The Benevolence of God

At a glance

Relevant Scripture

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

1 John 4:16 KJV

UECF.NET summary

Finney begins by ruling out a misunderstanding he considers common and damaging: that "God is love" describes God's essence as some kind of substance, or describes His disposition as mere fondness, an emotion that simply wants creatures to feel good. Instead he defines the phrase as benevolence — a fixed, voluntary, entirely rational commitment of God's whole character to the highest good of everything that can be affected by it. Because this commitment is single and unchanging, Finney argues that everything God has ever done, and will ever do, must be traceable to this one motive; there is no second, competing intention hidden anywhere in the divine character. This has a striking consequence: God's mercy and God's judgments, His kindness and His severity, are not opposing impulses in tension with each other but two outworkings of one and the same benevolent purpose, applied wisely to different situations.

From this single premise Finney draws out a chain of consequences meant to steady the believer facing a confusing providence. Because God is infinitely wise as well as infinitely benevolent, he argues, God has never withheld any good, nor permitted any preventable evil, that a wiser and more loving being could have supplied or prevented without compromising something even more important — usually the moral freedom on which love and holiness themselves depend. Real evil and suffering do exist in the world, and Finney does not minimize this, but he insists such evil is incidental to an overall design whose good will finally and vastly outweigh it, rather than being evidence that the design itself has failed. This framework, he suggests, is the only way to read the harder passages of Scripture and the harder providences of life without either sentimentalizing God into someone who could never really judge sin, or souring toward Him as though His severity contradicted His goodness — since in Finney's account, they were never two different things to begin with.

Main theological themes

• God's love is benevolence — a single, unwavering commitment to the highest good of being — not sentimental fondness that simply indulges creatures.
• Mercy and judgment in God are not competing impulses but two expressions of exactly the same benevolent character.
• The real evil and suffering in the world are incidental to God's wise design, not evidence that His benevolence has failed.

Key ideas

• Because God's benevolent purpose never changes, every act of God — merciful or severe — can be traced to that one motive.
• God permits only the evil that a wiser and more loving being could not have prevented without sacrificing some greater good, usually the moral freedom love itself requires.
• Confusing love with fondness makes God's justice look like a contradiction of His character rather than an expression of it.
• Because Scripture and providence are both to be read through the single fact that God is benevolent, neither the darker passages of the Bible nor the harder events of life should be allowed to suggest that God has abandoned His good design.

Important concepts

• Benevolence — Not a feeling but a settled state of will — God's whole character voluntarily and permanently devoted to promoting the highest good of every being capable of enjoying it.
• Incidental evil — Suffering or evil that occurs within, but is not the goal of, God's wise overall plan; it is the unavoidable cost of preserving a greater good such as moral freedom, not a sign the plan has failed.
• Executive volition — Finney's term for any particular act by which God carries out His one eternal benevolent purpose in a given situation; the acts vary in form (mercy here, judgment there) while the underlying purpose behind them never changes.

Related Bible references

• Romans 8:28
• Psalm 145:9
• James 1:17
• Romans 11:22
• Jeremiah 29:11

Practical Christian application

• When you next face a hard providence, deliberately ask what a wise and loving God — not a merely fond one — might be doing through it, before concluding that it contradicts His goodness.
• This week, read one passage emphasizing God's justice and one emphasizing His mercy side by side, and notice how Finney would say both flow from the same benevolent character.
• Practice thanking God specifically for a difficult circumstance, as a deliberate act of trust in His overall benevolent design rather than only His pleasant gifts.

Questions for study