A question concerning John Piper and affections in God

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Here's a great resource on impassibility from Gavin Beers: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=21616738233. On a 2016 Puritanboard thread begun by you @Reformed Covenanter(!), MW commented re this sermon: "This is an exceptionally clear summation of the case for impassibility. One often wonders where to begin with an issue like this, what to say and what to omit, but Rev. Beers has brought out all the essentials without growing tedious in details."

This was a game changer for me. I was brought to the doctrines of grace by Pastor Piper's sermons on Romans, considered him my father and hero of the faith, owned and read most of his books, attended his conference once, met him once, was a big fan (and still love and appreciate him). But I had never learned from him the wonderful truth of God's simplicity. The above sermon from Gavin Beers was a huge piece of the "puzzle" I lacked that did more for me in raising my awe and worship of God than even Pastor Piper (with all his wonderful skill in using those hyphened adjectives :) ) had done. Just saying.
Thanks
 
Here's a great resource on impassibility from Gavin Beers: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=21616738233. On a 2016 Puritanboard thread begun by you @Reformed Covenanter(!), MW commented re this sermon: "This is an exceptionally clear summation of the case for impassibility. One often wonders where to begin with an issue like this, what to say and what to omit, but Rev. Beers has brought out all the essentials without growing tedious in details."

This was a game changer for me. I was brought to the doctrines of grace by Pastor Piper's sermons on Romans, considered him my father and hero of the faith, owned and read most of his books, attended his conference once, met him once, was a big fan (and still love and appreciate him). But I had never learned from him the wonderful truth of God's simplicity. The above sermon from Gavin Beers was a huge piece of the "puzzle" I lacked that did more for me in raising my awe and worship of God than even Pastor Piper (with all his wonderful skill in using those hyphened adjectives :) ) had done. Just saying.

While everything you have said concerning John Piper may be true, that is not the same thing as saying that he denies either divine simplicity or impassibility (Grammarly, please stop changing that word to impossibility :scholar:). Part of the reason why Gavin Beers and myself (keep in mind that I have known him for nearly twenty years) emphasise these doctrines, is because of how we have had to confront the issue, or, to be more precise, had to combat those who questioned or denied either impassibility or simplicity.

Edit: Sorry, I left out a few words from the second sentence.
 
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Here's a great resource on impassibility from Gavin Beers: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=21616738233. On a 2016 Puritanboard thread begun by you @Reformed Covenanter(!), MW commented re this sermon: "This is an exceptionally clear summation of the case for impassibility. One often wonders where to begin with an issue like this, what to say and what to omit, but Rev. Beers has brought out all the essentials without growing tedious in details."

Hi Jeri,

I finally got around to listening to this very excellent sermon. I think Beers did a great job. Thank you so much for the tip.
 
Analogically. He doesn't have emotions the same way we do.

Can you give me one thought, apart from the incarnation, in which the divine nature of God can have any emotions within Himself. To say God has emotions, apart from how we have them, still posits He changes. I understand totally the idea most want to qualify many statements, but the fact of the matter is God, strictly speaking, has no emotions at all within Himself. Using the word "analogically" only helps if speaking in how one can perceive that He treats his creatures based on His fullness. :)
 
Can you give me one thought, apart from the incarnation, in which the divine nature of God can have any emotions within Himself. To say God has emotions, apart from how we have them, still posits He changes. I understand totally the idea most want to qualify many statements, but the fact of the matter is God, strictly speaking, has no emotions at all within Himself. Using the word "analogically" only helps if speaking in how one can perceive that He treats his creatures based on His fullness. :)

Analogically isn't much different from saying things like "anthropomorphism," and analogical language has always been a staple of orthodoxy.
 
One thing worth keeping in mind is that Dr Piper does not seem to understand the divine simplicity. Immediately after the above-cited section, he makes the following comment: "The goodness of God is not identical with his holiness or his righteousness." (Ibid., p. 33) :(

Daniel,

Piper has a habit of tagging traditional terms in non-traditional ways. He does this with works as they relate to justification.

If we affirm:

God is goodness
God is holiness

must we maintain that goodness is holiness? I think not because “is” doesn’t mean “equals.”

Walk with me here...

I think to maintain simplicity one must maintain that God is indivisibly one. He’s not made up from composites. Nor is he “like” his attributes. He’s not “like” holiness, as if holiness were an abstract concept outside God.

