Would God Be Less Glorious If He Never Created?

00:00:00.000 | Hello and welcome back and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime author and

00:00:08.760 | pastor John Piper.

00:00:10.840 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:00:13.120 | We get loads of hard questions that require us to think carefully, like this one.

00:00:17.640 | Is God independent from his creation or is God dependent on his creation?

00:00:24.240 | Does he need his creation or does he not need his creation?

00:00:28.720 | The implications here are huge, Pastor John, and the email is from a listener named Chris.

00:00:33.240 | "Dear Pastor John, I have followed your ministry for many years.

00:00:36.240 | I have long considered myself a seven-point Calvinist as well, specifically when it comes

00:00:40.400 | to the argument that we are in the best of all possible worlds because God is after the

00:00:44.280 | greatest amount of glory for himself and greatest good for his people.

00:00:49.400 | But I see a potential conflict with the independence of God here.

00:00:53.240 | If it is true that God truly exists independently and without need of anyone or anything, does

00:00:59.520 | this conflict with him needing creation in order to display the fullness of his attributes

00:01:05.420 | and receive the fullness of his glory?"

00:01:08.680 | Another way of asking it is this.

00:01:10.520 | Could God have been just as glorified without creation?

00:01:13.920 | If so, then does the doctrine of best of all possible worlds lose meaning?

00:01:19.180 | And if he could not have done it in another way because of his commitment to his glory,

00:01:23.740 | then wasn't he in a sense forced all along to act out of a dependency on creation?

00:01:31.840 | Let's take three of Chris's phrases and analyze them and then move toward a general answer

00:01:38.660 | to his concern.

00:01:39.660 | And I'm not picking on Chris here.

00:01:41.380 | Virtually everybody who asks this kind of question I think runs into these kinds of

00:01:44.940 | difficulties.

00:01:46.000 | So let's start with the phrase "glorified without creation."

00:01:51.280 | He asks this.

00:01:52.800 | Could God have been just as glorified without creation?

00:01:59.080 | Now the passive verb "glorified" implies that there's a glorifier.

00:02:06.040 | And if we supplied this glorifier, the question answers itself.

00:02:13.300 | So if we ask, here's what it would sound like.

00:02:15.760 | Could God have been just as glorified by creation without creation?

00:02:21.840 | No.

00:02:23.000 | If there's no creation, then creation can't glorify God.

00:02:28.580 | And since creation is everything that is not God, the only thing outside God that could

00:02:34.860 | glorify God is God's creation.

00:02:37.320 | So there aren't any other viable options for God being glorified by anything outside God

00:02:43.860 | except creation.

00:02:46.560 | Which brings us to the real question, namely, does God's intra-Trinitarian glory—before

00:02:55.140 | there's any creation at all, just Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the eternal joy of

00:03:03.380 | the Trinity, the beauty of that fellowship, the holiness of that fellowship—does God's

00:03:11.500 | intra-Trinitarian glory need to be glorified by creation?

00:03:18.580 | So Chris asks this.

00:03:20.020 | If God truly exists independently and without need of anyone or anything, does this conflict

00:03:31.380 | with Him needing creation in order to display the fullness of His attributes and receive

00:03:39.660 | the fullness of His glory?

00:03:40.820 | Now that's a tricky question, because the word "need" changes meaning in mid-sentence.

00:03:48.820 | The first use of the word "need" is that God is fully God, complete, without any defect

00:03:56.980 | in Himself at all.

00:04:00.020 | And he says, Chris says, "If God truly exists independently and without need of anyone or

00:04:06.940 | anything," and the answer is yes, yes He does, that's right, "He is independent

00:04:12.180 | from all that is not God, and as such He has no need of anything outside God to make Him

00:04:19.700 | any more God, any more perfect, any more complete than He is."

00:04:25.100 | So far, so good.

00:04:26.940 | No need at all for anything like that to make Him more God, more complete, more perfect.

00:04:33.940 | But then the sentence continues.

00:04:37.940 | Does this conflict with Him needing creation in order to display the fullness of His attributes

00:04:48.580 | and receive the fullness of His glory?

00:04:50.300 | Well now, Chris has made the word "need" here refer to God's display of His fullness

00:04:58.980 | and receiving glorification from outside of God.

00:05:05.500 | That was not the issue in the first half of the sentence.

00:05:09.940 | It's one thing to ask, "Does God need anything from outside God to be the independent, full,

00:05:16.540 | perfect, complete, all-beautiful, all-glorious, all-worthy God that He is?"

00:05:20.500 | And the answer is no, He doesn't.

00:05:24.060 | It's another thing to ask, "Does God need a recipient of His glory outside of Himself

00:05:32.300 | in order to receive glorification from outside Himself?"

00:05:36.580 | Well of course He does.

00:05:37.780 | The answer is really contained in the way the question is posed.

00:05:42.780 | So I'm going to come back to this, the word "need" might not be the right word there,

00:05:47.380 | because it has connotations that would be all wrong.

00:05:50.300 | But let's cut to the chase.

00:05:51.780 | His concern began with my claim, and He agrees with my claim, that this is the best of all

00:05:58.380 | possible worlds, from creation to consummation, all things considered.

