A Self-Centered God?
24 comments | Permalink
NT scholar Ben Witherington finds the Edwardsean vision of God disturbing and narcissistic. Denny Burk offers some thoughts in response.
posted by JT at Thursday, November 22, 2007
24 Comments:
Of course God is self-centered. if He wasn't, then he wouldn't be God.
This post has been removed by the author.
This is such an important issue and my heart breaks for Witherington and the readers that agree with him. They're missing out so much on the glory of God.
I praise God for John Piper who has so faithfully presented the Scriptures as the Scriptures that this "God magnifying Himself in Jesus" idea proves so plainly true over and over and over again. It's there that our own narcissism is condemned and God is shown for all that he is.
I think that this is the issue that makes or breaks Evangelicalism. Who is God? What is He like? Why does He do what He does? What's that mean for me and my life?
Oh that He would shine His face on us!!!
Does saying that God would be self-centered and narcissistic if he were focussed on his own glory not imply that we really think God is like us only way way bigger?
Have we forgotten that God is altogether not like us and that he is the definition of all things good?
Have we forgotten that we define God's goodness based on what the Bible says God is, an not the other way around.
Witherington seems to have decided, based upon that Biblica standards for human conduct, how God must be, instead of understanding what the Bible says about how God actually is, and calling that good.
I for one, am glad that God is wrapped up in himself and his own glory, if he can recognise what is highest and best, what hope is there for the rest of us?
'I for one, am glad that God is wrapped up in himself and his own glory, if he can recognise what is highest and best, what hope is there for the rest of us?'
That should be "...if he can't recognise..."
Kinda changes the whole sentence doesn't it?
Let's play Bible-pong. He quotes verses, then we quote verses. We can change the ones that don't seem for our position into whatever we want after a few pages of explanation. Usually we're so deluded we don't realize it. A shame, because then we might finally get somewhere instead of always being self-righteous dogmatists.
Sorry, I mean, oh, Ben Witherington! Come back to the faith, you heretic! Oh that God would shine his face upon you, and you would see his glory in Christ Jesus forever! Etc.
Forgive me for assumming this was the common view of God (the one being critiqued by Ben Witherington).
Beware, reading Witherington's entry plus the comments will take at least an hour.
Anyway, it was interesting to read a different view on this whole matter, especially from one whom I respect as a NT Exegete.
And with that tone bill what are you? You must not be a self-righteous dogmatist.
Mike Riccardi,
You and I would probably have many disagreements over theology, but I really appreciate what you have written and the tone it was delivered in. God bless you, brother. Oh that others here would follow you as you follow Christ.
tbe said,
"Dollars to donuts there'll be some point at which someone raises a question that Witherington has no answer for, and his response will be something to the effect of, "I'm a doctor and you're not. So there"
I've been reading Dr. Witherington's blog for 2 years, and I have never seen him respond that way. The couple of times I have seen where someone may have effectively shot down his argument, he just didn't respond at all. Do I get dollars or donuts? I'm on a low-carb diet, so it's nix on the donuts.
tbe said,
"completely ignoring the fact that if God is in fact INTRINSICALLY most Glorious, then He would HAVE to put His Own Glory first, or else He couldn't be Holy"
Dr. Witherington isn't ignoring anything, just disagreeing with you. Some Calvinist theologians have tended to see God's essential nature as holiness, with love being a corollary of it. Wesleyans (as well as many others) traditionally have seen God's essential nature as "holy love." They will disagree with anything that seems to conflict with 1 John's "God is love."
I disagree with John Piper on many things, but he gave a presentation on his Desiring God at my church (leaving his Calvinism implicit only) that I still listen to on tape. I think he finally bridged the gap between God's desire for His glory and God's essential nature of love that focuses on others.
I thank God for him, and would never get on a blog and talk about him the way some of you people talk about Dr. Witherington.
daryl said,
"Witherington seems to have decided, based upon that Biblica standards for human conduct, how God must be, instead of understanding what the Bible says about how God actually is"
I'd like to thank daryl for reading Dr. Witherington's mind, because I thought Witherington wrote what he wrote because the Bible actually says "God is love." I disagreed with his post (I'm on the record there) but it came out of an honest attempt at being faithful to what the Bible says.
Personally, I thought Witherington was over-reacting, and creating a false dichotomy, because John Piper has shown how the two ideas of God focusing on others while focusing on receiving glory can be biblically reconciled. And I wouldn't even try to mind-read Piper to determine how he came up with his formulation.
God bless you!
A crucial piece missing in the discussion of God's self-glorification, it seems to me, is the "other-loving-ness" found in God as Trinity. As the Father, Son, and Spirit glorify, obey, and serve one another according to their respective roles, God brings glory to Himself in a way that is incompatible with narcissism.
Amazingly, the Christian's union with Christ by faith opens the way for sinners to join in this Trinitarian exaltation. As we recognize that every spritual blessing is ours "in Christ", we will be compelled to rejoice over, rather than criticize, the self-directed zeal and glory of the One in Three.
