Along the Way

Is God Self-Centered?

I have struggled with this question. God demands that his creatures give Him undivided worship and yet, when we humans have the desire for personal glory, He condemns us for being self-absorbed. The only way I have been able to justify this command is that He alone is worthy of such loyalty as the supreme being in the whole universe. All life finds its origin in Him, therefore all life should look to Him with complete devotion.

In reading Tim Keller's book, The Reason for God, he has helped me to see that I have understood this question simply from a monotheistic perspective. "Christianity alone among the world faiths, teaches that God is triune. the doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one being who exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The trinity means that God is, in essence, relational."

The Scripture describes these three persons living eternally in a community of mutual honour and joy. John especially paints a portrait of intimacy within the divine community (1:18; 16:14; 17:4-5). What does John mean when he says that the Father, Son, and Holy spirit glorify one another? "If we think of it graphically, we could say that self-centeredness is to be stationary, static. In self-centeredness we demand that others orbit around us. We will do things and give affection to others, as long as it helps us meet our personal goals and fulfills us.

"The inner life of the triune God, however, is utterly different. the life of the Trinity is characterized not by self-centeredness but by mutually self-giving love. When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into a dynamic orbit around him or her, we center on the interests and desires of the other. That creates a dance, particularly if there are three persons, each of whom move around the other two. So it is, . . . each person of the Trinity loves, adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. That creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love."

This truth has profound implications. "If God is triune, then loving relationships in community are the 'great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality.' (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). . . Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know and love one another. That is what the universe, God, history, and life is all about. If you favour money, power, and accomplishment over human relationships, you will dash yourself on the rocks of reality. . . . You will never get a sense of self by standing still, as it were, and making everything revolve around your needs and interests. Unless you are willing to experience the loss of options and the individual limitation that comes from being in committed relationships, you will remain out of touch with your own nature and the nature of things. . . . The world was made by a God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. You were made for mutually self-giving, other-directed love. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made."

Moreover, there is a greater personal significance in this truth. "Jonathan Edwards, in reflecting on the interior life of the triune God, concluded that God is infinitely happy. . . . because there is an 'other-orientation' at the heart of his being, because he does not seek his own glory but the glory of others."

This idea creates an apparent conflict with the many references in Scripture to God calling us to glorify and serve Him. The answer is resolved in the reason for this demand. "He wants our joy! He has infinite happiness not through self-centeredness, but through self-giving, other-centered love. And the only way we, who have been created in his image, can have this same joy, is if we center our entire lives around him instead of ourselves. . . . God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share in it. We were made to join in the dance. . . . We were made to center our lives upon him, to make the purpose and passion of our lives knowing, serving, delighting, and resembling him. This growth in happiness will go eternally, increasing unimaginably (1 Corinthians 2:7-10)."