_8_God’s Essence and Attributes (De essentia et attributis divinis)

The doctrine of God is usually presented under two headings: “The Holy Trinity” and “God’s Essence and Attributes.” It is of no consequence in which order these two parts of the doctrine are treated, as long as the Scriptural principle is maintained, i. e., as long as no human opinions are injected into either doctrine. The fact is, of course, that neither doctrine can be studied without constant reference to the other. If we were to discuss God’s essence and attributes independently of the Trinity, we could do so only on the basis of natural theology and by completely excluding the Christian knowledge of God. Chemnitz therefore very properly shows at the very outset (Loci, locus “De Deo in genere”) that without the knowledge of Christ and the Trinity man’s knowledge of God is in reality ignorantia Dei as far as the practical result, viz., the worship of God, is concerned. (Loci I, 22 sq.) But neither can we present the doctrine of the Trinity without a discussion of the doctrine of God’s essence and attributes. We must constantly keep in mind that Scripture ascribes to each of the three distinct Persons the one and the same divine essence and the selfsame divine attributes.

In the course of years we have alternated the order of these two sections. In this volume we have discussed the doctrine of the Trinity first, so that at the very outset the attention is riveted upon the fundamental difference between the Christian and the natural knowledge of God — a difference which today is almost universally ignored. In this section we shall now present the Scriptural doctrine of God’s essence and attributes under the following headings. A. “The Relation of the Divine Essence to the Divine Attributes and of the Attributes to One Another”; B. “The Classifications of the Divine Attributes”; C. “The Separate Divine Attributes.”