The Classical Doctrine of God

by Matthew Barrett

It is very difficult to describe who God is in one paragraph. But I think the Westminster Confession does an excellent job of doing just that. However, the WCF’s description of God is considered to be an affirmation of the classical doctrine of God, a view of God that is not popular today. Many today prefer a God who is steady but still mutable, powerful but not sovereign and controlling, full of knowledge but not omniscient, and righteous but not a judge who will punish the guilty with eternal wrath. Sadly, such a modern view of God is far from the biblical witness. Therefore, I am very grateful for paragraphs like the following which live on today, describing God in all his fullness and perfection:

There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty; most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. (WCF, II.1).

If I may draw out just one attribute, God’s aseity deserves mention. Listen to what the WCF has to say concerning God’s self-sufficiency:

God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them: he is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom, are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth … (WCF, II.2).

R. Michael Allen comments,

The God who has all life in himself will also have life for others, precisely because this one needs nothing (and derives nothing) from them. God’s freedom to be for us, graciously and totally, derives directly from God’s own life of self-fulfillment and aseity. Only the God who is full can pour into others. And the God revealed in the Gospel is the kind of being who would do so, because this one has determined to do so in actuality (Reformed Theology, 59).

How grateful I am today to depend upon a God who does not depend on me.

Matthew Barrett is executive editor of Credo magazine. He also writes at Blogmatics.