By perfection we mean, not mere quantitative completeness, but qualitative excellence. The attributes involved in perfection are moral attributes. Right action among men presupposes a perfect moral organization, a normal state of intellect, affection and will. So God's activity presupposes a principle of intelligence, of affection, of volition, in his inmost being, and the existence of a worthy object for each of these powers of his nature. But in eternity past there is nothing existing outside or apart from God. He must find, and he does find, the sufficient object of intellect, affection, and will, in himself. There is a self-knowing, a self-loving, a self-willing, which constitute his absolute perfection. The consideration of the immanent attributes is, therefore, properly concluded with an account of that truth, love, and holiness, which render God entirely sufficient to himself.
Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Rom. 12:2—“perfect will of God”; Col. 1:28—“perfect in Christ”; cf. Deut. 32:4—“The Rock, his work is perfect”; Ps. 18:30—“As for God, his way is perfect.”
1. Truth.
By truth we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God's being and God's knowledge eternally conform to each other.
In further explanation we remark:
A. Negatively:
(a) The immanent truth of God is not to be confounded with that veracity and faithfulness which partially manifest it to creatures. These are transitive truth, and they presuppose the absolute and immanent attribute.
Deut 32:4—“A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he”; John 17:3—“the only true God”(ἀληθινόν); 1 John 5:20—“we know him that is true” (τὸν ἀληθινόν). In both these passages ἀληθινός describes God as the genuine, the real, as distinguished from ἀληθής, the veracious (compare John 6:32—“the true bread”; Heb. 8:2—“the true tabernacle”). John 14:6—“I am ... the truth.” As “I am ... the life” signifies, not “I am the living one,” but rather “I [pg 261]am he who is life and the source of life,” so “I am ... the truth” signifies, not “I am the truthful one,” but “I am he who is truth and the source of truth”—in other words, truth of being, not merely truth of expression. So 1 John 5:7—“the Spirit is the truth.” Cf. 1 Esdras 1:38—“The truth abideth and is forever strong, and it liveth and ruleth forever” = personal truth? See Godet on John 1:18; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:181.
Truth is God perfectly revealed and known. It may be likened to the electric current which manifests and measures the power of the dynamo. There is no realm of truth apart from the world-ground, just as there is no law of nature that is independent of the Author of nature. While we know ourselves only partially, God knows himself fully. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:192—“In the life of God there are no unrealized possibilities. The presupposition of all our knowledge and activity is that absolute and eternal unity of knowing and being which is only another expression for the nature of God. In one sense, he is all reality, and the only reality, whilst all finite existence is but a becoming, which never is.” Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 57-63—“Truth is reality revealed. Jesus is the Truth, because in him the sum of the qualities hidden in God is presented and revealed to the world, God's nature in terms of an active force and in relation to his rational creation.” This definition however ignores the fact that God is truth, apart from and before all creation. As an immanent attribute, truth implies a conformity of God's knowledge to God's being, which antedates the universe; see B. (b) below.