Doctrine of God

This week is my last week in the PMT (Pastoral Ministry Training) Apprenticeship program at my church. One of our final projects is to write a personal doctrinal statement so we can learn to clearly articulate the range of our theology. I'm excited about this project because I'm writing what I hope will amount to a blend of Systematic and Biblical Theology. I'll begin with the doctrine of God and Revelation and then move through Redemptive History from Creation to Fall to Redemption to New Creation. Under each of these headings will fall most of the things that are discussed in the traditional categories of Systematic Theology (Theology Proper, Anthropology, Hamartiology, Soteriology, Ecclesiology and Eschatology). However, rather than abstracted truth, these doctrines will be discussed as they play out in the drama of God's work to rescue the Creation and vindicate His glory in the New Creation. I plan to post my work this week as I progress. So, for your reading pleasure, here's what I have so far in regards to the doctrine of God.

The One God has eternally existed in the three equally-Divine Persons that constitute the One God in Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The foundation of the life of the God-head is the mutual enjoyment and glorification that each Person of the Trinity has in the other two Persons such that God’s primary passion is for the furtherance of the enjoyment of His own glory. God is completely and totally self-sufficient since He has life in Himself a

nd is absolutely perfect in both love and holiness. All God’s perfections are infinite and so He can be described as infinite in power, knowledge and presence.

The Father is the beginning of the Trinity from whom is eternally generated the Son. It is to the Father that the Son and Holy Spirit are functionally subordinate and as such He is the Head of the Life of the Trinity.

The Son is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and, as such, is fully Divine. The Son is the perfect image and representation of the Father and, as a result, the Father and Son delight in the mutual beauty of their perfections with the full energy afforded by omnipotence. His economic role is to take the glorious perfections of God and make them visible or knowable to the creation. Thus, it is only through the Son that we have access to knowledge of the Father.

The Holy Spirit is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and Son and is fully Divine as are the other two Persons. He proceeds from both the Father and the Son and is Himself the fully energy of the delight with which the Father and Son enjoy the perfection of the Other. It is the economic role of the Holy Spirit to lead creatures to see and savor the beauty of the Son and, as a result, come to know the Father.

While each Person of the Trinity is distinct in His Personhood, there is no distinction as to Divinity and each fully shares the attributes of the Others.