Ligonier Ministries has partnered with LifeWay Research to survey the beliefs of Americans on a number of theological and ethical issues. Like past surveys, the 2020 State of Theology survey reveals some encouraging results, but it also reveals confusion and a lack of theological knowledge among evangelicals.
The first survey question inquires of people’s belief that God is a perfect Being and cannot make a mistake. The survey showed that Christians strongly affirm that God is a perfect Being because to deny that God is a perfect being is to deny that God is God. An imperfect being, by definition, is not God. The great Princeton theologian Archibald Alexander rightly said, “The very idea of God is that of a being infinitely perfect.” God’s work is perfect. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He”. His way is perfect. His law is perfect. His knowledge is perfect. All this is true because God Himself is perfect. Matthew 5:48 instructs us, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1 expresses this biblical truth in the following words: “There is but one only, living, and true God: who is infinite in being and perfection”.
James 1:4 “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
The Apostle James makes it clear that to be perfect means to be complete, to lack nothing. The survey states that theologically, this idea is most obviously related to God’s attributes of self-existence (aseity) and self-sufficiency (independence). Unlike creatures, whose being is contingent and dependent, God’s being is necessary and independent. In other words, God cannot not exist, and God depends on nothing else for His existence. The One who is “I am” does not have the potential to be anything more or less than what He is. He is, therefore, infinitely and unchangeably blessed in His being, and He is infinitely and unchangeably blessed in His being because His being is infinitely and unchangeably perfect.
For God to make a mistake, there would have to be in Him some imperfection in His holiness, goodness, knowledge, or wisdom. The fictional pagan gods make mistakes because they are created in the image of man, and human beings are less than perfect in goodness and knowledge. God, on the other hand, is neither malicious nor ignorant. Instead, He is perfect in all His attributes because He is His attributes. He cannot, therefore, make mistakes. To suggest otherwise is blasphemous.
In God We Trust
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