Is God Essentially Holy?
Our campus recently hosted Paul Young, author of the international best seller, The Shack. Young made a comment about God’s holiness that has me thinking…
Young argued that love, not holiness, better describes God’s eternal nature. By “holiness,” he had in mind the notion of God being unsullied by sin.
Young argued that prior to creating the world (assuming creation from nothing), God was loving in Trinity but not holy. No sin existed in Trinity from which God should be distinguished as holy. In other words, holiness is not necessary prior to sin’s emergence.
Of course, there are other ways to define divine holiness. But Young is right that most have defined holiness primarily in terms of God’s opposition to sin. Intratrinitarian relations are not holy, in this sense, because there is no sin in the Trinity and no sin prior to God creating something (worlds, angels, etc).
Another way to define divine holiness, however, is simply to say God is not creation. God is holy, because God is other than creatures. One of the greatest 20th century theologians, Karl Barth, liked to emphasize this sense of God’s holiness as otherness.
If we shift the definition of holiness from being opposed to sin to God being different from creation, Young’s point still stands. God is still not essentially holy in this second sense. After all, prior to creation (ex nihilo) nothing existed against which God would be contrasted. And unless God necessarily creates (which one cannot affirm if one affirms creation from nothing and God’s contingent relation to the word), nothing “other” needs to exist.
So… if God’s essential attributes are those God necessarily and everlastingly expresses, holiness (defined as 1. opposition to sin or 2. being other than creation) is not essential to God.
This conclusion does not apply, however, to those who deny creation from nothing. For those who affirm a creation doctrine that says God is always creating from that which God previously created (my own creation doctrine), affirming essential divine holiness is a possibility.
This alternative creation doctrine means denying creation from nothing. But I have argued in many places why I think creation ex nihilo is less tenable than some alternatives.
In sum: if a person wants to affirm that God at one time existed alone (albeit in Trinity) and not in relation to any creation, this person should not say holiness is an essential attribute for God.
But if a person affirms that God has everlastingly been creating from that which God previously created (ad infinitum), this person can say holiness is an essential attribute for God.
Both people can say love is an essential attribute. They can so long as they either affirm God is everlastingly loving in Trinity (many Open theologians affirm this) or everlastingly loving with some created order (many Process theologians affirm this) or both everlastingly loving in Trinity and with creation (I have proposed this).
Thanks to Paul Young for sparking my thinking on this!
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Comments
I love this discussion. However, I still have trouble grasping a “perfect” (complete) doctrine of creation that is not in some form ex nihilo. Did “something” always co-exist with God? Did something exist before God? These are two tough questions/obstacles in my thinking, at least (and in the thinking of those who hold to some form of ex nihilo creation).
Also, I am wondering if God cannot be seen as distinct in regard to “that which is to come”? A unique relationship within the Trinity might be, in some definition of the word, “holy”, and would thereby propose a counter to Young’s view.
Thanks for the thoughtful article, Tom.
Charles
Charles,
Thanks for the good post. In my creation doctrine, nothing predates God. In other words, nothing existed before God. But God in each moment creates something new from that which God previously created. And God has been doing this everlastingly. God is that big!
As to “God being seen in relation to that which is to come,” most people who affirm creation ex nihilo say God did not NEED to create. Creation was in no sense necessary. So “holiness” as “distinct from creation” would not be a necessary attribute of the God who creates from nothing.
Thanks again, Charles. I wish I had time to respond to all the posts I get!
Tom
The absence of sin does not necessitate the absence of holiness. That would be like saying the absence of injustice, prior to creation, means that God is not essentially just as a primary attribute. Can we say that love is not his primary attribute because there was no strife? If anything, the absence of sin, within the trinity, proves the point that God is completely holy. His holiness defines for us what we are to strive for. If we believe that He is “the same yesterday, today and forever” than His holiness was an integral component of who He was and is.
Not sure if I can follow Young here. To me, holiness is more than merely being set apart or being without sin. If Wesley was right, holiness is best described in terms of love. From our point of view, it is indeed different. However, it is still there, if we are there to have a point of view or not. God doesn’t change by us merely observing Him (which is a can of worms in itself), it’s not quantum mechanics.
