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The One Ultimate Purpose of Creation | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  What if I told you that the most selfless thing God could
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  possibly do is be entirely obsessed with himself?
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  Yeah, I mean, that sounds completely backward to our
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  modern sensibilities. Who wasn't?
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  It does, but welcome to reform thinking.
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  If you are listening right now, you are sitting right here in
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  the room with. Us You are the silent third
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  participant in this conversation.
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  Yeah, we are speaking directly to you today.
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  And the mission of this deep dive is to unpack Jonathan
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  Edwards's massive theological dissertation concerning the
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  single final reason God created the world.
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  Which is, you know, a huge topic.
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  And if you know our framework here, you know we look at
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  theology through the lens of historic Protestantism, right?
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  Specifically holding to the Westminster Confession of Faith
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  that theological lens is really going to guide how we read
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  Edwards today. It has to, because we are
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  looking at an 18th century genius trying to map out the
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  sheer mechanics of eternity. And the text we have in front of
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  us is incredibly dense. Hey, let's unpack this.
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  Edwards makes a staggering claim right out of the gate.
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  He really does. He argues that God's final aim
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  in creation is not a collection of different goals, right?
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  It is not manifold. Right, He says.
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  It is entirely singular. Yeah.
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  But you know, we look at Scripture and we see various
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  names for God's aims. Sometimes the text speaks of his
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  love or his justice, or his mercy, or his wrath.
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  And I think we tend to view those as like different modes
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  God slips into depending on the situation.
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  Spot on. But Edwards insists these are
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  all distinct labels for one single unified whole.
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  And that whole is the glory of God.
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  It is a massive paradigm shift, and we really have to understand
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  why this matters so much for Protestant theology,
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  specifically within the confessional tradition we
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  operate in, Yeah. Let's look at the Westminster
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  Shorter Catechism. Exactly, the very first question
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  asks what is the chief end of man?
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  And the answer provided by the Westminster divines is that
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  man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
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  Right. So what Jonathan Edwards is
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  doing in this dissertation is taking that precise question and
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  applying it to the Creator. Which is pretty bold.
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  Very bold. He is demonstrating that God's
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  chief end, His supreme goal in all of creation, is the precise
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  same thing as our chief end. Wow.
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  So God's supreme goal is to glorify God.
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  Yes, because for centuries, you know, you had theologians trying
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  to list out the various reasons God might have created the
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  universal. They would sort of
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  compartmentalize his motives. Right.
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  They would argue that He created the world to display his justice
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  in one specific event, to display His grace in another
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  event. Or maybe to provide a habitation
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  for humanity over in the completely different category.
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  Yeah. But Edwards looks at that
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  fragmented theological method and says it fundamentally
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  misunderstands the nature of the divine mind.
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  Those are not competing interest then.
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  Not at all. They are not separate items on a
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  cosmic checklist. They are entirely subsumed under
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  the single heading of His glory. So it operates as a unifying
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  theory of creation. Yes, a unifying theory.
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  I see where he's going with a unifying theory, but it raises a
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  massive logical hurdle right away from me.
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  Well, how can different concepts in the Bible like love,
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  knowledge and holiness all be reduced to just one thing?
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  That is the big question. Because in our human experience,
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  those are entirely different categories.
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  Knowing a fact about mathematics is very different from loving
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  your spouse. Right, they feel completely
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  distinct. Yeah, and both of those are
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  different from possessing moral perfection.
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  Collapsing them feels like we are, I don't know, flattening
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  the definitions of words until they lose their meaning.
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  I get that it feels counterintuitive.
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  To try and visualize what Edwards is doing, I think about
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  looking at a single masterfully cut diamond.
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  Oh, a diamond? OK.
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  Yeah, imagine you hold a diamond up to the light.
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  You see dozens of different facets, right?
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  One facet flashes blue, another flashes brilliant white, another
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  catches a hint of red. Yeah.
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  And if you only look at the reflections hitting the wall of
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  the room, you might think you were dealing with many different
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  light sources or many different colored stones.
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  But you are looking at entirely one single stone.
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  Exactly the varieties in the expression, not in the essence.
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  I see. So Edward seems to be arguing
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  that the manifold goals of God we see in Scripture are just the
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  various facets of this single diamond called His glory.
