Thesis.
SECTION XIV: ON THE OMNISAPIENCE OF GOD
Thesis.
§ 258. As God is all-knowing, so also He is most wise. In fact, He is wisdom itself. (1) God’s wisdom is distinguished from His omniscience in Rom. 11:34. (2) Omnisapience is an absolute essential attribute, while omniscience is a relative attribute. (3) Omnisapience includes wisdom, art, intelligence. (4) We conceive of omnisapience through the mode of habit, of omniscience through the mode of act. In other respects, God’s wisdom is spoken of in two ways: (a) That which is from God, and (b) that which is in God. The wisdom from God is seen in the wisely constructed making of the world (1 Cor. 1:21) and in the heavenly doctrine revealed by God (Deut. 4:6), especially in the Gospel (1 Cor. 2:7). Wisdom in God is also taken personally—and in this way the Son of God is called “Wisdom” (Prov. 8:1; Matt. 11:[19]; “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3)—and essentially, as the divine essence is common to the three persons of the Deity. Some say that divine wisdom is either according to essence or according to appearance. The former is considered either absolutely or relatively.
§ 259. This essential wisdom of God (1) is not a habit added to the divine essence like human wisdom but is the essence of God itself, something that is proved both by the simplicity of the divine essence—which really identifies with itself all things that are in it—and by the eternity of this wisdom (Acts 15:18). But now nothing is from eternity except the divine essence. With regard to our conception, wisdom as the directing principle of acting is distinguished from will (which is the commanding principle) and from power (which is the principle that proceeds into act and exterior effect).
(2) It is not successive or discursive and reasoning, but it is utterly simple and perfect, grasping all things at the same time with one simple act of understanding.
(3) It is not changeable, variable, receptive of an opposite, or subject to increase and decrease like human wisdom. Rather, it is simply and absolutely invariable and always similar to itself. In fact, it is perpetually the same.
(4) It does not depend on things outside of God nor is it sought from elsewhere, but it is the essence of God, without beginning and end, persisting unmoved from eternity to eternity. Thus it also does not employ intelligible representations, as does human wisdom, nor does its secondary actuality [actus] differ from its primary.62 Rather, it is an utterly simple and undivided act [actus].
(5) It is not finite but completely infinite and unlimited, not only in potential but also in actuality.
(6) It is not idle (
) but is active and busy, for from eternity God made the most wise decree concerning the redemption of the human race (which He foresaw would fall into sin) through His Son, the Mediator, and in time He most wisely created all things, rules, preserves, and directs them.
The wisdom of God is proved.
§ 260. The wisdom of God is proved by: (I) Scripture, and this, (1) affirmatively, when it calls God “wise” and “the only wise” (Rom. 16:27; 1 Tim. 1:17), that is, essentially, unchangeably, of Himself, and perfectly (Isa. 40:13; Rom. 11:34). It calls Him “great in counsel” (Jer. 32:19). Job 12:13: “With Him are wisdom and might; He has counsel and understanding.” Dan. 2:20: “To Him belong wisdom and might.”
(2) Negatively, when it says that His wisdom cannot be investigated. Job 11:7: “Will you discover God by searching Him out?” Ps. 147:5: “Of His wisdom there is no measure.” Isa. 40:28: “The Lord is the eternal God…. His understanding is unsearchable.” (See also Ps. 139:18.) Also, when it says that He does not need the counsel of another. Isa. 40:13–14: “Who has instructed the Spirit of the Lord, and [what] man made Him to know his counsel? Whom did He consult, and he instructed Him and taught Him judgment in the path and taught Him with knowledge and made Him to know the way of understandings?” (See also Rom. 11:35; 1 Cor. 2:16.)
(3) Symbolically, when it compares divine wisdom to an inscrutable abyss. Ps. 36:[6]: “The judgments of the Lord are a great abyss,” that is, God’s wisdom and righteousness, which He reveals in His governance of the world and in exercising His judgments against the wicked, are inscrutable. Ps. 92:[5]: “How great are Your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep!” Rom. 11:33: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are the judgments of God and His ways beyond tracing out!” 1 Cor. 2:10: “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.”