I very much agree that God has always been creating since it flows from who He is: love seeks to create, and relationships. I don’t believe God one sunny day had the idea: “Hey, let’s create something!”
Still, if nothing predates Him, everything that is, has been created by Him. “all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together”. Which to me turns the ex nihilo discussion into somewhat of a moot point. He created all that is. That’s enough for me.
I think a key to this discussion, (and in my opinion a key to every discussion involving God and creation) is the term Emmanuel to describe Jesus. God is with us, and chooses to be vitally connected to creation by entering corrupted sinful human flesh to redeem that which he once created and was then sullied. I share Tom’s incredulity with ex nihilo (although alternatives that are cognizable are also a bit presuming for my taste) however I do think that there is a fundamental aspect of God that is always creating or, in the case of my personal salvation, re-creating things and people for his purposes.
One thing I am not clear on is why something co-existing with God denies God’s holiness? Man and God co-existed in Christ, and Jesus was holy, correct?
Very interesting thoughts here. Like usual, you have me thinking and rethinking. Some of the comments reflect my thinking on this to a certain extent. I have leaned toward thinking of holiness in concert with love. When applied to God, love and holy are inseparable. What makes God “set apart” is God’s love as played in in the reality of sin and suffering.
However, I am still unsure why creativity cannot be authentic within the trinity “prior” to a physical creation. If this community of divinity is loving I see room to speak about it/them as creative in that love. Maybe this is what makes God “big” that God can creatively love within the trinity in way that perfect our own communal creative love.
Lastly, I still tend to think of the creation as a watershed moment for God. Maybe I am too quick to admit change being a normative part of God but I see the creation as a radical move in the life of the divine. A “moment” in which God takes a huge risk and becomes, in many ways, a different sort of being. Pantheism to panentheism if you will. Obviously there is not enough space to work this all out here, but you got me thinking more and more.
Well … you gotta understand that out here in the sticks (yes, I’m a hick from the sticks) we often have some difficulties with all this abstract thinking. So I have Questions, ones to which the answers may seem obvious, but to which I may be oblivious. If God ‘is’, even if he is ‘other’, does he not exist? And if he exists, how is there ‘nothing’ before he ‘creates’? Or, if he exists before he creates something else, he still exists within ‘something’, whatever we might want to call it in order to separate ourselves from The Divine, or in order to assure ourselves that God really is there. More or less. ‘Otherliness’ is still ‘somethingness’ is it not? Also, I like the redefining, if that is what it is, of ‘holiness’, as something else – though something other than ‘creation’ leaves me feeling, with some justification, I suppose, more than a bit intellectually challenged. Unless we have a couple of different concepts of ‘creation’? Is there ‘something’ in which God exists that is different from that which he later ‘creates’? But still, there had to be some creative action to … well … ‘create’ the otherliness in which God exists? If so, by whom? Or by what? This version of holiness resonates (sorry, Leece) with me, as I have always felt the version of ‘holiness’ as being ‘opposition to sin’ leads to a lot of very un-Christian … well, for want of a better term, ‘prickliness’. In a manner of speaking. That definition of ‘holiness’ leads to some very Pharisaic attitudes and behaviors, if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but there it is anyway. Huh. All this has given me a great pain between the ears, so I will go back to lurk mode. Thank you for listening.
I read this last week and I think it would be a great supplement for this discussion. great thoughts!
http://kaitdugan.blogspot.com/2011/09/edwards-and-barth-on-gods-holiness.html
In my exposure to cosmology there is the ideal of “multiverse.” In other words, there are many “universes” like bubbles on the end of a bubble pipe. In this view each “universe” has its own rules, time, and conditions. The idea goes on to say that our “universe” is one that provided the conditions to develop into what we see. As for the others, some fail, some do not. Some are the same, others are beyond our ability to fathom.
Another view is brane theory. There are multiple universes that are like sheets separated by an infinitely small gap. As these branes (from membrane) collide from time to time a Big Bang occurs. An new universe is created. Some see these as the other side of Black Holes.
