Attributes of God - Charnock - XV - Chapter 5 (Eternity of God) commenced

Required reading
Attributes of God by Charnock (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Chapter 5 by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'IV. Use. 1. Information. (2.) If God be of an eternal duration, then Christ is God'.

My summary
Today we read half the chapter on the eternity of God and see three of Charnock's four points.

Firstly Charnock teaches us in what respects God is eternal:
(i) God is without beginning;
(ii) God is without end;
(iii) there is no succession in God,

Secondly we see that God's eternal nature is shown by:
(i) the name God gives himself, I AM;
(ii) the life in himself;
(iii) the fact that if God were not eternal, he would not be immutable in his nature;
(iv) the fact that if God were not eternal, he could not be an infinitely perfect being;
(v) the fact that if God were not eternal, he could not be omnipotent;
(vi) the fact that if God were not eternal, God would not be the first cause of all.

Thirdly we are shown that eternity is only proper to God and not communicable because:
(i) creation is a producing something from nothing;
(ii) there is no creature but is mutable, therefore not eternal;
(iii) no creature is infinite, therefore eternal;
(iv) no effect of an intellectual free agent can be equal in duration to its cause.

What grabbed me
Great last point about the fact that God is immortal in a way we are not: 'Angels and souls have an immortality, but by donation from God, not by their own essence; dependent upon their Creator, not necessary in their own nature.  God might have annihilated them after he had created them ; so that their duration cannot properly be called an eternity, it being extrinsecal to them, and depending upon the will of their Creator, by whom they may be extinguished.  It is an absolute and necessary, but a precarious immortality. Whatsoever is not God, is temporary; whatsoever is eternal, is God.'

We must not confuse ourselves with God.  His immortality is a whole other ball game!


(Note: This post was originally made on 17th Jan 2011, but the date of the post has been changed to 12th April 2011 to reflect the order of chapters given in the full edition, not the abridged version that was used initially)




Next week's reading
Conclude Chapter 5.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.