(4) Effectively, when God’s wisdom is said to manifest itself in His external works. Ps. 104:24: “O Lord, how manifest are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.” Ps. 136:5: “You have made the heavens in understanding.” Prov. 3:19–20: “In wisdom the Lord founded the earth, in understanding He established the heavens. In His knowledge the deeps broke forth.” In Prov. 8:30, Wisdom says: “When God marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside Him [as] His nourisher (or craftsman).” Jer. 10:12: “It is God who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens.” However, God’s wisdom is presented for our consideration especially in the work of redemption. (See 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:8; etc.)
(II) Reason, from its effects. Divine wisdom shines forth in the arrangement of the entire universe, in the organization of its parts, in the shaping of the human body (Galen, De usu part., 3, c. 10). All the wisdom of humans comes from Him. Surely, therefore, He also is wise and, in fact, is omnisapient and is wisdom itself. (See our commonplace [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3 (On the Nature of God)], § 160.)
(III) The statements of the fathers. Augustine, Contra Maxim., bk. 3, c. 13: “God alone is said to be wise because He alone is wise according to His own substance, not according to an accident nor accidental participation in wisdom, the way any rational creature is wise.” His book 83 QQ., q. 16: “God is the cause of all things that exist. But whoever is the cause of all things is also the cause of His own wisdom. God is never without His own wisdom. Therefore He is the eternal cause of His own eternal wisdom, and He is not earlier in time than His own wisdom.”
Ambrose, De interpellat., bk. 1, c. 9:
O man, you are not permitted to know the heights of wisdom. Therefore it is written for you: “Be not high-minded, but fear” [Rom. 11:20]. Why do you curiously seek to search out what is not profitable for you to know and is not given to you to fathom? … You are not allowed to know the plans of an emperor on earth, and now do you want to know God’s plans? You are not permitted to search out curiously the things done on earth, yet in your curiosity you are seeking what is done beyond heaven…. You cannot know the abyss, you cannot comprehend the abyss; how, then, will you comprehend the depth of wisdom?
Antithesis.
§ 261. God’s wisdom is undermined by: (I) Vorstius, when he claims that “genuine hope, properly speaking,” (or expectation) can be attributed to God and adds: “The same thing we have said about hope or expectation must be claimed in its own way about the operation and desire of God” (De Deo, p. 441). p. 451: “To the extent and in the same way as hope belongs to God, to that extent and in that way dread and fear can be attributed to God.” (Yet not even with human wisdom taken to its highest level do uncertain hope and anxious fear agree rightly. Anyone who hopes has someone superior and more powerful who can provide what is hoped. Yet God has no superior. Whoever hopes is hoping for something in the future. Yet with God there is no future, but all things are present. Fear and sadness have to do with one’s own evil: fear, with a future evil; sadness, with a present evil. However, God does not have any evil of His own, whether present or future. Although our evil displeases God, He still does not grasp it as His own; hence it generates in Him neither fear nor sadness.)
(II) The Calvinists, when they prefer human reasonings to divine wisdom and deliver judgment on the divine mysteries to reason. (See our De glor. Dei, disp. 5, §§ 32–33.)
(III) The Photinians, when in the greatest mysteries of faith they urge human reasonings against the letter of Scripture and say that we should not believe anything that is opposed to reason. (See our De glor. Dei, disp. 10, §§ 12–15.)
(IV) The Papists: (1) When they accuse Scripture of obscurity. (2) When they prefer human reasonings to what has been divinely instituted and to the doctrine handed down in the Word. (See our De glor. Dei, disp. 1, §§ 43–45.)
Questions on God’s wisdom.