Yet when we speak in terms of God’s attributes being identical, it’s not as though we should assert that wrath is identical to holiness in an unqualified sense. What would that even mean to us? After all, holiness is an absolute attribute whereas wrath, although an attribute, is classified under relative attributes. The latter needing creation to be manifested, unlike those attributes we might label “absolute attributes.” So, in one sense holiness cannot be identical to wrath. I think the theological distinction is that God’s wrath is holy wrath. The two attributes permeate each other. They cannot be separated, so being indivisible they’re one and identical. God’s holy wrath is also just and good....
 
If we affirm:

God is goodness
God is holiness

must we maintain that goodness is holiness? I think not because “is” doesn’t mean “equals.”

Traditionally, the Reformed have understood simplicity to mean that not only are the attributes identical with the essence of God but that they are also identical with each other. So that in God, his holiness is his love, and his love is his holiness. The distinction between these attributes is in our conceptions, yet they cannot be properly distinct in God or else he is composed of different attributes, which obviously contradicts the notion that God is without parts.
 
Yet when we speak in terms of God’s attributes being identical, it’s not as though we should assert that wrath is identical to holiness in an unqualified sense. What would that even mean to us? After all, holiness is an absolute attribute whereas wrath, although an attribute, is classified under relative attributes. The latter needing creation to be manifested, unlike those attributes we might label “absolute attributes.” So, in one sense holiness cannot be identical to wrath. I think the theological distinction is that God’s wrath is holy wrath. The two attributes permeate each other. They cannot be separated, so being indivisible they’re one and identical. God’s holy wrath is also just and good....

Sorry for another post, Ron, but for some reason I was not able to quote twice in the previous post. On the subject of God's wrath, I agree with John Owen's take on the subject.
 
Analogically isn't much different from saying things like "anthropomorphism," and analogical language has always been a staple of orthodoxy.



I agree though when pressed most will deny His immutability by insisting God has some type emotions. We have no problem saying God does not have eyes, ears, and hands with ease. So as I asked before can you unequivocally say God has no emotions? :)
 
I hear you, Daniel. I’m just not sure that the Reformed tradition doesn’t nuance simplicity in the way I’ve suggested.

For instance, Geerhardus Vos:

“102. What is the difference between the holiness of God and His righteousness?”

“These to attributes are most closely connected to one another, yet they are not identical with each other....” (He goes on to ascribe a twofold distinction.)

Even Herman Bavinck, after asserting that (a) God’s attributes are identical with his being and (b) “nor differ from one another,” he goes on to expand with careful qualification “We maintain..., nevertheless, distinctions must be made: the attributes do not differ in substance; nor, on the other hand, is the difference a merely verbal one; they differ in ‘thought’, i.e., each attribute a distinct something.” (Distinct something, he notes.)

He goes further to say, “Hence, it has been correctly remarked that the distinctions are based upon God’s revelation itself... Moreover, for God’s ‘simplicity’ does not indicate that he is an abstract and contentless essence.”

An earlier point of mine was that if we make two attributes out to mean identically the same thing without any qualification whatsoever, then in doing so we evacuate any meaning of our own words. Charles Hodge seems to have concurred:

“If in God eternity is identical with knowledge, knowledge with power, power with ubiquity, and ubiquity with holiness, we are using words without meaning when we attribute any perfection to God.” He goes on to discuss “blank ignorance” in accordance to an “extreme view of the simplicity of his essence...”

And if I’ve read Berkhof aright, he seems to limit simplicity to indivisibility, limiting the discussion to attributes being identical to God’s being, without mention of each attribute being identical to all other attributes.

Dabney would seem to deny simplicity all together.

I have all volumes should anyone want references.

Please mind, I’m not arguing for or against any concept of simplicity but merely that I don’t find a doctrine of simplicity in our own tradition that, for instance, unpacks love as equating to wrath without remainder.

Indeed, we are delving into high mystery here, but Hodge’s caution rings true to me. What are we even saying when we assert God is love, if love is purely identical with wrath?
 
I agree though when pressed most will deny His immutability by insisting God has some type emotions. We have no problem saying God does not have eyes, ears, and hands with ease. So as I asked before can you unequivocally say God has no emotions? :)

Analogically, God has no emotions. I can't say univocally God has no emotions, for that would contradict Scripture.
 
I hear you, Daniel. I’m just not sure that the Reformed tradition doesn’t nuance simplicity in the way I’ve suggested.

