ON THE PATH TO GOD: The Need for "None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God" in the Academy and Church

Aug 31, 2024

11 min read

ON THE PATH TO GOD: THE NEED FOR "NONE GREATER: THE UNDOMESTICATED ATTRIBUTES OF GOD" IN THE ACADEMY AND THE CHURCH

By: Daniel McMillin

ON THE PATH TO GOD: The Need for None Greater in the Academy and Church

I always enjoy this portion of our time together. It is a time to sit back and listen to our speaker divulge the truths that they have learned as the reader. I love books and constantly fill my time with reading as both a minister and student, and, like many of you, my bookshelves are filled and overflowing with books. There are some books whose chapters I have skimmed through and others that I have read from cover to cover, but there are very few books that do more than inform our understanding and transform not only our minds but also our hearts and souls. Today, I want to share with you a book that has changed my prayer life, preaching, and personal relationship with God. This book has allowed me to fully appreciate and value the pursuit of God, knowing that He is both knowable and incomprehensible. The reason this book is so valuable is because it encourages us, as the readers, to contemplate the divine nature. The book of which I speak is called None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God by Matthew Barrett.[1]

This book changed my life. Each page gave me a greater grasp of the glory of my God and encouraged me to constantly think about my God. It allowed me to think theologically and to love my God for who He is. Surely, a book about God could not replace reading the primary source where God has revealed Himself (i.e., the Bible), but this book is profoundly necessary in an age where not only does our culture not have a proper concept of the divine, but also the Church struggles with understanding our Triune God. I assume we possess various monographs on topics as relevant as baptism and possess multiple commentaries on the books of the Bible. But how many books do we have that are dedicated to the task of the divine attributes? And even if we do, is it both comprehensive and coherent for our members? Barrett laments “that there are very few books on the attributes of God written for those in the church in a style that is clear and accessible yet uncompromising and rigorous.”[2]

Barrett begins with his personal journey of falling in love with systematic theology and talks about the theological volumes that not only influenced his book but introduced him to the depths of our holy God as he mentions the works of Calvin, Augustine, Anslem, Bavinck, and many others. This ultimately led him to be surprised by God the more he studied the nature of God. He noted that “the more I learned about God, the more I had to admit just how little and insignificant I was next to this big God.”[3] This is precisely what follows the more we study the nature of God. (1) We obtain a high view of God and see, “No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power” (Jer. 10:6). (2) We recognize the Creator-creature distinction that allows us to see God as the tri-holy Lord of Hosts that Isaiah sees as the transcendent Creator. According to Barrett, “For too long, Christians have domesticated God, bringing him down to our level, as if he is a God who can be tamed. But he is a God who is high and lifted up, the Creator rather than the creature, someone than which none greater can be conceived.”[4]

DWELLING ON THE DIVINE: The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God

Barrett opens Chapter 1 with a humbling thought for every theologian that prepares one for the proper mindset as they approach the topic of theology and seek to dwell on the majesty of God. This chapter helps the reader to understand that as they seek to know God, they will never completely grasp all the nuances of our God’s essence because no one can truly know God in all His glory and live (Ex. 33). “God’s incomprehensibility,” Barrett says, “is a helpful reminder that whenever we speak of the infinite God, there is a proper, biblical role for mystery.”[5] God is an infinite being that our finite minds are incapable of fully understanding. This should not lead us to despair but to our knees in devotion.

In the next chapter, he talks about how we, as God’s creatures, are to talk about our Creator in a proper way, as well as how we should not talk about God. Barrett talks about how our discussion is like baby talk to accommodate our understanding of God’s transcendence. We are searching for the “greatness” of an “unsearchable” God (Ps. 145:3). Our way of thinking about God is lacking because we are talking about a God that we have never seen and do not fully know due to our finite nature, and so we use forms of communicating God that are easy for us to comprehend. Barrett discusses the various figures of speech we communicate God’s nature that may limit God if we are not careful. In an effort to talk about God, we may utterly misunderstand His essence and must acknowledge that our way of communication is strictly metaphorical, that is, anthropomorphic and analogical, as we describe in physical ways when we say He has “wings” (Ps. 17:8) or “eyes” (Ps. 34:15) when we know God is incorporeal— “God is spirit” (John 4:24). The reason the biblical authors, both human and divine, communicate in this way is to create a mental picture that describes the indescribable for us as humans.[6] Barrett helps define the line for how we, as God’s creatures, should and should not talk about our Creator-God.

