This post may raise more questions than it answers. If so, I think they are worth raising. Anyone who wishes to add to this discussion, I invite you to in the comment section below.
Is the community of Father, Son, and Spirit, static or dynamic? (The operative word being "community" vs His essence). What do I mean?
We are told God never changes (he is immutable). We see this along with His ¹aseity when he describes Himself as "I AM" i.e. Who God is, He always has been and always will be. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He is the only never-changing, ever-present, self-sustaining (aseity) being among all beings.
We might even say he is never changing (immutable) because he is self-sustaining (aseity). He needs nothing or no one - outside of himself - to be fully and perfectly God.
But in what sense is he never changing? Is he unchanging in every aspect of His being? Does he ever change in the way he expresses or experiences Himself - within the community of Father, Son, and Spirit - or out to others i.e. in the "economic" expression of His unchanging essence?
Does the way He displays the fullness of His majesty and glory ever change? But this is a different question, right? Or is it?
Is it possible that God can enter into and experience a fuller participation of himself - of His essence? Does God's immutability require that God can never engage in a new or fuller expression of his love within the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit by extending it out to others and doing whatever is necessary to do so? This certainly appears to have occurred during and since the incarnation of Christ.
Everything is present to God yet somehow Christ entered and took part in time in a way he had not before the incarnation. We could say this was a change in how God addressed things outside Himself (vs within Himself, which never changes). A paradox we might not be able to fully grasp and make sense of logically since God is three persons while only one God, yet, in some real way, it is true.
Some try to address this paradox by saying Christ experienced time as a man but not as God. The problem is Christ was both God and man in one person (he may have emptied himself of certain divine attributes while on earth but he never stopped being God). The best we can determine, he is both God and man to this day and will be **throughout eternity. Only logic - certainly not scripture - seeks to separate what God appears to have joined.
Where we finite creatures get into trouble is trying to force things to be logical when God doesn't. There is and always will be mystery within God because of God being infinite and we, in our understanding, are finite i.e. we are limited, God is not. There are no actual contradictions within God but that doesn't mean we are able to fully understand everything about Him. God's ways are not our ways and ours are not his. The infinite God trying to explain to finite man all there is to know about Him is like a calculus teacher trying to explain calculus to an ant. The only way that would be possible is if the teacher somehow imparted special knowledge to the ant to just get the basics - and in this case, since the teacher is Almighty God himself, this is not only possible but necessary. But if God chose to do so, it would only be because God did this supernaturally and not because of us i.e. not because of any natural, innate ability we have to grasp the infinite unaided. Nor would God do so out of something lacking within Him. Remember he is the "I AM" - self-sustaining God - who needs nothing or no one other them himself.
If God chose to go about things in such a way as to enter a fuller and deeper experience of himself, this is not something God has to do i.e. there is nothing lacking within God. He does not need to and is no less or more God in doing or not doing so. It is simply a fuller engagement and participation in who He already is. If anything drives God it is a desire to more fully participate in the fellowship of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit.
To say it another way, there is nothing outside of God forcing him to act in any particular
way. But that is different from something within God moving Him to carry out a particular action. All God's actions are determined by who God IS, within Himself, and not by any outside influence. Any and all things done by God come from within Him i.e. are driven internally, not externally. For nothing is greater than God or more worth knowing than God, even for Him.
One thing we can be sure of, scripture must always be the acid test of defining who God is, not logic. I say this because efforts to understand God often look to logic more than scripture.
I'm not suggesting scripture is illogical, but there are truths in scripture that go beyond our ability to reason and understand (i.e. we are finite - limited). They do not always appear logical but appear to contradict each other. Yet we see this in scripture often. Examples would be how man is fully accountable for choosing or not choosing God but God is the author of salvation or that God is 3 persons yet one God or Christ is fully God yet fully man. As a result, we have different conclusions among great minds on these as well as other theological points. Whereas if we allow scripture to say what it says and not force it to say something else in order for it to work for us logically i.e. in order to believe it's true whether we can make logical sense of seemingly contradictory qualities about God in scripture - we would have less disagreement and get much closer to an accurate understanding of who God is, even though we might not have a full understanding and "closure" about who he is to the degree we would like to ***logically.
The bottom line is God called us to live by faith, and that is not always simple or easy. We like control over faith and can use logic as a form of control e.g. if we can understand how God operates, we might be able to predict (i.e. "control") how he will work in our lives. Use reason, but when reason comes up short we simply must trust God, and accept His ways are not ours or ours His.
What makes God "tick"
The love of God poured out to others is love flowing out from the fullness of God's being, i.e. it is not done out of a need or void within Him, but out of the fullness of who He is. God acts out of fullness, not out of need or something lacking within Himself. God's desire to pour himself forth and give of Himself comes from a desire that others benefit by the fullness of who He is. Does God also benefit? Yes, in the sense that he finds joy in seeing other's experience and know him to a greater degree, but not in the sense that this adds anything to God's being or essence i.e. makes Him more God. His already is fully God, not becoming God.
Why? Because God needs nothing or no one. He already has everything in the fullness of community within the Father, Son, and Spirit. If God had never created, he would be just as much God as he has been from all eternity past.
However, because God has the greatest worth above all things, and is Father, Son, and Spirit, and desires for us to take part in this Trinitarian community to the greatest extent possible it is only reasonable that God would desire, if possible, to partake of this community to the greatest extent and experience more of who he is in fuller and deeper ways. You could say God needs himself. And if there is a way for God to increase or expand participation in the love between Father, Son and Spirit by creating others like Himself as His image-bearers and giving them a will to choose or not choose him, then rescue them from the consequences of not choosing him, this would certainly not involve God needing anyone or thing outside himself.
For a further discussion on how God stepped into time for us click here.
For a further discussion on why Christ is the only begotten of the Father click here.
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* The Aseity (Self-Existence) of God | Monergism
https://www.monergism.com/topics/god’s-attributes/aseity-self-existence-god
The Aseity (Self-Existence) of God "The Father has life in himself." - John 5:26
"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things." Acts 17:24-25
** Is Christ less God because he is fully man or less of a man because he is fully God? No.
*** For a fuller discussion on the limits of logic and the value of paradox and truths in tension, click here.
