Thankful Thursday

Another week has passed and it’s the day to list a few of my gifts from the good God.

• I am thankful for the languid ladies beginning to bloom in the wildflower garden.
• I am thankful for the rain, because it waters my newly planted garden for me. It saves me from needing to hand water twice a day while I wait for the seeds to sprout. Once the garden is up, if it’s still rainy, I’m not sure I’ll be so thankful, but that’s an issue for another day.
• I’m thankful for my May Day tree. It might be he most beautiful tree in all of Whitehorse and it sits in the middle of my front yard. The window beside my desk looks out on it, and it brings me daily joy. I’d take a picture to show you, but it’s impossible to get far enough away from it to capture the whole in its weepy branches blooming beauty. You will just have to come visit. 
• I’m thankful for jobs for my sons. My son runs his own business doing more or less seasonal work, so each spring we wonder if the work will come in again this year. When the jobs start to roll in, I am thankful, and doubly thankful because he also employs his younger brother.
• I’m thankful for Natalie, who has learned to crawl and stand up to cruise the furniture all in the last week or so. I’m thankful for Amelia, who has learned to smile real smiles, and gained nearly 1 1/2 lbs in her first three weeks. I’m thankful for growing, learning, healthy and happy babies.

Round the Sphere Again: Seeing Things

Hell
Scripture gives us the sense of hell by picturing it in many different ways (Gentle Reformation). 

The Past and the Future
I tried to write a description of Viewing the river from the bridge by Steve Hays at Triablogue but couldn’t. I’ll say this: You should read it.

The Universe
Marc Cortez explains Jonathan Edward’s view of the universe (Credo Magazine). Edwards taught that God “re-creates the universe every moment,” but God’s “actions are so faithful that we can talk about natural ‘laws.’” For instance,

If I let go of my coffee mug, it will fall. That’s the law of gravity. But what we mean by “law” here is simply that God acts faithfully so that every time a mug is dropped in one moment it falls in the next. Studying the laws of nature is nothing more than studying God’s own actions in the universe.

Edwards, then, saw “every created thing as an immediate expression of God’s glory,” and some call him a Christian panentheist because of it. Read the article and tell me if you think he is one.

Theological Term of the Week

simplicity of God
The quality of God wherein he is not composed of parts, but unified and indivisible; also called unity of God.

• From scripture:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, [7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7 ESV)

• From The Belgic Confession:

Article 1: The Only God 

We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God — eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty; completely wise, just, and good, and the overflowing source of all good.

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

God himself is a unity, a unified and completely integrated whole person who is infinitely perfect in all of these attributes.

…In terms of practical application, this means that we should never think, for example, that God is a loving God at one point in history and a just or wrathful God at another point in history. He is the same God always, and everything he says or does is fully consistent with all his attributes. It is not accurate to say, as some have said, that God is a God of justice in the Old Testament and a God of love in the New Testament. God is and always has been infinitely just and infinitely loving as well, and everything he does in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament is completely consistent with both of those attributes.

…Moreover, the doctrine of the unity of God should caution us against attempting to single out any one attribute of God as more important than all the others. At various times people have attempted to see God’s holiness, or his love, or his self-existence, or his righteousness, or some other attribute as the most important attribute of his being. … It is God himself in his whole being who is supremely important, and it is God himself in his whole being whom we are to seek to know and to love.

1. Blue Letter Bible: What Is Meant by the Simplicity of God?
2. Kevin DeYoung: Theological Primer: The Simplicity of God
3. Thomas Boston:  Of the Unity of God
4. Jules Grisham: Divine Simplicity
5. R. C. Sproul, Jr: The Lord Is One: The Simplicity of God (audio)
6. Dr. James Dolezal: God Without Parts: The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (mp3)

Related terms:

• aseity
• immutability

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.