All this is to say that we are defining God through “our” universe. Could God exist outside our universe and thus outside of our space-time continuum? This would support Dr. Oord’s positions. God is timeless, creation is timeless. Our “universe” is not. Therefore to confine God to our universe places limits on God.
Just something to chew on.
Hi TomO! Always clear and thought-provoking!
My feeling is that God is essentially holy in the absence of any non-God realities in the sense that what we call “holiness” is just that which God is essentially compared to sin (or to created being per se, depending on how one understands holiness). The ‘comparison’ of God to created isn’t essential to God, but what is essential to God comes to be compared to the world. It’s not like God “come to be” that which he is “in comparison to” the world (IMO). Rather, the comparison “comes to be” when we relate ourselves (as created or as fallen) to God. So I’d say that what God is essentially (viz., love) comes to be compared to human falleness (or creaturliness) in terms of “holiness.” But in my view ‘holiness’ is just ‘love’ viewed with respect to this or that worldly aspect.
How do we know God is ‘timeless?’ How do we know that creation is ‘timeless?’
I’m glad I am not the only one who was intrigued by what Mr. Young said about holiness. I have never heard holiness described in such a way before, and contrary to what I learned as a child. However, since being introduced to the Nazarene/Wesleyan tradition in 2006, I have been able to be more open minded about other views than just my own. And that I’m not always right.
Mr. Young’s interpretation of holiness makes great sense to me and just like “good” in Genesis, you can’t have something good until you have something bad to compare it to.
Dr. Oord
In class I had such a hard time trying to wrap my mind around the idea that God has always been creating, and that what God creates is from something that has already been created. It frankly blew my mind. I instantly had the fear that I would have to affirm that there is something as old or everlasting as God. As I have continued to think on this idea I have come to a better understanding, at least in the fact that my fear was based of a notion of time that does not even come into picture of a God that is truly eternal. My fear was based on a temporal notion that I would never want to affirm about God. So that to say, I have come to like your idea of creation.
David H
I think that this is a great topic but if feel like if the prime characteristic of God is otherness how are humans supposed to experience it? Seeing as we can never be apart from sin as it is in our background I do believe that we can be entirely sanctified and free from the power of sin but we will always have the memory of it. Also, we will always be creatures not other than that so we have no true sense of holiness. While I feel like I can understand a hint of love.
I believe that anything is possible with God, which means that God can be holy and be alive before the world began. There is sin in the world, but in order for God to content with us he needed to experience and be with us in our lives. This then brings us to Jesus. Jesus is what makes God still be holy and be able to be with us in a sinful world.
I wonder if we are to use the biblical definitions furnished us in respect to Holiness. We of course are to be Holy as He is Holy and this in itself implies a choice.We are to choose to live in a holy fashion in the same way God chooses it. So it would not be far of to say as was expressed that holiness was not a necessary choice before anything other than God existed.But even love is a choice its not something that comes out as a state of being it implies a perfect devotion to what is seen as lovable.
I realize that many stipulate that God in His threefold being must have initiated love before the need to initiate holiness but that remains a theory outside of our ability to establish as fact.So the very premise behind the writers point will only ever be theory as we are not in a position to determine that any of it is true when stepping outside the scriptures. We can believe it or not , disagree about it but can never substantiate it.
I thought that this was an interesting viewpoint on things. When we were talking about your creation theory in class a couple of weeks ago I was completely involved. I wanted to know more and know how you got to that point. I had never thought of that kind of creation theology before. I still am not sure if I fully agree with it. I am not sure if I ever will have to agree with it (the kicks of having one’s own theology I suppose).
But, I wonder as you are relating this to holiness. I am not sure if I agree with you are saying here. If I believe that God created something out of nothing, then God can’t be holy? But, if I believe that God creates out of which already was previously created then I can believe that God is holy. I think that God can be holy if God wants to be holy in regards to the first creation theory. Just because God is holy doesn’t necessarily mean God doesn’t choose to be involved with God’s creation.
Aren’t we sometimes called holy as well by certain people (meaning set apart)? Aren’t we set apart for God? So if we can be holy and still engage with creation then why wouldn’t God be able to?
It seems to me that holiness should be defined in terms of loving relationship.