00:06:04.860 | This is the best world for God to accomplish all He aims to accomplish, namely the revelation

00:06:12.060 | of the full range of His glory in the sum total of all His attributes, climaxing in

00:06:18.940 | His grace, supremely revealed in the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, with all its

00:06:25.740 | undeserved benefits for His people, and best of all, their enjoyment of Him in His glorious

00:06:30.880 | presence forever and ever.

00:06:33.300 | It is the best world for the accomplishing of that, and that was His ultimate purpose.

00:06:41.500 | And the implied question from Chris is, if this world is best, and God must surely do

00:06:49.440 | what is best, then is God, to use Chris's words, "forced all along to act out of a dependency

00:06:59.240 | on creation."

00:07:01.900 | That is, since this world accomplishes all that God aims for it to accomplish in revealing

00:07:09.680 | the fullness of His wisdom and the holiness of His nature and His righteousness and wrath

00:07:15.040 | and goodness and mercy and love for the enjoyment of His people, then is He forced to create

00:07:21.940 | this world and thus be dependent on it, and thus be less perfect in Himself.

00:07:30.800 | Now here are three reasons why I think we are sent on a wild goose chase by the word

00:07:40.840 | "forced."

00:07:43.360 | Three reasons why that word cannot properly describe God's action in creation and redemption.

00:07:54.040 | Let me read again what he said.

00:07:55.560 | He said, "Is God then forced all along to act out of a dependency on creation, since

00:08:01.880 | He has to do what's best, this best of all possible worlds, therefore He has to create,

00:08:05.520 | therefore He's forced, and therefore He's imperfect?"

00:08:08.680 | So I think that's a wild goose chase, and to use that kind of language for God is wrong

00:08:14.560 | and unhelpful in three ways, or for three reasons.

00:08:18.680 | Number one, for some, the word "forced" would connote that there is a power outside

00:08:26.020 | God that coerces Him to act against His internal preferences.

00:08:31.520 | That's not the case.

00:08:33.520 | And so that implication of "forced" does not apply to God, and we should get it out

00:08:37.800 | of our heads.

00:08:38.800 | Number two, for others, the word "forced" would connote an internal struggle within

00:08:45.180 | God with one side of God not wanting to create the world and another side of God wanting

00:08:51.620 | to create the world, and the creating side wins and forces the other side of God to submit.

00:08:58.700 | But there's no such warfare in God.

00:09:01.620 | God is one and acts with all His being consenting.

00:09:07.660 | And here's the third, and I think this is the most important thing of all, which is

00:09:10.780 | why I'm a Christian hedonist and why you and I, Tony, see that Christian hedonism is

00:09:15.860 | not icing on the cake of theology.

00:09:18.460 | It is so close to the center of who God is.

00:09:22.900 | So here's the third point.

00:09:25.300 | God in fact creates and governs and redeems the world because that is what He loves to

00:09:34.340 | do.

00:09:35.780 | He delights to create and guide and save, and He is doing in it what He is doing to

00:09:45.460 | bring the people into joy in Himself.

00:09:50.780 | But we do not call doing what you love to do being "forced."

00:09:57.420 | Nobody uses being forced for doing what you love most to do.

00:10:04.740 | In fact, we call being able to do what you love to do "freedom."

00:10:14.020 | The meaning of freedom, being able to do whatever you love to do and not regretting it in a

00:10:22.820 | million years.

00:10:25.660 | It's the fullest of all freedoms when the actor of freedom has no regrets.

00:10:31.540 | In a million years, God will be approving of the wisdom and the gladness of his action.

00:10:39.260 | So, conclusion.

00:10:41.380 | No, God does not need creation in order to be God, and He is not forced to create by

00:10:50.880 | any coercive power outside Himself or inside Himself.

00:10:54.820 | Instead, He loves to create and govern and redeem, and doing fully and completely what

00:11:04.020 | you delight to do, what you love to do, without regret in a million years, is the freest of

00:11:11.140 | all freedoms, and therefore God is the freest of all beings.

00:11:15.340 | Amen.

00:11:16.340 | This is deep and heady.

00:11:18.180 | But if you're thinking about these kinds of ultimate questions—questions about why God

00:11:22.420 | created everything in the first place, if He was not coerced by any power outside of

00:11:27.540 | Himself—there's a great book I have to commend to you.

00:11:30.500 | It's by Jonathan Edwards.

00:11:32.260 | We've titled it "God's Passion for His Glory."

00:11:35.300 | God's Passion for His Glory.

00:11:37.340 | And you can download the entire book online free of charge right now at DesiringGod.org/books.

00:11:43.380 | God's Passion for His Glory.

00:11:45.620 | Well, on the other side of the weekend, we will talk about fatherhood.

00:11:49.460 | When young wife and mother is perplexed as to why her husband seems distant from their

00:11:53.380 | new daughter, what's going on?

00:11:55.140 | What should a husband's disposition be toward his children and caring for them?

00:11:59.500 | Good questions up Monday.

00:12:00.740 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

00:12:02.580 | Have a great weekend.

00:12:03.180 | [END]

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00:12:05.680 | 2.

00:12:06.680 | What is the purpose of fatherhood?

00:12:07.680 | 3.

00:12:08.680 | What is the purpose of fatherhood?

00:12:09.680 | 4.

00:12:10.680 | What is the purpose of fatherhood?

00:12:11.680 | 5.

Would God Be Less Glorious If He Never Created?

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