Fountain and Foundation
As Creator, God is both the Fountain and Foundation of all things. Before and apart from time, he created and set all things in motion (Gen. 1:1). He is “most Strong, Stable and Incomprehensible, Immutable; moving all things, never new, never old, renewing all things.”[1] He is the fountain of every good blessing (Js. 1:17), but he never receives that he may supply (Acts 17:25). While change is the constant for creation, he is “the same and his years have no end” (Ps. 102:27).
Ultimately, all creation depends upon God who is the “builder of all things” (Heb. 3:4) and “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This reality demands that God is both the Fountain and Foundation of all things. Everything is made by him (Gen. 1:1). John said, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being” (Jn. 1:3 NASB 2020).
Since God is both Creator and Sustainer, there is no possibility of being outside his care or influence. We must not propose a cause prior to or outside God–the first cause. If there was a cause of God, then there must be multiple greater and prior gods. This idea is rejected by Scripture since there must not be a cause of or before God. That there is an ultimate cause other than God is rejected by God’s eternality and direct statements in Scripture (Deut. 6:4; Jn. 1:1, 3). While this does not eliminate secondary causation, only one first cause or unmoved mover can exist. Sin is the result of God’s gift of creaturely free will. God is not the direct cause of sin. The creature is the direct cause of sin as the creature rejects God’s providential care and sovereign will.
Not even a sparrow falls without him (Matt. 10:29). In this meticulous providence, God supplies our free will even as his purposes are accomplished through us (Gen. 50:20; Acts 2:23; Phil. 2:12-13). As we consider ourselves, we quickly realize our dependence on those who precede us, supply us, and care for us. Ultimately, we must all turn our thoughts to God–the first Cause without which we would not have beginning, present, or purpose.[2] Since God is the Creator–the one who without cause in himself gives cause and purpose to all–we must worship and trust him. Paul said, “from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36).
With our creaturely dependence upon God in mind, Calvin opened the Institutes saying:
no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty.[3]
Schleiermacher developed this thought to compose the entirety of his theology of “absolute dependence” in his work The Christian Faith. All creation, whether it is acknowledged or not, has an absolute dependence upon God. Schleiermacher helpfully pointed out that the recognition of this dependence is the foundation of the Christian’s faith and life. Attempts to exchange our creaturely dependence upon God for self-sufficiency and self-exaltation reveal the essence of sin (Gen. 3:1-7).
Since God provides, we must yield to him. This is the practice of faith. Since God is the provider and sustainer, the creature is responsible to trust him. Rebellion today, as with Eve’s first sin, is centered in our own desire to supply for ourselves that which God has not granted to us by grace. Conversely, to be saved and live as the saved is to be born again (Jn. 3:3, 5; 1:13, 1 Pet. 1:3, 23) and receive life as a gift (Eph. 2:3-10; Titus 3:5-8). In this way God is glorified in all things.
The necessity of submission or obedience is shown again in that God has spoken–he has expressed his will (2 Tim. 3:16; 1 Cor. 2:16). God has given us our creaturely will, and that will should be in his service. Augustine, for example, argues for creaturely or natural will from Scripture.[4] The Gentiles, Augustine argued, utilized their free will in their rejection of God (Rom. 1:18-20). He said, “There is, to begin with, the fact that God’s precepts themselves would be of no use to a man unless he had free choice of will, so that by performing them he might obtain the promised rewards. For they are given that no one might be able to plead the excuse of ignorance.”[5]
We must not be as ancient Israel who forsook God and tried life on their own terms. God said, “My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn them out cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Our obedience should be coupled with thankfulness. “Give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess. 5:18). Thankfulness is difficult. In our comfort, we forget God has blessed us, and in difficulties we forget God carries us. In every situation, we must give thanks. In all things we must acknowledge our dependence upon God who supplies. As Calvin said, “he who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himself. Man is in no danger of taking too much from himself, provided he learns that whatever he wants is to be recovered in God.”[6]
Still, humanity’s natural will is dependent upon God for “every good and perfect gift” (Js. 1:17). Calvin argued “In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion.”[7] So, without compulsion humanity will behave sinfully–according to the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14). Also, without compulsion, humanity is empowered to serve God as they are “born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23). So Paul says “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).
These truths are equally vital as we consider and appreciate his eternal plan to save us (Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9-10). Augustine asked, “Who will grant unto me to find repose in Thee? Who will grant unto me that Thou wilt come into my heart and inebriate it, so that I may forget my evils and embrace my one Good, Thee?”[8] We are all of one source–the Father (Heb. 2:11). God is “the source of eternal salvation to all those who obey him” (Heb. 5:9-10).
In this way our hope rests in God since it is “promised before ages began” (Titus 1:2). Paul praised God for his providential work to bring about salvation when he said,
“Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen” (Rom. 16:25-27).
God, then, is the foundation and fountain of every good and perfect gift. Without change or weakening, he gives life and breath to all.
[1] Augustine, Confessions 1.4.4
[2] Aquinas argued “When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist. Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us” (STh., I q.2 a.2 resp.).
[3] John Calvin, Institutes I, i, 1
[4] Augustine, On Grace and Free Will 2.2.
[5] Augustine, On Grace and Free Will 2.2.
[6] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, ii, 10.
[7] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, ii, 7.
[8] Augustine, Confessions, 1.5.5.