Creation is such that God is the ultimate good for it. Good is thus absolute with respect to creation as we know it. But is it absolute with respect to God? That is, could God create something such that God Himself is not its ultimate good?

Don’t get me wrong; this is not a “Can God create a rock so big…” question, which is a logical contradiction in that if God has sovereignty to create such a rock, such is greater than the sovereignty to manipulate it in any way. Neither is the answer so obviously ‘yes’, pointing to the unsaved, whose fate was ultimately ordained by God. Though their fate was ordained by God, it does not follow that God is not for them the ultimate good. Their fate is a result of God withholding Himself from them, and He is still for them the ultimate Good, even as they suffer the lack thereof.

Ultimately, however, the question rests on free will. Free will requires God to delegate some degree of His sovereignty to humanity in order to come to Him of their own accord. However without free will, then it doesn’t even make sense to think that God could delegate His sovereignty.

This might seem to be an unrelated thought, but the answer to the first question rests on whether God can delegate His attributes. If God can create something such that its ultimate good was not its creator, then its ultimate good must be found in something else - something created. This requires God to delegate some degree of His goodness.

I think most Christians would be wary to answer that God could indeed create something of that sort, and for good reason. It requires God to be less than an absolute good for everything. Why then is free will such a sacred cow in peoples’ minds? In just the same way, it requires God to be less than sovereign with respect to the outcome of history and the salvation of the Elect - an equally unacceptable belief.

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-It’s pretty common to hear that creation exists for the glory of God. I believe this is a much better answer than any human-centric answer, such as that God needed an object of His love that could love Him back.
-But if creation exists to increase the glory of God, does that mean God changes? An unchanging God cannot become more glorious from one moment to the next, or be less glorious at creation than at its destruction.
-Creation can therefore not be for the purpose of increasing the glory of God.

The alternative makes that last statement much more palatable: creation is not the cause of any amount of God’s glory, but rather the effect of it - the natural outcropping thereof. God is glorified in the display of all of His attributes, and creation exemplifies each one of those: justice, mercy, and goodness in His relation to mankind; power, enormity, and transcendence in the rest of creation. Creation declares the glory of God (Psalm 19:1); it does not - it cannot - increase it. This is hardly an exhaustive list; any attribute of God can be seen to be wonderfully exemplified in creation and history.
We can thus not be the cause of any amount God’s glory, but are the result of it as it existed before the foundation of the world.

I’ve referenced John Piper’s proof of a selfish God a lot in the past few articles, and once again it is the starting point of this one. To reiterate, if God is good, and Himself the ultimate good in the universe, He can only have Himself and His own glory as His highest goal. This is posited as the motive of God working through history in the redemption of mankind, that His mercy and justice may simultaneously be exemplified.

But does this mean that God is bound by higher notions of ‘glory’ and ‘good’? It would certainly seem so if we are to apply the self-interest model of free will to God. We are bound in our behavior by our knowledge, our values, and our interests. Obviously God has infinite knowledge and thus entirely correct values, but does God have interests? Being omnipotent, can He ever improve His lot?

This concept can be compared to human government in a way: there is no rule of law in Heaven. “L’État, c’est moi” was a heinous thing for Louis XIV to say to modern liberal (in the classical sense) sensibilities, because there was nothing inherent in his own humanity to give him such authority over others of equal humanity. Not so with God. By virtue of having infinite authority and infinite knowledge, God is not bound by restrictions that He may place on us, whether moral or physical, and He is good in doing so.

We can then say that “God is good” is a tautology. Whatever God is, is good, and all that entails. Whatever we say is good here on earth is perfected and fulfilled in God: we say Pizza is good insofar as it is filling; God is infinitely filling. We say that the Mona Lisa is good insofar as it is beautiful and exemplifies talent; the world and the universe are crafted with unfathomable talent: His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made (Romans 1:20). Furthermore, God Himself, being good, is more beautiful than anything seen on this earth. The very nature of God as the omnipotent creator does not bind Him to a notion of ‘goodness’, but binds us to Him in that our highest good is only found in Him.

Glory can be understood then not as a separate attribute of God, but as a manifestation of ‘good’. In fact, all of God’s attributes - mercy, justice, love, jealousy, holiness - are not conflicting inclinations like we humans may have, but manifestations of the singular attribute that God is good. As Tozer said in The Radical Cross, “When God sends a man to die, mercy and pity and compassion and wisdom concur - everything that’s intelligent in God concurs in the sentence”. Likewise, when God redeems a man from judgement, it’s not as if God’s justice cries out for death but mercy overrides it. God’s attributes are never conflicted; that was the point of the Cross: to demonstrate that justice is not put aside in the redemption of mankind; that God does not contradict Himself.

So if God is thus not bound by values or self-interest, then what motivates God to act?

