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Like Leibnitz, others have optimistically argued that creation by God should be for the greatest happiness of all His creatures. Contra Leibnitz, all happiness is not the highest good.
Such a view subordinates the Creator to the creature, the greater to the less, as the means to an end. It ignores the observation that when God from eternity formed the purpose to create, no creatures existed to be made happy or miserable. Therefore, the motive to create could not have originated in the non–existent, and could have its origin and object only in the divine being Himself.
Scripture never directly or indirectly intimates that anything in the creature is the chief end of God, nor does Scripture ever propose any personal or public good of the creature as the chief end of the creature Himself.
The true Scriptural view is that the great end of God in creation was his own glory. Glory is manifested excellence. The excellencies of God's attributes are manifested by their exercise. This end therefore was not the increase either of God's excellence or blessedness, but their manifestation ad extra.
As God formed the purpose to create before any creature existed, it is clear that the motive to create must have its source and object in the pre–existing Creator and not in the non–existing creature. The absolute Creator cannot be subordinated to nor conditioned upon the finite and dependent creature.
Given that God himself is infinitely worthier than the sum of all creatures, it follows that the manifestation of His own excellence is infinitely a higher and worthier end than the happiness of the creatures, indeed the highest and worthiest end conceivable.
Nothing can so exalt and bless the creature as his being made thus the instrument and the witness of the infinite Creator’s glory, hence the proposing that glory as the "chief end" of the creation is the best security for the creature’s advance in excellence and blessedness.
Further, the Scriptures explicitly assert that this is the chief end of God in creation (Colossians 1:16; Proverbs 16:4), and of things as created.—Revelation 4:11; Romans 11:36.
Scripture teaches that the same is the chief end of God in His eternal decrees.—Ephesians 1:5,6,12, and also of God’s providential and gracious governing and disposing of his creatures.—Romans 9:17,22,23; Ephesians 3:10. Scriptures teach that it is made the duty of all moral agents to adopt the same as their personal end in all things.—1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 4:11.
Those that claim God should bring maximum happiness to all misunderstand that disinterested benevolence is not the whole of virtue. Benevolence is the goodness of God viewed generically.
As some want to intimate, infinite benevolence of God is incorrectly defined as that attribute in virtue of which God communicates to all His creatures the greatest possible amount of happiness, i.e., as great as they are capable of receiving, or as great as is consistent with the attainment of the greatest amount of happiness on the age– in the moral universe.
Yet this definition supposes that God is limited by something out of Himself, that God could not have secured more happiness for His creatures than He has actually done. It also makes happiness paramount in the view of God to excellence.
Instead benevolence should be defined as that attribute in virtue of which God produces all the happiness in the universe, which is consistent with the end God had in view in its creation. These ends are (from Hodge):
1. The manifestation of his own glory
2. The highest moral excellence of his creatures
3. Their highest blessedness in Himself
Returning to the view that those that claim God should bring maximum happiness to all misunderstand that disinterested benevolence is not the whole of virtue we find, for example, some exercises of disinterested benevolence, such as natural parental affection, are purely instinctive, and have no positive moral character.
Or, some exercises of disinterested benevolence, such as the weak yielding of a judge to sympathy with a guilty man or his friends, are positively immoral.
Moreover, there are virtuous principles incapable of being resolved into disinterested benevolence, such as proper prudential regard for one’s own highest good; aspiration and effort after personal excellence; holy abhorrence of sin for its own sake, and just punishment of sin in order to vindicate righteousness.
Per Hodge, the idea of oughtness is the essential constitutive idea of virtue. No possible analysis of the idea of benevolence will give the idea of moral obligation. This is simple, unresolvable, ultimate. Oughtness is the genus, and benevolence one of the species comprehended in it.
Such a view subordinates the Creator to the creature, the greater to the less, as the means to an end. It ignores the observation that when God from eternity formed the purpose to create, no creatures existed to be made happy or miserable. Therefore, the motive to create could not have originated in the non–existent, and could have its origin and object only in the divine being Himself.
Scripture never directly or indirectly intimates that anything in the creature is the chief end of God, nor does Scripture ever propose any personal or public good of the creature as the chief end of the creature Himself.
The true Scriptural view is that the great end of God in creation was his own glory. Glory is manifested excellence. The excellencies of God's attributes are manifested by their exercise. This end therefore was not the increase either of God's excellence or blessedness, but their manifestation ad extra.
As God formed the purpose to create before any creature existed, it is clear that the motive to create must have its source and object in the pre–existing Creator and not in the non–existing creature. The absolute Creator cannot be subordinated to nor conditioned upon the finite and dependent creature.
Given that God himself is infinitely worthier than the sum of all creatures, it follows that the manifestation of His own excellence is infinitely a higher and worthier end than the happiness of the creatures, indeed the highest and worthiest end conceivable.
Nothing can so exalt and bless the creature as his being made thus the instrument and the witness of the infinite Creator’s glory, hence the proposing that glory as the "chief end" of the creation is the best security for the creature’s advance in excellence and blessedness.
Further, the Scriptures explicitly assert that this is the chief end of God in creation (Colossians 1:16; Proverbs 16:4), and of things as created.—Revelation 4:11; Romans 11:36.
Scripture teaches that the same is the chief end of God in His eternal decrees.—Ephesians 1:5,6,12, and also of God’s providential and gracious governing and disposing of his creatures.—Romans 9:17,22,23; Ephesians 3:10. Scriptures teach that it is made the duty of all moral agents to adopt the same as their personal end in all things.—1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 4:11.
Those that claim God should bring maximum happiness to all misunderstand that disinterested benevolence is not the whole of virtue. Benevolence is the goodness of God viewed generically.
As some want to intimate, infinite benevolence of God is incorrectly defined as that attribute in virtue of which God communicates to all His creatures the greatest possible amount of happiness, i.e., as great as they are capable of receiving, or as great as is consistent with the attainment of the greatest amount of happiness on the age– in the moral universe.
Yet this definition supposes that God is limited by something out of Himself, that God could not have secured more happiness for His creatures than He has actually done. It also makes happiness paramount in the view of God to excellence.
Instead benevolence should be defined as that attribute in virtue of which God produces all the happiness in the universe, which is consistent with the end God had in view in its creation. These ends are (from Hodge):
1. The manifestation of his own glory
2. The highest moral excellence of his creatures
3. Their highest blessedness in Himself
Returning to the view that those that claim God should bring maximum happiness to all misunderstand that disinterested benevolence is not the whole of virtue we find, for example, some exercises of disinterested benevolence, such as natural parental affection, are purely instinctive, and have no positive moral character.
Or, some exercises of disinterested benevolence, such as the weak yielding of a judge to sympathy with a guilty man or his friends, are positively immoral.
Moreover, there are virtuous principles incapable of being resolved into disinterested benevolence, such as proper prudential regard for one’s own highest good; aspiration and effort after personal excellence; holy abhorrence of sin for its own sake, and just punishment of sin in order to vindicate righteousness.
Per Hodge, the idea of oughtness is the essential constitutive idea of virtue. No possible analysis of the idea of benevolence will give the idea of moral obligation. This is simple, unresolvable, ultimate. Oughtness is the genus, and benevolence one of the species comprehended in it.