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  The diamond analogy works to a certain point in visualizing the
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  single source of multiple reflections, but we have to push
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  back on it slightly to stay true to Edwards's philosophy.
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  OK, fair enough. Where does it breakdown?
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  Well, a diamond is a passive object.
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  It requires an external light source to shine.
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  Right. If you put a diamond in a dark
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  room, it produces nothing. Exactly, and God in Edwards
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  framework is not a passive gem waiting for illumination, He is
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  the light itself. That makes a lot of sense.
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  This is why Edwards has to define what that singular aim
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  actually means in practice. He is attempting to define the
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  indefinable. And how does he do that?
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  He does this by making a critical distinction between
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  God's internal glory and His external glory.
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  OK. Internal versus external.
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  Yeah, Edwards defines the glory of God as the emanation and true
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  external expression of God's internal glory and fullness.
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  That word emanation is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
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  It really is. It means God exercising his
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  perfections to produce a proper effect.
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  Rather than those perfections lying eternally dormant and
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  ineffection. Yes, God has inherent fullness.
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  He is complete within himself. But the external existence of
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  that fullness, like the flowing outward of it, is what we call
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  His glory in creation. What's fascinating here is how
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  Edwards readily admits that human language is inadequate for
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  such sublime concepts. He does, yeah.
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  He acknowledges a degree of obscurity in his own
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  definitions. I mean he is a finite creature
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  trying to find finite syllable to describe an infinite eternal
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  reality. Spot on.
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  So the word emanation is the best he can do to describe a God
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  who is both entirely self-contained and yet
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  constantly overflowing. That distinction between
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  internal fullness and external emanation creates a massive
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  intellectual challenge, though. How do you mean?
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  Well, Edward says that God's internal glory must produce a
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  proper effect in opposition to lying eternally dormant, right?
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  But if God is perfectly self-sufficient, doesn't the
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  idea of his attributes needing to produce an effect imply that
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  he lacks something? That is a very common objection.
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  I mean, if he must emanate to express his glory, does that
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  mean he was somehow incomplete before the universe existed?
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  It sounds like it on the surface.
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  Think about a master musician. A master pianist who sits in an
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  empty room and never actually plays an instrument is still a
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  master, right? Yes, absolutely.
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  Their skill and genius are fully intact internally.
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  They do not require an audience to validate their mastery.
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  No, they don't. Nor do they even need a piano to
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  possess the knowledge of music. So why must God's attributes not
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  remain dormant? That is a great question.
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  Why is it a requirement for his internal glory to have this
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  external expression if he truly needs nothing outside of
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  himself? Well, Edwards anticipates this
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  exact philosophical pushback. I figured he might.
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  And his answer requires us to completely rethink our
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  definition of necessity. OK, how so?
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  When we say say someone needs something, we usually mean they
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  have a deficit. Right, A starving person needs
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  food because they lack calories. Yes, or a lonely person needs
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  companionship because they lack connection.
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  But God does not create out of a deficit.
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  He creates out of an overflowing abundance.
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  Exactly. Your musician analogy is
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  helpful. If we adjust the motive a bit,
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  it's. Just that how?
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  It is not that the musician needs an audience to validate
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  their skill, it is that the music inside them is so
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  abundant, so overwhelming, that it naturally bursts forth into
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  performance. Oh wow, I like that.
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  The effect, which is the creation of the world, is a
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  communication of fullness, not a grasping for something missing.
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  So if God's perfections remained entirely internal, they would
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  be, in Edwards's words, ineffectual.
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  Yes, think of a fountain. OK, a fountain.
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  A fountain that never flows is still a reservoir, but it is the
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  very nature of a fountain to bubble over.
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  Because there is so much water, it cannot be contained.
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  Right. God's emanation is the supreme
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  expression of His self-sufficiency.
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  Because he lacks nothing. He has everything to give.
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  Exactly. The creation is simply the
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  splashing over of his infinite internal satisfaction.
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  If the creation is the splashing over of his internal
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  satisfaction, we have to look at what specifically is in that
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  water. Yeah, we really do.
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  What is the anatomy of this glory?
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  Edwards gets incredibly granular here.