CONTEMPLATING THE DIVINE ESSENCE: The Undomesticated Attributes of God

Barrett talks about God by engaging with the divine attributes. Admirably, he simplifies these deep theological concepts and makes them accessible to us as readers. He discusses attributes like righteousness, goodness, love, jealousy, and glory in chapters 11-12, which are attributes I am sure we highlight very often in our preaching. In chapters 9-10, Barrett discusses the four Omni-s, attributes I assume many of us are familiar with, omnipresence (God is all-present), omnipotence (God is all-powerful), omniscience (God is all-knowing), and omnisapience (God is all-wise). Each of these attributes may be categorized as communicable attributes, that is, the attributes that are true to God and are partially true to us (We can love, but God is love). But there are some attributes that we may say are forgotten since they are often overlooked or ignored, namely, the incommunicable attributes, that is, the attributes that are true to God but not true to us (God alone is eternal). These attributes are as follows: divine infinity, aseity, simplicity, immutability, impassibility, and eternality. Each of these attributes enlightens and preserves the Godness of God.

Divine infinity (chapter 3) means that God is limitless; He cannot be bound because He is everywhere. His essence is perfect and without limitation. A God whose “power” is “immeasurable” (Eph. 1:19). Barrett says, “As the uncreated Creator, he is the only one who is infinite, unlimited, and immeasurable. That is what makes him the greatest, most supreme, most perfect being imaginable.”[7] The Church Fathers would describe Him as “a boundless ocean of being.” God cannot be limited or measured since He is boundlessly perfect. “He is, without qualification, without reservation, the supreme being, the fullness of Being itself.”[8]

Divine aseity (chapter 4) means that God is the fullness or plenitude of life—He is the fountain and abundance of life. God is of Himself and possesses life in and of Himself. God is independent or free from all creation. God is self-existent and self-sufficient. God is through and from Himself. He is free from Creation since He is “independent of all external dependence.”[9] God is the source of life, and He is the giver of life. He is, as the apostle Paul said, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:24-25). God is the greatest conceivable Being. He is, as Anselm famously said, “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.” This leads us to conclude that anything less than God is not God.

Divine simplicity (chapter 5) is “the teaching that God is not composed of parts but rather is identical with his own essence, existence and attributes, each of which is identical with the whole being of the triune God considered under some aspect.”[10] God is not complex; He is indivisible. His attributes are not parts of Him but are instead identical. His essence is identical to His existence. According to Barrett, “God is his attributes. Instead of addition and division, there is absolute unity.”[11] God’s simplicity speaks to the fact that He is absolutely one. His unity is intact, for the God of the Bible is “one” (Deut. 6:4). Simplicity simply means all that is in God is God.

Divine immutability (chapter 6) means that God is unchangeable. “He is firm and secure, always there, never fluctuating, incapable of defeat, and forever steadfast as a fortress to those in trouble.”[12] While humans change, God remains the same. His word is true and unalterable because the Lord does not change (Mal. 3:6; cf. Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 102:26-27; Rom. 1:23; Titus 1:2; Heb. 1:10-12; 6:18; 13:8). He is the “Father of lights” in whom “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). He is the “same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Immutability is the denial of the possibility of change. “If God were not immutable, he would not be God.”[13] God is pure act, He changes all things but is not changed. This allows us to affirm that God, as the Creator of the universe, is the unmoved Mover.

Divine impassibility (chapter 7) means that God does not suffer. God is protected from the potential of experiencing suffering since He does not change. Barrett has said, “He is incapable of being passible. It is contrary to his unchanging nature.”[14] This attribute is God’s “immunity to suffering.”[15] It preserves His divine nature by allowing us to affirm that God is maximally alive.

