Systematic Doxology:About

From Systematic Doxology

Systematic Doxology has as its chief end to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. We believe that these are not two aims but one. With Jonathan Edwards we exult that,

God and the creature, in the emanation of the divine fullness, are not properly set in opposition; or made the opposite parts of a disjunction. Nor ought God’s glory and the creature’s good, to be viewed as if they were properly and entirely distinct, in the objection. This supposeth, that God having respect to his glory, and the communication of good to his creatures, are things altogether different: that God communicating his fullness for himself, and his doing it for them, are things standing in a proper disjunction and opposition. Whereas, if we were capable of more perfect views of God and divine things, which are so much above us, it probably would appear very clear, that the matter is quite otherwise: and that these things, instead of appearing entirely distinct, are implied one in the other. God in seeking his glory, seeks the good of his creatures; because the emanation of his glory (which he seeks and delights in, as he delights in himself and his own eternal glory) implies the communicated excellency and happiness of his creatures. And in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself; because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing, but the emanation and expression of God’s glory: God, in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself: and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused and expressed, (which he delights in, as he delights in his own beauty and fullness,) he seeks their glory and happiness.
The End for which God created the world.

Therefore, man in seeking to glorify God must seek to enjoy Him. God has made us like himself. Think of this: if God is good and goodness is a propensity to seek the highest good of others, then God would seek the highest good of others. What then is the highest good? God knows what the highest good is. God has from all eternity been in the full enjoyment of the greatest good, namely himself. He knows that the greatest state of being or experience is his own state of being God enjoying God. Now, if God's propensity to seek that others should have the highest good is to be exercised, then he must seek a similar situation to his own. Thus God creates beings like himself to enjoy himself as he enjoys himself. Because it is not just any experience of God that God is enjoying, but it is his own experience of God enjoying God.

God then, in overflowing goodness creates beings like himself, in order that they may have similar faculties to himself to the end that their enjoyment and experience of God may be as his is. This is why he made man in his image and in his likeness. That we may experience God as God experiences God.

Since God knows all of God's perfections perfectly and his own eternal enjoyment of himself is in his fullness, so God has sought that man should know God in his fullness. Thus he conceived of a universe in which, according to his eternal plan, the fullness of God's perfections would be maximally displayed and manifested. The goodness of God is his desire that this enjoyment of God should be multiplied and magnified beyond himself to creatures like himself. This is his bride, made as it were from his side and in his likeness in order to become one flesh with him and enjoy him forever.

We are by no means YHWH, nor "gods" in the definitive sense of the word, but "he calls them gods to whom the word of God came" John 10:34-35. This is an expression of our likeness to him and our exalted destiny of enjoying God as God enjoys God forever and ever. We are the image and glory of God 1 Corinthians 11:7, and are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son Romans 8:29.

We believe that these things are the center piece of Christianity, that without them Christianity loses its unifying principle. We are to regard all of the acts of God as aiming at God's chief end, namely his glorifying God and enjoying himself forever. Any system of theology without this element is missing the big picture and will suffer a thousand smaller ailments due to its bones all being out of joint.

This site aims therefore, to magnify God's end and expound it to a new generation. We are fallible and frail sinners like the rest, and don't claim to be beyond correction, but see as in a mirror dimly. We doubtless warp things we ought not and have blind spots and pet ideas stretched out of proportion and are in need of God's lamp and God's hand to lead us by the hand. We claim no superior intellect or gifting. We are your brethren who aim at your joy and progress in the faith.