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  He loves to break things down. He categorizes God's internal
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  fullness into two primary faculties, understanding and
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  will. Understanding, representing his
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  infinite knowledge. Yes, and will.
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  Representing his infinite virtue, holiness, and joy.
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  He then makes a striking philosophical move that feels
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  incredibly bold. What does he do?
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  He reduces all other divine attributes to mere modifiers of
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  these two core aspects. Right, the reduction.
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  Yeah. For example, he argues that
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  God's eternity is not a distinct, separate attribute
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  sitting on a shelf next to his knowledge.
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  Eternity is simply the duration of this goodness.
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  Precisely. Immutability is not a separate
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  thing, it is the goodness with a negation of chance or change.
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  And strength is just the degree of these things in relation to
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  effects. Everything boils down to
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  understanding and will. This reduction to understanding
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  and will is a massive theological insight.
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  It really simplifies things. It does, and it draws heavily
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  from the philosophical context of his era, specifically the
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  works of John Locke. Locke.
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  Really. Yeah, whom Edwards read.
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  As a young teenager, Locke categorized the human mind into
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  understanding and will. Oh, I see the connection now.
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  And Edwards took that framework and elevated it to the divine
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  level. Arguing that human beings
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  possess these faculties precisely because we are made in
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  the image of God. Yes, a God who is fundamentally
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  understanding and will. It simplifies the infinite
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  without diminishing it. That is a great way to put it.
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  And Edwards grounds this philosophical framework directly
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  in Scripture. He points to the Gospel of John,
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  chapter one, verse 14. Remind us what that says.
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  That verse describes Christ, the word made flesh, as being full
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  of grace and truth. Grace and truth.
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  Right. Edwards maps his two faculties
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  perfectly onto this verse. So truth corresponds to the
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  understanding, which is infinite knowledge.
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  Yes, and grace corresponds to the will, which encompasses
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  holiness and happiness. Wow, so when the apostles beheld
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  the glory of the only begotten of the Father.
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  What they were witnessing was the supreme emanation of God's
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  understanding and God's will standing right in front of them
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  in physical form. The abstract concepts take on a
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  vivid historical reality in the incarnation of Jesus.
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  Exactly. So what does this all mean for
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  you, the listener? It is a fair question.
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  Let's ground this high theology and what it actually
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  accomplishes for the creature. Yes, let's bring it down to
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  earth. By communicating His
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  understanding, God gives the creature your knowledge of
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  himself. He gives us truth.
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  By communicating His will, God gives the creature love and joy
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  in Himself. He gives us grace.
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  It is a direct transfer. Every piece of spiritual
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  knowledge you possess, every ounce of genuine holy affection
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  you feel, is a direct communication of God's internal
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  faculties into your finite being.
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  It really changes how you view your own thoughts and feelings.
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  It does, and to make these abstract faculties concrete, we
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  have to look at the primary physical illustration Edwards
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  uses in the text. Which is a brilliant
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  illustration. He moves away from philosophical
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  definitions and leans into the physical sciences of his day.
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  Yeah, he was quite the science buff.
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  He compares God's glory to an effulgence or emanation of light
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  from a great luminary, specifically the sun.
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  The Sun analogy is the absolute centerpiece of his entire
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  argument. Light is the external expression
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  of the Sun's internal excellence.
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  Edwards lived in a post Newtonian world, you know, he
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  was fascinated by optics and the physics of light.
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  Viewing the physical universe as a scale model of spiritual
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  realities. Exactly through this emanating
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  light, the sun itself is seen. Because you cannot look at the
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  internal core of the sun. Right, the internal fusion
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  happening there is inaccessible to you, but you know the sun
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  through the light and heat that reach you across the vacuum of
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  space. Furthermore, surrounding objects
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  receive all their luster, beauty, and brightness from this
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  participation in the Sun's communication.
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  And in Scripture, light is abundantly used to represent the
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  three things we have been talking about.
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  Knowledge, holiness and happiness.
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  Yes, without the sun's emanation, the solar system is
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  dark, cold, and dead. With the emanation, there is
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  visibility, warmth and life. God's internal glory is the
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  nuclear furnace of the sun, and the creation is the solar system
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  basking in its race. Let's expand on that Sun analogy
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  so you can really picture the mechanics of what Edwards is
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  arguing. OK, let's do it.