Perhaps I should have been clearer: I meant the Reformed in the era of confessional formulation. Regretfully, the Reformed theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries, whom you cite, dropped the ball on the issue of the identity of the divine attributes with one another. I think that Charles Hodge's concerns could have been allayed had he been more careful to distinguish between the attributes in our conceptions and the attributes as they are in God. If the attributes are identical with the simple divine essence, then they have to be identical with one another; otherwise, we will end up asserting that the attributes are parts that compose God, rather than being identical with God's essence and with each other.
 
Perhaps I should have been clearer: I meant the Reformed in the era of confessional formulation. Regretfully, the Reformed theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries, whom you cite, dropped the ball on the issue of the identity of the divine attributes with one another. I think that Charles Hodge's concerns could have been allayed had he been more careful to distinguish between the attributes in our conceptions and the attributes as they are in God. If the attributes are identical with the simple divine essence, then they have to be identical with one another; otherwise, we will end up asserting that the attributes are parts that compose God, rather than being identical with God's essence and with each other.

As you know, it’s not just Hodge who takes issue in that way.

With respect to identity X is the same as Y iff every true predicate of X is also a true predicate of Y. Is every true predicate of omniscience true of wrath? No, I would think not, for the manifestation of omniscience doesn’t depend upon creation whereas the manifestation of wrath does. Accordingly, it would not appear true that omniscience and wrath are identical. That presents an insurmountable problem for strict identity, which I believe the Reformed scholastics wisely avoided.

However, they didn’t fall into a ditch on the other side, for neither does that imply that God is a composite of omniscience + wrath + the rest of his attributes taken in discrete isolation. That omniscience and wrath fail to equate with each other does not imply that God’s attributes “add up” to God, or that each attribute is a fraction of the whole. That’s to misapply a concept of fractions where it has no place. Even on a creaturely level we can see that although the barn is red and wooden, that doesn’t imply that the red barn is a composite, merely partly red and partly wooden. We can conceive of the barn being fully red and fully wooden. What is red is wooden and what is wooden is red, which avoids the problem of being 1/2 red and 1/2 wooden. It’s to conflate concepts to think that leads to composites. Full circle, God is love and God is holy, but to say holy equates to love leaves us with no knowledge of God at all. That’s a problem.
 
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Wrath isn’t an attribute it’s a response stemming from his Justice and Holiness.

It’s debatable, so by all means substitute another in its place. The point being made doesn’t hinge on it.

As a point of interest, is God’s omnipresence not an attribute since it would seem to contemplate space, which is a created thing? Accordingly, attributes can be responses, which is why wrath is often considered an attribute.
 
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However, they didn’t fall into a ditch on the other side, for neither does that imply that God is a composite of omniscience + wrath + the rest of his attributes taken in discrete isolation. That omniscience and wrath fail to equate with each other does not imply that God’s attributes “add up” to God, or that each attribute is a fraction of the whole. That’s to misapply a concept of fractions where it has no place.

That formulation means that there are real distinctions in God, which is at odds with simplicity.

Even on a creaturely level we can see that although the barn is red and wooden, that doesn’t imply that the red barn is a composite, merely partly red and partly wooden. We can conceive of the barn being fully red and fully wooden. What is red is wooden and what is wooden is red, which avoids the problem of being partially 1/2 red and 1/2 wooden.

The problem with that comparison is a barn is made up of substance and accidents, whereas God is not. A barn may or may not be red (accident), but still remain a barn (substance). God's attributes are not like that, as God is without accidents. So, while the divine attributes may be conceptually distinguished according to our finite understandings, they cannot actually be different either from God's essence or from each other. Accordingly, God's love is holy love, and God's holiness is infinitely lovely. That is why the Westminster Confession uses language such as "to the praise of his glorious justice"; owing to the identity of the divine attributes with one another, God's justice is glorious and his glory is perfectly just. I really do not see why the identity of the divine attributes with each other is a problem? After all, is not the love of God infinite, eternal, and immutable? Is God not immutably holy, and holy in his immutability?

Full circle, God is love and God is holy, but to say holy equates to love leaves us with no knowledge of God at all. That’s a problem.

This assumption is only a problem if one assumes a univocal likeness between divine and human knowledge, which is the error that Charles Hodge seems to fall into on this point. Analogical knowledge solves the problem he raises and also does justice to the divine incomprehensibility. Of course, we cannot fully understand how the divine attributes are identical with one another, but neither can we fully comprehend the divine essence. I mean no disrespect to these 19th and 20th-century guys, but it is partly thanks to them that we have ended up with some absolutely shocking teaching concerning theology proper in modern Reformed circles.
 
That formulation means that there are real distinctions in God, which is at odds with simplicity.



