9. More detailed exposition of the scriptural doctrine of God's nature and attributes.
(De essentia et attributis divinis.)
The doctrine of God (De Deo) is usually placed under two sections: "Of God's Being and Attributes" and "Of the Holy Trinity". Whether this order of sections is followed or the reverse is immaterial as long as the Scripture Principle is adhered to, that is, as long as no human thoughts are inserted into either the doctrine of God's nature and attributes or the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact, it stands that neither of these doctrines can be dealt with,
524 ><w:t xml:space="preserve">The Doctrine of God. [English ed. pgs 427-428]
without always taking in the other. If we wanted to treat the doctrine of God's nature and attributes without regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, we would only be moving in the area of natural theology, with the exclusion of the Christian knowledge of God. Therefore Chemnitz already takes under the section "De Deo in Genere"1346) of the longer that without the knowledge of Christ and thus of the Trinity there is ignorantia Dei, if we look at the practical result, namely the worship of God. On the other hand, the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be presented without also dealing with God's nature and attributes. It must be constantly taken into account that the three realiter distinctae personae of the divine majesty have eadem numero essentia divina [“the same number as the divine essence”] and eadem numero attributa divina [“divine attributes by the same number”]. We have alternated in the arrangement of the sections over time. This time we have prefixed the section on the Trinity in order to make the difference between the natural and the Christian knowledge of God, which is especially generally forgotten in our time, stand out sharply from the very beginning. But there now remains a closer exposition of the Scriptural doctrine of God's nature and attributes in relation to several matters, some important and some much treated. We treat under this section A. the relationship of the divine essence to the divine attributes and of the attributes to each other, B. the classification of the divine attributes. This is followed by C. a description of the individual divine attributes on the basis of Scripture.