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  Think of a completely dark room full of objects.
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  Maybe there's a chair, a painting on the wall, and a
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  bookshelf. Got it?
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  In absolute darkness, those objects possess no visible color
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  or beauty. They are entirely indiscernible.
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  You cannot see a thing. The painting is entirely reliant
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  on an outside source to be seen right When a light source is
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  introduced, the objects suddenly appear.
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  Brilliant. You can see the red in the
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  painting, the grain of the wood on the bookshelf.
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  But the objects themselves did not generate that brilliance.
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  No they didn't. They are simply catching and
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  returning the light from the source.
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  Which is such a helpful way to think about us.
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  Our human goodness, our knowledge, our joy, these
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  possess no inherent luminescence.
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  They are entirely dependent on reflecting the great luminary.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting.
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  Edwards writes that it is by this light that all nature
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  receives life, comfort and joy. We are completely contingent
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  beings. Yes, our brightest moments of
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  spiritual joy are just photons from the divine sun bouncing off
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  our finite souls. That visual of the darkroom is
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  highly accurate to Edward's premise.
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  It helps make it concrete. But it forces us to look at the
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  dynamic between the source and the receiver.
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  How so? If creatures are merely
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  reflecting light back to the source, what does the cyclical
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  relation look like? Oh, I see.
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  Edwards introduces a concept we can call the divine loop.
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  He states in the text. The water in the stream is
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  something of the fountain, and the beams of the sun are
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  something of the sun. In the creature knowing, loving,
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  and rejoicing in God, the glory of God is both exhibited and
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  acknowledged. Yes, his fullness is received by
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  the creature and then returned to him.
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  This is the emanation and the re emanation.
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  A critical phrase from the text captures this perfectly.
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  The whole is of God, and in God, and to God.
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  God and He is the beginning and the middle and the end.
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  That is the very essence of reformed theology.
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  God is the active, initiating and sustaining agent in all
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  phases of the creature spiritual life.
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  Nothing originates with us. No, we do not generate the
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  light. We do not generate the heat we
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  receive and return. That total reliance on God is
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  the active agent brings up a massive question about human
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  agency, though. It is the next logical step to
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  wonder about that. If the beams just refund back to
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  the sun, are humans just passive mirrors?
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  That is the fear, isn't it? Yeah, because a mirror has no
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  feelings. It is no will.
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  It just sits there on the wall while light bounces off it.
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  Right? If God is the beginning, middle,
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  and end of the whole process, how does the text maintain the
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  creatures act of joy? It is attention for sure.
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  If I am rejoicing in God, it feels like I am the one doing
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  the rejoicing. It feels active and personal.
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  You are experiencing the emotion in your chest.
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  I am making the choice to sing or to pray.
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  So how do we reconcile our very real, active experience of love
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  and joy with the claim that God is the source of the entirety of
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  it? It is a stunning theological
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  tension, and it strikes at the heart of how Edwards viewed the
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  human will. How does he resolve it?
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  He handles this by explaining that God does not just bounce
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  light off us the way light bounces off a piece of glass.
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  OK, He communicates His nature into our faculties.
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  Oh, and to the faculties of understanding and will that we
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  talked about. Yes, when God communicates His
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  understanding to you, your mind is genuinely active in knowing
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  Him. And when He communicates his
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  will to you, your heart is genuinely active in loving him.
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  Precisely. You are not a mirror, you are a
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  living soul. The joy you feel is genuinely
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  your joy, but the substance of that joy is God Himself.
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  You're actively participating in the divine nature.
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  The fact that God supplies the fullness does not negate your
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  experience of it, rather it makes your experience possible.
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  Your active rejoicing is the very mechanism of the
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  reemanation. Think of it like lungs breathing
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  oxygen. The lungs are actively expanding
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  and contracting, performing the work of respiration, but the
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  oxygen itself comes from the atmosphere.
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  Right. Without the atmosphere, the
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  lungs can pump all they want, but they will suffocate.
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  Exactly. Your soul is actively rejoicing,
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  but the oxygen of that joy is the emanation of God's glory.