Divine eternality (chapter 8) means that God is beyond time and exists outside of time. God is. He has no beginning or end. There was never a time when God did not exist. He existed before the origin of creation and will exist long after the destruction of creation. “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Is. 40:28). It is this eternal God who offers eternal life through the eternal Son of God according to His eternal plan. As Barrett said, “Unbound by time, our God is who he has always been and always will be…as long as God remains unlimited, infinite in being, he cannot be said to be constrained by time and space.”[16] His eternal nature is, as Boethius said, “the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life.”[17]

RETRIEVING THEOLOGY PROPER IN THE PULIT: The Need for Preaching Theologically

A.W. Tozer famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[18] Sorrowfully, our minds appear to be preoccupied with other things that are relatively less important than the grandeur of our God. There is a constant neglect of the doctrine of God (theology proper) in not only scholarship but also in the Church. I find it interesting that we, in the Restoration movement, have a high view of Scripture, salvation, and the Church (no one does it better than us, i.e., Everett Ferguson’s The Church of Christ: Ecclesiology for Today), but what about God? Is our preaching centered on the nature of God, the Trinity, Christ, and the Holy Spirit? If it’s not, then why not? God should be the focus of our preaching. He is to be the center of our theology and our lives. If the church does not see that in our preaching, then how can we expect them to make that reign true in their lives? How can we truly love and know God if we do not spend the time to get to know him and constantly contemplate his glory? We pride ourselves in affirming that doctrine matters to us. The doctrines of Christ, salvation, and the church matter to us, and so should the doctrine of God.

A helpful question may be: What is our goal as ministers? Is it not to ensure that our members know God? Is it not to equip them for spiritual service as priests in the temple of God? The problem is that our members do not know God. In fact, many of them struggle with a proper understanding of the Old Testament God of wrath and the New Testament God of love. They wrestle with the mystery of the Trinity as they try to understand how the Father, Son, and Spirit can be one and three. But they also not only struggle with properly understanding the doctrine of the Trinity, but they are also afraid of the Third Person of the Trinity. That’s bad! Today, the Church is suffering from not only Biblical illiteracy, an important topic for another day, but theological ignorance. I think this book may offer a remedy to one of the greatest needs of the Church by retrieving the doctrine of God.

Ultimately, we will find that this will impact the way we worship since theology leads to doxology. “The attributes of God show us exactly why God is worthy of worship: there is none like him.”[19] The more we come to know God, the more we will seek to worship Him as the true God. “This is the God we worship, and we dare not get Him wrong.”[20] Herman Bavinck said, “Theology is about God and should reflect a doxological tone that glorifies him.”[21] All of this begins with us. As preachers, we ought to think of ourselves as public theologians who proclaim the mighty things of God. Our members ought to be theologians, that is, lovers and worshipers of God who dwell on His majesty. Our lives ought to be centered upon the glory of God. If I am ever going to be someone who elevates the authority of Scripture, then I must elevate the God of the Scriptures.

By reading None Greater, we will find ourselves being transformed into preaching theologians. As we interpret Scripture, we should read and think theologically so our thoughts are guided by the things above and not directed by the things below that cloud our judgment. Reading theologically widens our perspective of Scripture as we see all things ultimately go back to God. This book helps us formulate the proper grammar to articulate the majesty of God. We read homiletical and hermeneutical books to influence the way we read and preach the Word. Nothing could be more important to us than to read a theological book that influences all areas of our lives since it impacts the way we think about a God of whom we may affirm there is None Greater.

END NOTES

[1] I am indebted to my mentor and friend Donnie DeBord who introduced me to this fine book and renewed my love for god since the day of my salvation.

[2] Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God, xv.

[3] Barrett, None Greater, 3.

[4] Barrett, None Greater Back cover.

[5] Barrett, None Greater, 25.

[6] Barrett, None Greater, 38.

[7] Barrett, None Greater, 44-45.

[8] Barrett, None Greater, 54.

[9] Barrett, None Greater, 57.

[10] Duby, Divine Simplicity, 2.

[11] Barrett, None Greater, 75.

[12] Barrett, None Greater, 91.

[13] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:154.