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Featured What is God's highest virtue?

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Greektim, Feb 13, 2014.

  1. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    This is in response to another thread that started to get derailed.

    I asserted that God is for God before he is for anyone or anything else. He loves his glory more than you or me.

    Thus his greatest virtue is his self-glorification.

    I'm sure we'll get into the ethics behind that ("love seeks not its own"), but there is a great logic to it as well. If God glorified something higher than himself, and that thing is less worthy than God, then God would be an idolater.

    Ps 23 is a good demonstration of this. God does all that awesome stuff "for his name's sake." God blesses us for the sake of his name. That is throughout the OT.

    Why does God create us? For his glory (Isa. 43:7)

    Why does God save us? God performs salvation for His own sake. He justifies the people called by His name in order that He may be glorified. (Exo. 36:22—23, 32)

    Why did God rescue the Israelites from Egypt the way he did? So that his name would be proclaimed. (Exo. 9:16)

    Why did God not destroy Israel time after time when they disobeyed him? For his name sake and his fame amongst the nations. (Ezek. 20:14)
     
  2. SolaSaint

    SolaSaint Well-Known Member

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    Never thought about it that way. Good observation.
     
  3. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    There is no highest virtue with God. He is virtue.
     
  4. convicted1

    convicted1 Guest

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    When God saves us, He gets the glory.

    When we do what He commands us to do, through the Spirit, He gets the glory.

    When He receives us into heaven, He gets the glory.

    When we shout praises unto Him throughout eternity, He gets the glory.

    It's all about Him, and not about us.
     
  5. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    That sounds like a tautology. If God is righteous, then he exhibits virtues. What is his highest?
     
  6. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    To judge God or to evaluate His virtues requires a standard outside of God Himself. And there is nothing that exists outside of God. In Him we live and move and have our being.

    He is. It's as He said, "I am."
     
  7. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Then what is the point of revelation??? If we see a common pattern, a common theme, then we don't have to throw around ontological concepts as if that holds up to a moral/ethical issue.

    I find it interesting that you can evaluate God ontologically, but somehow you can't evaluate him morally. However, your "I am" evaluation was based on God's revelation. Why not also morally or his virtue???

    Don't be afraid to think about the deeper things of God. That's the point of revelation.
     
  8. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    If by virtue we mean any good characteristic, I'd say God being a necessary being is his highest virtue. Qualifies all the rest. :)
     
  9. JonC

    JonC Moderator
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    Initially I was going to respond that God is God, the measure and standard of all virtue…but then I realized that this concludes in glorification as well.

    It appears that all of God’s relational virtues (love, mercy, justice, wrath, etc) are outpourings of His own glorification. God reveals Himself to man, but He acts in and for His own glory.
     
    #9 JonC, Feb 14, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2014
  10. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Well said... and not just b/c we are in agreement ;)
     
  11. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    I think I can discredit that w/ this concept...

    to what end is God a necessary being? Only a creation makes him necessary. So to what end is he a necessary being, and to what end does he create?

    Apply that question "to what end" and ultimately you will get to the root: God's glorification.
     
  12. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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  13. go2church

    go2church Active Member
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    I would say love
     
  14. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    I would say that to answer the question int he op is way above our paygrade. And any answer given is nothing more than personal preference. Scripture does not speak to this.
     
  15. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    To know God and to know ourselves.

    By what standard to you judge God? Himself. You seem to have a concept of the moral law as if it is a self-existing, measurement independent of God. It isn't. And if God were other than He is, the moral law we know could not exist and we could not know it. There is no "higher" or "lower" this or that in God. The moral judgment is the judgment He pronounced. The LORD is good.

    And because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself.

    If God, in whom all things—ALL things—exist, could lie, then any lie He told would be just and good and true.

    If I say a man has blonde hair, that is not an evaluation. If I say, God is, that is not an evaluation.

    I did. I said God is love. God is true. But you're asking us to compare His virtues, as if there are ranks in them, or if one virtue is possessed more than another as they are in men.

    That cannot be done. Who is the greater Person in the Trinity?

    PUh-leeze.
     
  16. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    Here's another one I need a "Like" button for ...

    We can safely and very nearly unequivocally say that our greatest virtue is Love. We don't know enough about God to be able to say what His greatest virtue is, given we only know Him in relationship to our most desperate need.
     
  17. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    God gives his highest virtue when he calls himself "I am".
    His greatest virtue is that he is himself and there is no other like him.
    He is separate from all others - we call this holiness.

    Glory flows freely from the virtue of holiness.

    Rob

    PS GreekTim.:
    Have you been reading "Desiring God" recently?
    I thought I saw a change in your signature line recently.
     
    #17 Deacon, Feb 14, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2014
  18. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    Without offering offense, I have to say that is not His virtue. That's who He is. Those are, by definition, necessarily different. He is God, and there is no other, without doubt. But there are multiple virtues, characteristics, and nuances in His nature. The OP asks which of those is His greatest.
     
  19. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
     
  20. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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