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  This realization that God is doing all of this for his own
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  glory and that He is the source and the goal of everything,
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  Yeah, it always hits a wall when it comes into contact with
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  modern sensibilities. Oh, absolutely.
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  It brings up an objection regarding selfishness.
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  Right, the cosmic narcissist idea.
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  Yeah. If God's supreme goal is his own
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  glory, doesn't that make him a cosmic narcissist?
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  People think that if God is seeking his own end, it implies
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  A disregard for the creature. Edwards anticipates this exact
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  objection. He.
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  Argues that God's respect for himself and his respect for the
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  treacher are not a double and divided respect.
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  That phrase is so crucial. Double and divided respect.
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  Because God infinitely values his own glorious perfections, He
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  naturally values the image or participation of those
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  perfections that exist in the creature.
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  Yes, God approves of others esteem of himself for the exact
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  same reason he esteems himself. Because he is objectively the
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  highest good. We have to fundamentally adjust
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  our categories here because we project our human flaws onto the
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  divine nature. We do that all the time.
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  In human terms, if a person seeks their own glory above all
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  else, we call them selfish. Because a human being exalting
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  themselves comes at the expense of others.
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  Right. A human is taking something that
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  does not belong to them, elevating their finite flawed
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  self over other finite flawed selves.
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  But God is the ontological source of all goodness.
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  If we connect this to the bigger picture, this logic shatters the
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  modern assumption that doing something for oneself
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  automatically harms others. For God to desire the greatest
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  possible good is for him to desire himself.
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  Because there is no higher good available.
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  Therefore, when God seeks his own glory, He is simultaneously
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  seeking the greatest possible good for the creature.
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  Because the creature's highest good is to be united with God's
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  glory. His self regard is the very
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  thing that guarantees the creature's ultimate happiness.
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  It is not a 0 sum game where God gets glory and you get
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  diminished. I want to make that abstract
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  concept a bit more tangible for you.
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  Good. Idea.
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  Consider a family dynamic, which Edwards briefly touches on in
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  his writings. OK, imagine a loving parent
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  whose absolute greatest joy is watching their child open a
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  magnificent gift on Christmas morning.
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  I can picture that. The parent bought the gift, the
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  parent wrapped the gift, and the parent planned the surprise.
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  Lots of preparation. When the child tears off the
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  paper and erupts in happiness, the parent is filled with joy.
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  Now, is the parent being selfish by seeking their own joy in that
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  moment? Of course not.
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  The parents joy and the child's joy are entirely overlapping.
• 20:08
  Seeking the the child's happiness is the specific way
• 20:11
  the parent seeks their own joy. The two respects are not
• 20:14
  divided. When God seeks your joy in him,
• 20:17
  he is seeking His own glory, and the two are perfectly unified.
• 20:21
  The parent analogy helps illustrate the overlapping joy,
• 20:24
  but we have to recognize where it falls short of the divine
• 20:27
  reality. Oh sure, all analogies breakdown
• 20:29
  eventually. A human parent and a human child
• 20:32
  are two entirely separate beings.
• 20:34
  The parent gives a physical gift that is separate from both of
• 20:37
  them. Whereas in Edwards's theology,
• 20:40
  God is not just the giver of the gift, He is the gift itself.
• 20:43
  Yes, he's the environment in which the creature exists.
• 20:47
  Once we understand that this union between God's glory and
• 20:50
  the creature's happiness is the goal, we have to ask how this
• 20:54
  union unfolds over the span of eternity, right?
• 20:57
  Edwards argues that the creatures happiness consists
• 20:59
  entirely of union with God. The greater the happiness, the
• 21:02
  greater the Union. And because this happiness will
• 21:04
  increase to eternity, the Union will become constantly more
• 21:08
  strict and perfect. Edwards, who had a highly
• 21:10
  analytical mind, uses a mathematical analogy to
• 21:13
  illustrate this. The infinite height analogy.
• 21:15
  He asks us to picture something ascending constantly toward an
• 21:19
  infinite height with a given velocity.
• 21:20
  OK, God views this eternally increasing progression as an
• 21:24
  infinite whole, making it his supreme aim, even though a point
• 21:29
  in time will never arrive where it is finished or capped off.