God’s unchanging nature (Malachi 3:6) and total sovereignty mean that He is not constrained by, and exists outside of, time - in that there is no past, present, or future to God (2 Peter 3:8), and is thus unchangeable, as change requires the passing of time. God at the very same instant creates the world as He redeems it and destroys it, even though it seems to us that there is a very large intervening period among these. As God Himself is pre-existent with regard to time (John 1:1), so the will of God is pre-existent with regard to concept and constraint. Nothing within time has given rise to God, and no concept or constraint has given rise to or can constrain the will of God.

As Christians, we have faith that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). As straightforward as this seems, the concept of good itself is more problematic than it ought to be: what is good in the first place, and what does Paul mean by good here?

The prosperity gospel as preached by such luminaries as Joel Osteen (above) and the aptly named Creflo Dollar is often criticized by orthodox Christianity for emphasizing the material as God’s means of blessing the faithful. It’s easy enough to renounce blatant Prosperitism as materialistic and fair-weather faith, but how often do the rest of us fall, more subtly, into the same trap?

I cannot count how many times I’ve heard prayers thanking God for placing us in a country where we are free to worship Him. It’s a favorite theme of Patriotic Evangelicalism. But what is this saying? Thank you, God, for a comfortable life where I don’t have to make a real stand for my faith? Jesus says in Luke 6:22, Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Is living in America really a blessing in this light? Why would we thank God for withholding the blessing of persecution?

There is none good but one, that is, God.
-Mark 10:18

Many times we read a verse like Romans 8:28 without an understanding of what “good” truly is. And without that understanding, we substitute our fleshly understanding of good. What is good then? Our pleasure. Our comfort. Circumstances. Materials. The eternal might be good too, but what use is that to me now? We thank God for indulging our misconceptions of our own interests, all the while consciously avoiding any sort of more painful but infinitely higher and more profitable blessing that may otherwise be bestowed.

The Bible leaves no room for duality here. The entire rest of Romans 8 sets up a dichotomy between the spirit and the flesh, and the valuation of the self and its comfort is unmistakably fleshly living. What good is suffering if comfort is our good? What good is mourning if a perpetual emotional high is our good? No, good is so much higher than that. Suffering does not bring about our comfort; it destroys it. Mourning does not bring about happiness; it is the very opposite thereof. But suffering and mourning bring about a much higher good than either of these things: drawing nearer to God.

This then is the promise of Romans 8:28: not that Christians will prosper, not even that we will be comfortable - It is not in any respect a material guarantee. Rather it is that for anyone who loves God, any and all circumstances can only serve to bring him closer to God. This, more than any thing or circumstance, is the ultimate blessing.

No, seriously. As wonderful as civic duty is, there’s also civic responsibility. If you plan on voting in November, answer the following questions out loud before reading on:

Who are the two major party candidates?

Who are you voting for this November?

Why?

If you could not answer the third question, don’t vote. If your answer for the third question was “I can relate to him” or “the other guy’s eletist”, do not vote. If your answer used the words “Hope” or “Change” as reasons, do not vote. If your answer included the concepts of “national hero”, “black man”, “female vice president”, or “Mulsim”, do not vote. None of these are good reasons to vote for anyone, and that last one is flat out false.

If you made it past this first part, congratulations. You’re not an idiot. Unfortunately even good reasons can be wrong reasons. Now answer the following questions out loud:

Of the two major candidates, which one is typically considered Liberal and which one is typically considered Conservative?

What does it mean to be Liberal or Conservative in this context?

If your answer to the first question was anything but “McCain is typically considered conservative and Obama is typically considered liberal” (possible exception granted for an ideological disputation about whether conservative really applies to either one), do not vote. As imperfect as these labels are, they provide at least a rough marker for the candidates’ position on issues. Though it is beyond the scope of this article to verify the answer to the second question, if you couldn’t answer it, or if your answer didn’t include anything about the economy or government spending (I’ll give a dubious pass to a moral issues explanation too), don’t vote. Without the answer to that second question, you’ll have no idea about the framework that the candidates use to make decisions.

If you didn’t make it past the two sets of questions, you’re in good company. According to surveys, the majority of Americans wouldn’t. Their votes amount to nothing more than electoral static that rewards dubious campaign promises and sensationalism. A nice slogan and a snazzy graphic designer do not make a good president. A folksy, charming demeanor does not make a good president. Issues make or break a president, and if you don’t contribute to an emphasis on issues in the election, you’re contributing to media sensationalism.

But, no one wants to admit being a part of the problem, and not voting would be an admission of that. Luckily, you don’t have to be! If you failed either of the tests, take a moment first to decide what you believe and why. Not on a whim - do research. Everyone likes cutting taxes, but what are the cons to that? Universal healthcare is a nice and desirable thing, but what would be the drawbacks to that? After that (not before), take a look at the position pages of both McCain and Obama, and see who lines up better.

Keep in mind that voter registration drives are most often set up by candidates who want you to vote for them. They’d rather you cast an uninformed vote for them rather than no vote at all. But for the country at large, a non-vote is far preferable to an uninformed vote.

But an informed vote still trumps all. If you passed both sets of questions, or are making amends by researching the issues, I encourage you with the same force as any voter registrar, vote! And encourage others to vote as well - on the condition that they know what they’re voting for.