§ 262. (I) The question arises: Does wisdom belong to God properly? There are some who claim that wisdom, prudence, understanding, etc., do not belong to God properly because He does not use reasoning, discursive thinking, and consultation. Therefore they think that such things are attributed to God by metonymy (because He causes others to be wise and to understand) and by metaphor (because He does the sort of things that a human endowed with genuine wisdom generally performs). However, all perfections must be removed from human wisdom and prudence, and that pure and perfect thing that remains must be attributed to God truly and properly. He decides and “does all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11), which counsel is altogether most wise, arranges all things most wisely, and acts with a definite end intended. Therefore whether we look at the beginnings, middles, or ends of actions, prudence and wisdom are understood to belong to God properly.
§ 263. (II) The question arises: Does divine wisdom belong to any created thing? The Calvinists deny this to attack the real communication of divine idioms to Christ’s flesh. We draw the following conclusion against them: Whoever is filled with wisdom and has received the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge without measure and in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, such a one truly and really possesses omnisapience.63 According to His human nature, Christ is “filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40) and has received the “Spirit” of wisdom and knowledge “without measure” (Isa. 11:1; John 3:34) and “in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Therefore.
Polanus makes the exception: (1) “That which distinguishes the true God from creatures and false gods has by no means been communicated to Christ’s human nature by a real transfusion. But God’s omniscience and omnisapience are such”64 (Syst., bk. 2, c. 18). We respond. Physical transfusion from subject to subject is one thing; personal communication is another.
(2) “One must not proceed from person to nature.” We respond. Whatever is attributed to His person is attributed to it according to one nature or to both. “Becoming a partaker of divine wisdom in time” belongs to Christ neither according to both natures nor according to the divine nature. Therefore it must be according to the human nature.
(3) “The sense of the apostle’s statement is that every true and salutary knowledge of Christ must be sought only from Christ alone.” We respond. This explanation is true but incomplete, for the apostle is adding the cause of this situation: Every divine wisdom must be sought from Christ alone because in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, thus also of divine wisdom. But why, then, do they take omniscience and omnisapience away from Christ the man, the Second Adam, when their own follower, Rudolf Gwalther claims: “God made the first man omniscient” (In evangelio dominic. Oculi, homily 3)?
(III) The question arises: Does it conflict with divine wisdom when we claim that the forensic laws published by God Himself in the Old Testament have been abrogated? Some of the Calvinists affirm this, but we have shown the contrary in our treatise On Ceremonial and Forensic Laws [Commonplace XVI], § 39, and in De glor. Dei, disp. 9, § 11.
The practical use of the doctrine of God’s wisdom.
§ 264. (I) Consoling in adversities and perils. Because God is most wise, He knows the way and means to free us, though to us that may seem impossible.
(II) Exhorting: (1) To restrain our rashness. God is wisdom itself; therefore let us reverently think on His words and works and cry out with David: “How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they will be more than the sands” (Ps. 139:17–18).
(2) To take confidence when we pray. God is most wise; therefore we must not prescribe to Him the way in which He ought to help us in our adversities but entrust to His wisdom the manner of His certain aid from listening to us. (See Judith 8:10ff.)
(3) To seek wisdom from God. God is the unfailing fount of all wisdom; therefore we should seek all wisdom from Him. James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all.” Ps. 94:10: “He teaches man all knowledge.”
(4) To lift up our praises of divine wisdom, which shines forth in all God’s works. The easiest way to become acquainted with God is to meditate devoutly on His works—with what miraculous and astounding wisdom He has done all things in heaven and on earth, with what wise planning He has decreed and perfected the works of redemption, what great wisdom shines out in his governing of the entire universe, but especially of His Church, etc. This meditation causes us to say with David: “I will confess You, O Lord, for I have been magnified with many fearful things, Your marvelous works, and my soul knows them very well” (Ps. 139:14); and with Paul: “To the only wise God be glory forevermore, through Jesus Christ. Amen” (Rom. 16:27).