The problem with that comparison is a barn is made up of substance and accidents, whereas God is not. A barn may or may not be red (accident), but still remain a barn (substance). God's attributes are not like that, as God is without accidents. So, while the divine attributes may be conceptually distinguished according to our finite understandings, they cannot actually be different either from God's essence or from each other. Accordingly, God's love is holy love, and God's holiness is infinitely lovely. That is why the Westminster Confession uses language such as "to the praise of his glorious justice"; owing to the identity of the divine attributes with one another, God's justice is glorious and his glory is perfectly just. I really do not see why the identity of the divine attributes with each other is a problem? After all, is not the love of God infinite, eternal, and immutable? Is God not immutably holy, and holy in his immutability?



This assumption is only a problem if one assumes a univocal likeness between divine and human knowledge, which is the error that Charles Hodge seems to fall into on this point. Analogical knowledge solves the problem he raises and also does justice to the divine incomprehensibility. Of course, we cannot fully understand how the divine attributes are identical with one another, but neither can we fully comprehend the divine essence. I mean no disrespect to these 19th and 20th-century guys, but it is partly thanks to them that we have ended up with some absolutely shocking teaching concerning theology proper in modern Reformed circles.

“That formulation means that there are real distinctions in God, which is at odds with simplicity.”

Ah, but the theologians I referenced believed that they were the ones holding to divine simplicity. So, all you’ve done is point to a variant concept to their view of simplicity in order to make your claim against them. That’s a fallacy. It’s stacking the deck. It’s not to perform an internal critique or their theology proper.

“The problem with that comparison is a barn is made up of substance and accidents, whereas God is not.”

That redness isn’t essential to barnness doesn’t undermine the relevance of the analogy. The point of the creaturely example is that being able to predicate both x and y distinctions of z does not imply that x and y total z, or that z isn’t both fully x and fully y.

“This assumption is only a problem if one assumes a univocal likeness between divine and human knowledge, which is the error that Charles Hodge seems to fall into on this point. Analogical knowledge solves the problem he raises.”

Analogical knowledge cannot salvage the obliteration of the meaning of words. In other words, if to God “love equals omniscience,” what can that possibly mean to us? To say that love equals omniscience is to destroy for us the meaning of both love and omniscience. Accordingly, any appeal to analogical knowledge that immediately reduces to skepticism is no safe haven. We must do better.
 
Analogically, God has no emotions. I can't say univocally God has no emotions, for that would contradict Scripture.

Anthropomorphically, God has no hands. ;) The analogy is to show us how we ought to think, as if, God has emotions while knowing He does not change his state of being or possess emotions. To think God has any type of emotional life is to posit change in His being.
 
Anthropomorphically, God has no hands. ;) The analogy is to show us how we ought to think, as if, God has emotions while knowing He does not change his state of being or possess emotions. To think God has any type of emotional life is to posit change in His being.

My point is that you can't simultaneously say "unequivocally, God has no ______" and to say "anthropomorphism." Unequivocally rules everything out.

In any case, I am not positing an emotional life in God, praise be to Aristotle.
 
Ah, but the theologians I referenced believed that they were the ones holding to divine simplicity. So, all you’ve done is point to a variant concept to their view of simplicity in order to make your claim against them. That’s a fallacy. It’s stacking the deck. It’s not to perform an internal critique or their theology proper.

No, they redefined simplicity in a manner at variance with the traditional confessional formulation, which was Thomistic to the core.

That redness isn’t essential to barnness doesn’t undermine the relevance of the analogy.

It does because in God the attributes are identical to the essence. The same cannot be said of a red barn.

Analogical knowledge cannot salvage the obliteration of the meaning of words. In other words, if to God “love equals omniscience,” what can that possibly mean to us? To say that love equals omniscience is to destroy for us the meaning of both love and omniscience. Accordingly, any appeal to analogical knowledge that immediately reduces to skepticism is no safe haven. We must do better.

Univocal knowledge is rationalism and is incongruous with incomprehensibility.
 
“No, they redefined simplicity in a manner at variance with the traditional confessional formulation, which was Thomistic to the core.”

That completely misses the point. Your assertion that those Reformed stalwarts denied simplicity is a charge of heterodoxy or else it’s irrelevant. All you’ve done is beg the question of whether the scholastics I’ve cited are unbiblical. As for the Confession, you’re simply reading into it what you want to be there. It doesn’t teach x is y, y is z, therefore, x is z, else the best theologians of 18th and 19th century covertly denied the Confession.