Who does God think He is....God?
I also like this form Spurgoen:
"God is more glorified in the person of His son then He would have been in an unfallen world."
"Of course God is self-centered. if He wasn't, then he wouldn't be God."
God is triune. So, "he" can't be self-centered, since God is three selves, not one.
In order to avoid the charge of incoherency, the Trinity would have to be the perfect expression of self-giving love between persons. If not, then God would lack "self-giving love" and thus lack a perfection and thus not be God.
St. Brianstine,
Do you have a reference for that Spurgeon quote? I loved it and wouldn't mind reading what came before and after.
Thanks.
And thank you, yuckabuck, for your kind words. I was greatly encouraged.
Question: If God is the creator/ruler of this universe, and if He is a merciful and loving God, and all things are to emphasize His glory, then how is hell to be explained with its untold numbers of people who will suffer without any end. In other words, how do all these people, who suffer eternally, emphasize God’s glory?
Doug,
God is not just a loving and merciful God, but a Righteous, Holy, Just God. Sin cannot go unpunished. Therefore, God must punish sin. When Christ comes to die for sin, God doesn't just look the other way. God's wrath, for those whom he has died, has been satisfied. Those for whom never come to faith do not have their sins paid for (for if they did, then they would be believers). God is at the same time consistently just and loving. If not, then He would not be God. Therefore to have both heaven and hell glorifies God.
I think that I understand the need for judgment for sin because sin IS here. Perhaps I need to back up a bit. As the creator/ruler of this earth, then nothing can happen on this earth without God’s permission. Since there IS sin it must have happened with God’s permission – thus the need for judgment and a place to hold those who have been judged. Now, how does it emphasize God’s glory when He could have denied the entrance of sin into His creation and thus the need to have a place where untold numbers of people must suffer eternally?
Doug,
I so appreciate these questions. I think the beginning of an answer might be the Spurgeon quote that Brianstine left for us.
God is more glorified in the person of His son then He would have been in an unfallen world.
Now, you're asking how God is more glorified in the person of His Son than in an unfallen world. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for how. But we can be confident that the intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ that we as redeemed sinners enjoy would be less intimate and less joyful if we had never fallen.
I say that because of the following. As God, the sum of all majesty and perfection, God is most worthy of glory, esteem, honor, and praise. It would be unrighteous for anyone to not glorify, esteem, honor, and praise that which is most worthy of those things. This also applies to God. If God does not glorify Himself to the utmost in all things, He commits idolatry.
On top of that, to the degree that He doesn't make known all facets of His glory, to that degree He is unloving. I say that because the most loving thing anyone could ever do is demonstrate and put on display the most glorious, beautiful, wonderful, majestic thing conceivable. That is what God is. And for Him to not show Himself glorious in His justice and wrath as well as in His mercy and grace would be unloving. Consider the following:
It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent [i.e., radiant], that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all.
[...]
Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all. If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired, and the sense of it not so great.
[...]
So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect. -- Jonathan Edwards, "Concerning the Divine Decrees," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 528)
Here's the root issue - a failure to see the compatibility between the priority of God's glory and his love is a failure to have a God-centered understanding of the doctrine of sin.
It is incontrovertible, simple and profound that sin is the problem the Bible is trying to solve. But the root issue of sin is a failure to worship God as God.
God certainly is love. And as a loving God he wants what is best for his creatures. And He is what is best for them! Therefore he hates anything that keeps them from what is best. In this way, God's preeminent regard for his own glory and his love are not in opposition, they are in perfect cooperation - indeed, they are the same.
Unfortunately, most of American Christianity has had a shallow understanding of sin...
John Piper responds to Ben Witherington.
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/931/
Doug...
Here are a few Jonathan Edwards quotes that helped me with the same question you are posing. These quotes come from JE's first sermon, "God is glorified in Man's Dependence."
"God is glorified in the work of redemption in this, that there appears in it so absolute and universal a dependence of the redeemed on him." - Jonathan Edwards
"We are dependent on God's power through every step of our redemption. We are dependent on the power of God to convert us, and give faith in Jesus Christ, and the new nature." - Jonathan Edwards
"It is a more glorious work of power to rescue a soul out of the hands of the devil, and from the powers of darkness, and to bring it into a state of salvation, than to confer holiness where there was no prepossession or opposition...So it is a more glorious work of power to uphold a soul in a state of grace and holiness, and to carry it on till it is brought to glory, when there is so much sin remaining in the heart resisting, and Satan with all his might opposing, than it would have been to have kept man from falling at first, when Satan had nothing in man." - Jonathan Edwards
Here is a link to the transcript of that JE sermon:
http://www.reformed.org/documents/Edwards/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Edwards/edwards_mans_dependence.html
Doug,
May I recommend that you read the forty-fifth chapter of the book of Isaiah.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home