• 21:32
  It is an asymptotic relationship.
• 21:34
  The line gets closer and closer to the axis forever without ever
• 21:38
  touching it. I have to admit, when I read
• 21:41
  that mathematical analogy of ascending toward an infinite
• 21:44
  hype forever, yeah, I had an immediate, very human reaction.
• 21:48
  Doesn't that sound exhausting? Exhausting.
• 21:50
  That makes sense. The idea of a constant striving
• 21:53
  that never actually hits the ceiling feels like a recipe for
• 21:57
  fatigue. It does sound like a lot of
• 21:58
  work. In our daily lives, we value
• 22:01
  rest. We value completing a task,
• 22:04
  crossing the finish line and sitting down.
• 22:06
  The concept of moving upwards with a given velocity for all
• 22:09
  eternity, never arriving at a state of absolute completion.
• 22:13
  It sounds contrary to our typical view of Heavenly Rest,
• 22:16
  right? If I'm always moving, always
• 22:18
  growing, always ascending, how do we square this infinite
• 22:22
  mathematical progression with the biblical promise of peace?
• 22:25
  It sounds like spiritual cardio that never ends.
• 22:28
  It sounds exhausting only because we associate progression
• 22:31
  with physical limits and finite energy.
• 22:33
  That is true in our current state, exertion depletes our
• 22:36
  reserves. We run a mile, we bring
• 22:37
  calories, our muscles tear and we need sleep to recover.
• 22:41
  But Edwards is not describing a frustrating, sweaty striving
• 22:44
  against gravity. No, he is describing an
• 22:47
  accelerating capacity for joy in a glorified state where
• 22:50
  exhaustion does not exist. Think of it not as climbing a
• 22:54
  mountain that never ends, but as your heart expanding to hold
• 22:58
  more light. As the creature grows in union
• 23:01
  with God, their capacity to hold God's joy expands.
• 23:05
  God fills that expanded capacity, which stretches the
• 23:08
  creature further, allowing them to receive even more.
• 23:11
  It is an infinitely scaling geometry of happiness.
• 23:14
  You are at perfect rest, meaning you have no anxiety, no sin, no
• 23:18
  friction. Yet your experience of that rest
• 23:20
  gets dynamically richer every single moment for forever.
• 23:23
  Your knowledge of God deepens, which increases your love for
• 23:26
  Him, which increases your joy, which expands your capacity to
• 23:29
  know Him more. It is an eternal feedback loop
• 23:31
  of increasing velocity. To prove this concept of an
• 23:34
  ongoing eternal action, Edwards draws A striking parallel to
• 23:37
  another eternal doctrine. One that requires very careful
• 23:40
  theological handling. Yes, very careful.
• 23:43
  He compares the infinite progression of union with God to
• 23:46
  the concept of satisfying justice in eternal damnation.
• 23:50
  Which is a heavy topic. Edwards points out that justice
• 23:53
  is satisfied by damnation, considered only in its eternal
• 23:56
  duration. There is never a single moment
• 23:59
  in the future where justice is completely paid up.
• 24:01
  Because the offense is against an infinitely holy being, the
• 24:05
  payment requires an infinite amount of time for a finite
• 24:09
  creature to endure. He uses this incredibly dark,
• 24:12
  heavy reality to illustrate the brilliant mechanics of his point
• 24:16
  about glory. He draws that parallel because
• 24:19
  he wants to explain the mechanics of grace.
• 24:22
  God aims to satisfy His infinite grace by bestowing an infinitely
• 24:26
  valuable good, which is eternal Felicity, upon the Saints.
• 24:29
  Just as there is no point where justice is completely paid by a
• 24:32
  finite creature in hell, there will never come a single moment
• 24:35
  when God says I have now finished bestowing grace upon my
• 24:38
  people. The bestowal of infinite grace
• 24:40
  requires an ongoing eternity. This raises an important
• 24:43
  question regarding how believers view eternity today.
• 24:47
  We often default to a static view of heaven.
