, let’s say, more? I think it is reasonable to say that he delights in the demonstration of his righteousness in fellowship with his people in heaven more than he delights — though it is right — in the other. In some sense we’d have to say he delights in both, because he doesn’t do things that he hates to do.

But — and again, we’re finite beings trying to get it right — is he as excited about his righteousness displayed in hell as he is about his righteousness displayed for those whose unrighteousness Christ took on, so that they could have eternal life?

Philip Mm-hmm. Even when God is pronouncing his Deuteronomic blessings and curses, he says, “As I delighted to bless you, so I will delight to curse you” — to the same extent, to the same level. He’s telling them this.

So it seems like when something is contrasted against God’s holiness, God’s justice is then put on display, and he delights in seeing that. So I’d have a harder time saying one more than the other. I do see examples of both.

But the other part is that I take God’s nature, his attributes, as simple, and to be received and reflected as that indivisible whole. Whereas his purposes I do think are more hierarchical and have layered complexity. There are purposes and sub-purposes, which I think are different from his attributes, his nature. So even talking about —

Sean I think I’d say that because all God’s purposes come from who he is — his purposes don’t come from things external to him, his purposes come from his nature — why would some purposes be more hierarchical if it wasn’t because his delight was more in one thing, because his nature was more aimed, let’s say, in one direction rather than another?

Again — and just like any time you talk about Jesus, well, are you forgetting that he’s one person of the Trinity? Same kind of challenge. The one and the many. Okay: all God is one God, can’t remove any attribute. And also, is he trying to display one more than another, or some combination?

For that matter, even Isaiah 6: holy, holy, holy. Holiness is the only attribute in Scripture that gets that superlative description. So even in my original prompt — is there one, or some, attributes that are more significant? I’m not necessarily thinking we can get it to one above all.

Though some theologians have actually taken holiness as the one that is a different kind of attribute altogether — that you should consider holiness as, you don’t think about any attribute apart from thinking about his holiness. Holiness is an otherness attribute. I’m not as convinced that that is the right way to think about holiness, but I could definitely see somebody making the case that holiness is the thing, if you were trying to see the color on the painting. Holiness as the one, which would then have to flow down into, or flow around to, some of the other ways that he expresses that holiness. Somebody could make that case, and they could make a really strong case for it, as opposed to just love or mercy.

Though I do think — and I’m not sure what the logical category for this would be — it is interesting that of the attributes of God that get most abused, I do think grace and love and mercy are the ones that are most purposefully misunderstood or perverted. And in combination with the fact that Jesus himself said the great commandment is love, that we get the Apostle John saying God is love, and that we get what appears to be Satan himself disguising himself as an angel of light and in doing so perverting love —

I would put that near the bottom of my paper, if I were answering my own prompt. I would include it in a paragraph. Okay, well, isn’t it interesting that what the world, what unbelievers, and therefore what it seems like even Satan himself wants to most get us to think about wrongly, is love and grace? Why is that? Potentially he’s trying to get us to think wrongly about that one because that’s the one that colors the painting in such a way that if we get that one wrong, then we’ll miss all the painting.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Now, that’s not an argument from silence. Again, I’m not sure what the right logical category for it would be.

Philip Yeah.

Sean But you find out what is important sometimes by seeing what people are intentionally trying to pervert.

Philip Sure, that makes sense. So in your framework, what are the one or some attributes that you would put at the top of the list?

Sean It’s kind of cheating to say sovereign mercy, because then that’s already two.

Philip Yeah. That’s kind of what my framework is — put a dash between all of them.

Sean Yeah. But I think sovereign mercy — slash love, sovereign love, I could go with.

And you reference this in your paper, as again including both parts: when Moses asks God, “Show me your glory.” Again, is it because Moses is finite and could only handle so much? Or is this actually God himself being able to bullet-point it? “I will be merciful to whom I show mercy, and be gracious to whom I show grace.”

Now, that is contrasted with those who get judged. But what God says is: “Oh, you want to see my glory? My glory is maybe most shown in sovereign grace.” Grace that overcomes judgment — not just judgment. So the grace that prepares to be merciful instead of giving judgment, while also, “I’ll get glory by doing the judgment.”

To me, that is an interesting answer that God gives Moses, specifically related to his glory. And then I would connect that to Romans 9, with the vessels of wrath that seem to serve to highlight the sovereign mercy on vessels of mercy prepared for glory.

That is the sovereign mercy as driven by, motivated by, his love. So how he wants to use his power is not just to make a cosmos — intricate, complex, beautiful, and now, after sin, scary, but still in a way that shows off his imagination and power. He definitely is showing his power through creation and the cosmos. He’s definitely showing his power in hell, and then the lake of fire, in judging those who rebel against him. But even those things highlight sovereign love, that overcomes dead, rebellious, hostile hearts, overcoming that in saving them, showing mercy and grace, and then adopting them as sons for eternal life. At the cost of Jesus.

So again, agreed: Jesus’s death demonstrates his righteousness. But it seems — because the death of Christ is not demonstrating God’s righteousness to unbelievers, at least not to the ones who are already dead. God’s righteousness is demonstrated to unbelievers in the judgment that they themselves get. So if we hold to particular redemption, if Jesus did not die for each and every person, then the righteousness God displayed on the cross was righteousness unto the sharing of his love. Hell itself demonstrates God’s righteousness on those who are not his, who are not chosen, who do not believe.

