Knowing God
J I Packer
Class notes – #5,
- Evening Prayer
- Review from last week – Questions, comments and general discussion.
Chapter Ten – God’s Wisdom and Ours - What are the two classes of attributes of God?
- Incommunicable – pertaining to God alone; a unique quality for which no human counterpart can be found.
i. Omnipresence – God is everywhere simultaneously.
ii.
iii. Immutability – entirely free from change, consistent
iv. Infinite – free from all limits of time, space and action
v. Simplicity – God cannot be broken down into ‘parts’
1. What about the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
a. Our creeds affirm that they are of the same substance and that there is no part of one of them that does not also include the others. SEE ATHANASIUS CREED EXCEPTS.
- Communicable attributes – those attributes which, to a greater or lesser degree, are shared with man or are found in mankind’s being.
i. Love
ii. Omnipotence –
1. In what way? Man is not truly omnipotent, however we clearly do have a measure of power – creative, moral (the ability to make moral decisions) etc.
iii. Spirituality –
1. What do we mean by man’s ‘power of spirituality’ – the God-given ability to commune with God, however limited, inadequate and error prone as it might be.
iv. Moral attributes – goodness, truth, holiness and righteousness.
- How do our communicable attributes reflect God’s promise in Genesis 1:26-27 (see text)? Another way to ask the question; What makes us authentically human?
- We have in our character a resemblance to God’s attributes (see Gregory of Nyssa)
- Barth – ‘male and female’; our sexual complementarity is a key part of our divine image bearing. ‘Being fruitful and multiplying’ is part of this nature.
- Others hold to ‘Self-awareness’. God is supremely self-aware; humans are uniquely (for animals) self-aware
- On the other hand, many Old Testament scholars and rabbinic experts disagree with the approach of seeking ‘human capacities’ that reflect God’s abilities. Rather, they believe ‘human beings are created in such a way that they can have a relationship with God…a history with God’. In other words, image is not something we have but something we do (ie., interact with God) (JA Mottyer, The Message of Genesis).
- God’s image – however it is defined within narrow human terms – has been defaced.
- The history of God with His people recounts the restorative and redemptive plan He has to ‘repair the ruined image by communicating these qualities to them afresh’ (pp 100)
- How does the attribute wisdom, when found in humans, help this? (pp 101)
- We learn to reverence God – acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down – can bring us wisdom
- We learn to receive God’s word – we apply ourselves to God’s revelations. We ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ God’s Word and commands. We soak ourselves in scripture.
i. Anglicans have an added advantage – Cranmer’s Prayerbook and lectionary (pp 101)
- What does Packer say Wisdom is not? (pp 102)
- To suppose the gift of wisdom consists in a deepened insight into the providential meaning and purpose of events going on around us.
i. People suppose that if we are really close to God we will see and understand His purposes.
ii. When bad things happen or when we cannot explain an event such people blame the inability to understand on a ‘lack of spirituality’.
- So….what is wisdom? (pp 103)
- We must be ruthlessly realistic.
i. Packer’s driving analogy (pp 103) – we do not ask why the road narrows or turns, we simply concentrate on negotiating it, we try to see and respond appropriately.
- Packer - “The truth is that God in His wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which He is working out in the churches and in our own lives”? pp 106
- Wisdom is “to fear God and keep His commandments” (Eccles ). “Trust and obey Him, reverence Him, worship Him, be humble before Him, and never say more than you mean and will stand to when you pray to Him (5:1-7).
- Live in the present, and enjoy it thoroughly
i. The risk or sin of ‘superspirituality’.
- DON’T BE LESS SENSITIVE, BE LESS BEWILDERED’. (pp 108).
- Next week – Wednesday 14th – Chapter 11
Big Question: How would you characterize God’s word?
Scriptural References
Excepts of the Athanasius Creed
…the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity
in Unity,
neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son,
and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one,
the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son,
and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate,
and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible,
and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal,
and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals,
but one eternal.
…
And yet they are not three Almighties,
but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God,
and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods,
but one God.
….
The Father is made of none,
neither created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone,
not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father [and of the Son],
neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons;
one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
….
Genesis 1:26-27
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
DEFINITION OF THE IMAGE. GREGORY OF NYSSA – ON THE CREATION OF MAN: Let us add that [man's] creation in the image of the nature that governs all demonstrates precisely that he has from the beginning a royal nature. Following common usage, painters of portraits of princes, as well as representing their features, express their royal dignity by garments of purple, and before this image one is accustomed to say "the king." Thus human nature, created to rule the world because of his resemblance to the universal King, has been made like a living image that participates in the archetype by dignity and by name. He is not clothed in purple, scepter and diadem, for these do not signify his dignity (the archetype himself does not possess them). But in place of purple, he is clothed with virtue, the most royal of garments. Instead of a scepter, he is endowed with blessed immortality. Instead of a royal diadem, he bears the crown of justice, in such a way that everything about him manifests royal dignity, by his exact likeness to the beauty of the archetype.