• 24:49
  Yes, we picture it as a place where you receive a lump sum of
• 24:52
  grace upon entry at the pearly gates and then nothing ever
• 24:56
  changes. You just sit on a cloud and play
• 24:58
  a harp. Edwards shatters that static,
• 25:00
  boring view. Heaven is an active, ongoing,
• 25:04
  never ending communication of God's internal fullness into
• 25:08
  your expanding soul. You can feel Edwards's brilliant
• 25:12
  rhetorical edge in this section, too.
• 25:13
  Oh, for. Sure, he makes a sharp aside
• 25:16
  aimed at the modern freethinkers of his day who dislike the
• 25:19
  doctrine of infinite punishment. It is fascinating to see that
• 25:23
  the theological debates happening the mid 18th century
• 25:25
  mirror our own. Today, the Deists and the
• 25:28
  Enlightenment thinkers of his era were uncomfortable with
• 25:31
  eternal duration, just as people are now.
• 25:33
  But Edwards forces them to be intellectually consistent.
• 25:36
  If you reject the eternal ongoing nature of justice, you
• 25:39
  logically we have to reject the eternal ongoing nature of grace.
• 25:43
  You cannot have an eternally increasing union with God if you
• 25:46
  demand that eternal processes must have a completion date.
• 25:49
  The architecture of eternity requires ongoing duration in
• 25:52
  both directions. That demand for consistency is
• 25:56
  the hallmark of Edwards's mind. He refuses to let the reader
• 25:59
  isolate doctrines. You cannot pick and choose which
• 26:02
  parts of the divine nature you want to engage with.
• 26:05
  Everything is connected by this single unifying thread of God's.
• 26:08
  Glory whether he is discussing the mechanics of the will, the
• 26:12
  physics of light, the dynamics of human affection.
• 26:14
  Or the stark realities of eternal justice.
• 26:17
  He always traces the logic back to that one fountain.
• 26:20
  God is the beginning, the middle, and the end.
• 26:22
  His glory is the singular reason the universe exists, and
• 26:25
  everything we observe or experience is simply the
• 26:28
  emanation of that internal divine fullness.
• 26:31
  Bringing this massive cosmic scale of eternal progression
• 26:35
  down to your daily reality is essential as we wrap up this
• 26:38
  deep dive. Yes, let's pull it all together.
• 26:40
  Let's synthesize the sheer volume of theology we have
• 26:43
  covered. Jonathan Edwards has
• 26:44
  meticulously demonstrated that God's pursuit of his own glory
• 26:48
  and your personal pursuit of true happiness are not competing
• 26:51
  interests. They are the exact same pursuit.
• 26:54
  You do not have to choose between glorifying God and
• 26:56
  finding joy. Why should you care about this
• 26:58
  dense 18th century philosophy? Because it frees you from the
• 27:02
  guilt of desiring joy. It gives you permission to seek
• 27:05
  happiness voraciously, provided that your happiness is found in
• 27:08
  God's fullness. You are designed to be a
• 27:10
  receiver of the Divine emanation.
• 27:13
  You are the dark room and He is the great luminary.
• 27:16
  That freedom is the practical payoff of this high theology.
• 27:20
  When you understand that God's internal fullness is meant to
• 27:22
  flow outward into you, it changes how you approach
• 27:26
  worship. It changes how you process
• 27:28
  suffering. And how you live your daily
• 27:29
  life. You realize that your highest
• 27:31
  moments of joy are not distractions from God.
• 27:34
  They are direct participations in His nature.
• 27:37
  Your joy is the re emanation of His glory back to Him.
• 27:41
  We want to leave you with a final lingering question to Mull
• 27:44
  over as you go about your day. Something to keep you thinking.
• 27:47
  It builds on Edwards's text but pushes past what we just
• 27:50
  discussed. If your eternal state is going
• 27:52
  to be 1 of constant accelerating increase in knowledge, holiness
• 27:58
  and joy. This eternal calculus of
• 28:00
  expanding capacity. How does that alter your view of
• 28:04
  a Restful afterlife? Could heaven be an infinitely
• 28:07
  more dynamic, mentally active, and thrilling state of constant
• 28:11
  discovery than you ever imagined?
• 28:12
  We hope this deep dive has given you a massive theological
• 28:15
  framework to chew on. Keep reading, keep asking hard
• 28:18
  questions, and keep your mind engaged.
• 28:20
  Goodbye for now. Take.