Written by Scott R. Swain |
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
The God who is wise by nature bestows wisdom on creatures. The perfection of wisdom formally exists in God (in a divine manner) before it exists in the creature (in a creaturely manner). As Thomas Aquinas observes, “we do not call God wise because he causes wisdom, but he causes wisdom because he is wise” (Thomas Aquinas, The Power of God, trans. Richard J. Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 7.6). The distinction between God’s virtual possession of creaturely perfections and God’s formal possession of creaturely perfections is important for the distinction between metaphorical predication and literal predication.

In its pilgrim state, theology lacks an immediate grasp of God’s nature, which is infinite, incomprehensible, and ineffable. For this reason, theology also lacks the capacity for deriving God’s attributes from God’s nature. The ways of causation, negation, and eminence provide an alternative path for identifying God that is suitable to theology’s pilgrim state. This path is indirect because it identifies God by means of his creaturely effects. It is nonetheless reliable because it is illumined by the light of nature and, to a fuller degree, by the light of Scripture, which presupposes and, where necessary, corrects fallen creatures’ idolatrous misunderstandings of the light of nature. The way of causation, which identifies God as the first cause of all creatures, stands at the starting point of this path. Following from the way of causation, the way of negation and the way of eminence lead us to the end point of this path.
The Way of Causation
The light of nature and the light of Scripture proclaim God’s status as the first cause of all things: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1; Ps 19:1; Rom 1:20; 11:36). Scripture’s foundational identification of God identifies him, not by describing his nature, but by means of his creaturely effects: all things are “from him and through him and to him” (Rom 11:36). The revelation of God’s status as the first cause of all things provides an indirect but nonetheless reliable starting point for reflection on the being and attributes of God. The dominical saying, “each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44; cf. James 3:11-12), indicates how this works: Because certain kinds of effects follow certain kinds of causes, certain kinds of effects are signs of certain kinds of causes.
As the first cause of all things, God is the transcendent cause of all things. God and creatures do not belong to the same order of being. Creation is the product of equivocal causation, where the thing produced (e.g., a building) does not share the nature of its producer (e.g., a builder), not the product of univocal causation, where the thing produced (e.g., a son) shares the nature of its producer (e.g., a father). The world is made, not begotten. For this reason, there is no formal resemblance between God and his creaturely effects, no one to one correspondence between the nature of God and the nature of creatures. Nevertheless, while the world bears no formal resemblance to its transcendent cause, as a product of divine wisdom (Ps 104:24), goodness (Ps 33:5), and power (Ps 93:1-2), the glory of creation reflects, as in a mirror (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), the glory of its Creator: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:1). As a limited reflection of God’s unlimited glory, the visible world is designed to lead us to the knowledge of the invisible God, laying a foundation for true piety by instructing us regarding God’s “eternal power” and “divine nature” (Rom 1:20).
The absence of formal similarity between a transcendent God and his creaturely effects, along with the creature’s distant reflection of God’s transcendent glory, provide an indirect but reliable starting point from which theology may draw sound and reverent conclusions regarding the being and attributes of God by means of the way of negation and the way of eminence.
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In God’s plan, more was going on than what met the eye. Although uncomfortable physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, God allowed these circumstances in the lives of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha for something greater. The immediate circumstance did not reveal the totality of what God was doing. In our own circumstances, it is important to remember God does have a greater plan than what we can immediately see.

In today’s post we continue on Principles to Remember in Crisis. Today’s principle: God allows circumstances for His purposes.
Recently in the first post of this series, we revealed that the Apostle Paul provided two vital steps to persevere in trials or crisis. The first step, in a world with false teachers, false belief systems, and false hope, the Apostle reminds us to stand firm in what we know. The second step is to hold fast the traditions which we have been taught or learned from the Word. We simply identified those steps as: (1) Remember key principles and (2) Obey practical steps to encourage our perseverance.
This is our fourth principle to remember.
God Allows Circumstances for His Purposes (John 11).
We need to look no further than the story of Lazarus to see this principle illustrated in the Scriptures. Remember that Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, were some of Jesus’ closest friends. This Mary is the one who anointed Jesus with very expensive fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair. They lived in Bethany, about two miles away from Jerusalem. In this situation, Lazarus gets real sick so Mary and Martha send for Jesus to come and heal him. They sent this message: “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick” (John 11:3).
John explains what happens next:
When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” (John 11:4-7)
The disciples with Jesus were not happy about going to Judea. The Jews sought to kill Jesus there before, so they warned Jesus to not go.
Jesus explains:
“Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”
Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.”
However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.
Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” (John 11:11-15)
Jesus pointed out to the disciples that more was afoot than what they understood. As the story continues, they walk to Bethany, which was a two-day journey. When they arrive, Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days. Many women from Jerusalem had joined Mary and Martha to mourn Lazarus’ death.
As Jesus approached Bethany, still a ways out of town, Martha heard He was on His way. Martha went out to meet Him. She said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21).
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The process of compiling an anthology of devotional classics was for me a continuous process of tracking down bits and pieces that were part of my literary and religious life that I had never pursued in detail. I will feel rewarded if my readers come to love the entries in my anthology as I have come to love them, and I will be doubly rewarded if my readers catch a vision for finding devotional riches in overlooked corners of their own reading lives.

The Devoted Heart
The following reflections on the devoted heart are occasioned by the recent release of my anthology of devotional classics, a book in which each devotional text is accompanied by a 500-word explication by me. I called the texts classics to denote that they possess qualities that raise them above the conventional entries in a daily devotional guide. The problems with the conventional devotional guide are multiple, as Charles Spurgeon discovered when he made a survey of existing devotional books. What Spurgeon found was predictability, monotony, a tendency toward abstraction, and lack of fresh insight and expression.
In compiling my anthology, I worked hard to find devotional riches in unexpected places. Many of the authors would doubtless be surprised by what I chose for devotional purposes. Although I did not primarily go in quest of superior expression, I found that freshness of insight and expression just naturally appeared, often because of the real-life situations from which the devotionals arose.

I will adduce four examples to illustrate what I am describing, and then I will explore the common ingredients that the selections in my book share, in effect offering a definition of the genre of a devotional classic.

Devotional Riches in Unexpected Places
The burial service in The Book of Common Prayer was not composed as a devotional. It was instead intended to be part of a funeral service. Yet it is a moving meditation on human mortality and immortality. Here is a brief excerpt:
In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for help, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? . . . O holy and most merciful Savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death . . . [and] suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.
When Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson was walking with a visitor in a garden, the visitor asked the poet what he thought of Christ. Tennyson’s response was not offered as a devotional, but it nonetheless rises to that status: “What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is the sun of my soul.”
William Shakespeare finalized and signed his will a month before his death in 1616. In doing so, he did not envision himself as writing something devotional, yet part of the preamble reads as follows: “I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Savior to be made partaker of life everlasting. And my body to the earth whereof it is made.”
Painter Lilias Trotter made a practice of drawing plants in Algeria, where she served as a missionary in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Trotter pondered the plants that she came to know intimately, the idea occurred to her that they were parables of spiritual truths. One of these parables was built around the idea that just as plants die and then revive to new life, for people, too, death is in multiple ways the gate of life. Here is a brief excerpt: “A gateway is never a dwelling-place; the death-stage is never meant for our souls to stay and brood over, but to pass through with a will into the light beyond . . . for above all and through all is the inflowing, overflowing life of Jesus.”
A Devoted Life is the Seedbed of a Devoted Heart
Before I turn to an analysis of the common ingredients of the genre of a classical devotional, I will pause to draw a conclusion from the examples I have just quoted.
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