“It does because in God the attributes are identical to the essence. The same cannot be said of a red barn.”

LOL Maybe you might interact with the analogy rather than just citing false disjunctions.

“Univocal knowledge is rationalism and is incongruous with incomprehensibility.”

Nobody has asserted or appealed to univocal knowledge, Daniel. What I’ve done is point out to you that your attempt to justify divine simplicity by what you think is “analogical knowledge” turns out to be a mockery of analogical knowledge! Analogical knowledge doesn’t posit things so silly as: merciful = just. Or, love = omniscience. That’s not a display of analogical knowledge. It’s a display of unintelligibility. To point that out to you is hardly “rationalism.” At the very least, since when does analogical knowledge reduce to unintelligibility, or is: “love = omniscience” intelligible to you?

So, please tell me, what does it mean to you that p God is love, equates to p* God is ubiquitous? Is that where you think “incomprehensibility” should lead you - to absolutely no knowledge of God whatsoever?
 
“No, they redefined simplicity in a manner at variance with the traditional confessional formulation, which was Thomistic to the core.”

That completely misses the point. Your assertion that those Reformed stalwarts denied simplicity is a charge of heterodoxy or else it’s irrelevant. All you’ve done is beg the question of whether the scholastics I’ve cited are unbiblical. As for the Confession, you’re simply reading into it what you want to be there. It doesn’t teach x is y, y is z, therefore, x is z, else the best theologians of 18th and 19th century covertly denied the Confession.

“It does because in God the attributes are identical to the essence. The same cannot be said of a red barn.”

LOL Maybe you might interact with the analogy rather than just citing false disjunctions.

“Univocal knowledge is rationalism and is incongruous with incomprehensibility.”

Nobody has asserted or appealed to univocal knowledge, Daniel. What I’ve done is point out to you that your attempt to justify divine simplicity by what you think is “analogical knowledge” turns out to be a mockery of analogical knowledge! Analogical knowledge doesn’t posit things so silly as: merciful = just. Or, love = omniscience. That’s not a display of analogical knowledge. It’s a display of unintelligibility. To point that out to you is hardly “rationalism.” At the very least, since when does analogical knowledge reduce to unintelligibility, or is: “love = omniscience” intelligible to you?

So, please tell me, what does it mean to you that p God is love, equates to p* God is ubiquitous? Is that where you think “incomprehensibility” should lead you - to absolutely no knowledge of God whatsoever?

Evidently, I am not persuading you. If I say much more, I will just be repeating myself. I believe that I have already sufficiently answered those points, whereas you beg to differ. I would add, however, that I am not reading what I want into the confession, but reading the document on the terms in which its framers operated. Have a look a Richard Muller's PRRD on the subject if you get the chance to see what I am getting at.
 
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Evidently, I am not persuading you. If I say much more, I will just be repeating myself. I believe that I have already sufficiently answered those points, whereas you beg to differ. I would add, however, that I am not reading what I want into the confession, but reading the document on the terms in which its framers operated. Have a look a Richard Muller's PRRD on the subject if you get the chance to see what I am getting at.

I’ll make one last Confessional point. WLC #9 distinguishes personal properties within the Godhead. That entails real distinctions within the Trinity. Yet what you’re advocating for makes no allowance for x not equaling y in the Godhead. That means the Father is the Son, if all properties in God are identical to each other. (It’s no wonder that Thomas has been seen as having some modalistic leanings.)

Blessings, Soldier of our Lord!
 
It is when you understand that the distinction lies in the way God reveals Himself to creation and does not lie in himself (in His essence).

I’m not sure that’s even a sentence. But please lisp to me. What is it you’d have me understand?
 
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Dabney would seem to deny simplicity all together.

Ah, but the theologians I referenced believed that they were the ones holding to divine simplicity. So, all you’ve done is point to a variant concept to their view of simplicity in order to make your claim against them. That’s a fallacy. It’s stacking the deck. It’s not to perform an internal critique or their theology proper.

Your assertion that those Reformed stalwarts denied simplicity is a charge of heterodoxy or else it’s irrelevant.

:think:
 
My point is that you can't simultaneously say "unequivocally, God has no ______" and to say "anthropomorphism." Unequivocally rules everything out.

In any case, I am not positing an emotional life in God, praise be to Aristotle.

I was simply pointing out how using an anthropomorphism is no different to show how one can still think wrongly God has a body. This happens also when one uses analogical thinking of God, in His essence, is something like men. He is unequivocally wholly other.
 
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