So the righteousness serves life, the giving of life, and then being able to say God is not unjust, God is not just forgetting sin. But he deals with sin in a way that allows him to appropriately show this eternal mercy, sovereign grace, to the elect.

So yeah, in answer to your question: sovereign mercy, effectual — so powerful — or sovereign love. As the things that we most pervert or forget. We most forget his sovereignty, and we most pervert his love. Again, not that we can’t mess up any of them, but those seem like a combination, or two if you divide them up, that are regularly, purposefully misunderstood.

And why are men trying to misunderstand those? Is it because that’s the core of who they are — even the gods of men? Sovereign mercy is exactly what men don’t invent. Men do invent gods who are going to punish sinners. Men do invent weak, loving, motherly, almost affectionate gods. Men can invent everything that is not sovereign love. That makes our God stand out.

And I still will qualify: not to the removal of any. It’s not zero-sum. It’s not “oh, you get sovereign grace, or you can have all of them” — door number one, sovereign grace; door number two, all the rest of the attributes. But do the attributes highlight, emphasize, sovereign grace in the story — and obviously then at the cross itself, in the gospel?

When we are announcing the gospel, we are announcing the holiness and righteousness of God, hence why we then need to see ourselves as sinners. But the good news is not that God is righteous. The good news is that God in his righteousness has sent help for our unrighteousness, out of his mercy. That’s the good news.

Now, it is encouraging to us as Christians who live in a world where there are still many hostiles to know that God will judge those — every unlawful president, every unlawful authority, and every wicked neighbor. He’s going to judge all of them, either directly, or he’s already judged his Son for them. So the judgment is being paid for. But what we’re announcing as hopeful is our ability to know him through that grace and mercy.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean I’ve ranted there. Rant one or the other.

Philip Yeah. I do have other thoughts and questions. Would you say that if God could, he would want a universalist kind of approach, where everybody is saved because of sovereign mercy — but he can’t, because he’s limited by his just, holy nature? I know you wouldn’t say it that way, but —

Sean No, I think he planned that to serve its own subordinate purpose, which is a legitimate purpose, out of his nature — on behalf of at least a next-up subordinate purpose, if not a more ultimate purpose: that those who know God can enjoy him forever, as recipients of his grace.

So I don’t think that — I think he was glad for the use of all of the colors. And the vessels of wrath, that is its own end. You could examine that, study that, appreciate that, praise God for that, studying just that by itself. But that’s step one, to then really get to step two of showing off the grace for those vessels of mercy.

Philip Yeah. And that’s where, again, looking at it as different components is helpful for the sake of study and learning — but we aren’t necessarily to consume it that way. We are to get all the flavors in our mouth together.

We’re trying to make justice and mercy not compete, but I think in God they don’t compete. They don’t need to compete. And for us to be able to learn to see it that way — this is all received together.

And then again, as we image that, we are to image these different components, these different attributes, in our entire life. So how do we become a more whole person, undivided in our approach, to have all of our actions be together in a different way?

I think maybe I heard it from Doug Wilson, him talking about C. S. Lewis — or maybe he was quoting somebody else talking about C. S. Lewis — that anything you —

Sean Oh, Barfield, talking about C. S. Lewis.

Philip Yes. Anything you read from Lewis, you kind of got something of everything he believed at once. So for us to be that sort of person, where we get this entire full-fledged, rich flavor of godliness all at once, because we understand all of God. There’s depth, there’s complexity, there’s richness to all of it — as opposed to more shallow understandings trying to balance. It’s more coming all together, all at once.

Sean Which then potentially is an argument that the most significant attribute is his knowability. Or even more so, his revelatory nature. He wants to be known. He wants to be glorified.

So even sovereign grace, or justice and mercy, and the rest — omnipotence, omniscience, eternality — in some ways these are underneath his by-nature overflowing, communicative, revelatory nature.

What should we know about God? He’s not private. What should we know about God? He is transcendent, in the sense that we can’t just touch him whenever we want. He’s not like us — but he also wants us to know about his transcendence. He’s not trying to hide that. There are things that we can’t grasp, that are mysteries; his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. But he wants us to have the things that he has told us.

I think it was Carl Henry, in a series — it’s a long, six-volume book, God, Revelation and Authority. I started to read it a long time ago. Super dense. It was great. I just quit reading. But emphasizing: God has not remained a private God. He’s not remained aloof. He is the revealing God. The way, the truth, the life. He tells us who he is.

So in a sense — and this is just giving a word to what you were describing — he wants us to have these things. In a sense, that’s like the blanket ultimate attribute: he’s giving us himself.

Philip Yeah. All right, well, I think that might even be a good note to end on, because that’s kind of where we started: we do have a responsibility to know God, and in that sense God is knowable. That’s an attribute that he has, and one of his purposes for us is for us to know him.

And in a big way, then, his work to create us is to be in that relationship with us. His work to then redeem us is also to restore that relationship. And that relationship is about us knowing him, because he first knew us.

Sean John 17:3 — “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Philip Right.

Sean To know God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent.

Philip Yeah. So whatever our current wrestlings are, us attempting to know God more is what all of us ought to be doing. That’s what we want to encourage more people toward: get to know God. He has revealed himself. Spend the time.

Sean The painting is not covered.

Philip That’s right. Correct.

Sean The painting is available.

Philip Yeah. So look. There you go. So we got it figured out.

Sean Amen. And we won’t talk about it anymore. We’re not supposed to talk about it.

Philip That’s right. No more. All right. Out.