What God Communicates

…in all his works. God is ultimately glorifying himself and showing a supreme respect for his own being.

The End for Which God Created the World, by Jonathan Edwards (Author), Jason Dollar (Editor)

God is exalting Himself through His works; He delights in Himself when other beings see and know His glory; He honors Himself by graciously diffusing the full goodness of His being.

I can hear some objections to statements such as these. Edwards will come to a series of objections to his thesis, and I will come to these in the next post. In this post, Edwards will present what he means by God diffusing the fullness of His being: what fullness, and what aspects of His being?

There are three specific things he communicates to the creature as his goodness and light spread outward from his being – knowledge, holiness, and happiness.

These are what God communicates to us, and it is in these that we are able to participate. When God communicates these, He is respecting and honoring Himself above all else – thus making Himself His own ultimate end.

What of knowledge? God communicates to us His infinite knowledge, such that we can know alongside Him what He knows. The most significant thing that can be known is knowledge of God’s attributes, His being, and His ways. In other words, God communicates knowledge of Himself and the things He does.

Of course, human beings gain this knowledge increasingly, and different human beings possess various degrees of this knowledge. Along this continuum, we move toward perfect knowledge of God. Absent this knowledge of God, we would know, relatively speaking, nothing. Because what is knowledge of anything else compared to the knowledge of God?

The knowledge of God, then, is an ultimate end of creation. This knowledge is valuable in itself and should not be considered a means to something else since the knowledge of God is the end of all other knowledge.

By making the communication of His infinite knowledge His ultimate end, God is making Himself His ultimate end. As we, those made in the image, receive God’s self-knowledge, we participate in God Himself.

The second aspect of this overflowing of God’s goodness is His holiness or virtue to the creature. The creature then receives this communication and experiences or participates in God’s moral excellence. God delights in the holiness of His creatures because their holiness conforms to His, participating in it.

How does this holiness manifest itself in the creature? It is seen in the growing of genuine love; all true virtue can be summarized in love, and this, primarily, love for God.

Jesus was rather clear about this:

Matthew 22: 34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

As was the apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 13: 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul demonstrates here the growth, from child to man, just as our participation in God’s fullness increases as we grow in Christ.

The person who has genuine love for God will also have great esteem for Him. He will spend time with Him, contemplating Him and admiring His attributes.

Therefore, when God makes the communication of his holiness to his creatures an ultimate end of creation, he is making himself his own ultimate end. These are the same end.

Finally, God also communicates His divine happiness. God’s happiness is enjoyment in Himself, and as we participate in this happiness, we also take enjoyment in God. When God’s creatures rejoice in Him, He is manifested and exalted.

I keep in mind, the word happiness – at least when properly understood – means something like fulfillment. In Latin, beatitudo. It isn’t the superficial thing we have come to know as happiness; it is much more and much deeper. The ultimate happiness – beatitudo – is demonstration by fulfillment in other-regarding action, or love. Which comes back to the greatest commandment and Paul telling us that it is love that remains.

Therefore, when God made the communication of his happiness an ultimate end of creation, he made himself his own ultimate end. These are the same end.

A picture is painted based on this analysis from Edwards: God is all in all in every part of what He communicates of His divine fullness. The entirety of this communication is ultimately from Him, to Him, and for Him. What He communicates is, inherently, divine – something of His own being. He communicates His being to us, and we participate in His being.

…the thing God aimed at in creating the world was the communication of himself, which he intended to do throughout all eternity. This is the ultimate end he had in mind. …we see that in making the communication of himself his ultimate end, he makes himself his ultimate end, showing the highest respect for himself.

Going to the next logical step: this communication isn’t a one-time thing, one and done. The communication of His divine fullness increases throughout eternity. As God has an infinite and endless nature, we can never fully receive it all, despite His continuous communication and our continuous participation.

The more God’s divine communications increase to one of his creatures, the more that person becomes unified with God. He is connected more deeply to God in love, and the union becomes firmer and closer over time.

Through this, we incrementally conform more and more to the image of God (I might say likeness), becoming more and more perfect. Here again, while our conforming is increasing, it will never be complete. It is an infinite increasing.

Jesus prayed just for this:

John 17: 20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

Conclusion

God has shown great respect to these chosen ones. He values them eternally, brought them home, and united them to himself.

You can say that we are swallowed up in Him. as noted in my earlier work on Edwards, we enter into the Trinity.

…all things tend toward him and progressively draw nearer and nearer to him for all eternity. This argues that God, who is the first cause of his people, is also their ultimate end. And that means that when God created the world, he made himself his own ultimate end.