The Ultimate Unity And Diversity In The Triune God

“God has unity in being one God.  He has diversity in being three persons.  The two go together. This unity and diversity is the ultimate unity and diversity, because it belongs to God Himself rather than merely to creation…God’s capability to plan unity and diversity together has its root in God’s own inner unity and diversity.

The principle of unity and diversity applies to chance events like rain.  We see unity in the pattern of weather and the pattern of the rain over a whole season.  We see diversity in the particular instances when God sends rain…

We see unity in the general motion of a coin as it is thrown into the air.  It goes up in the air and comes down in agreement with the general principle of Newton’s law of gravitation.  It spins at a regular speed.  These are regularities.  They are unities that belong to all the coin flips.  As the same time we have unpredictabilities, which are a kind of diversity.  We see diversity in the results of different coin flips…There are only two possible results for any one flip of the coin, which is itself a regularity.  But each result comes at a particular time.  And the whole sequence of results could be any of a large number of possibilities…There is a further unity of pattern.  If we take the average over a large number of coin flips, we will find that about 50% come up heads.  Though any one flip of the coin is unpredictable, the average is roughly predictable.

God plans and controls both the unpredictable and the predictable aspect…Regularities in the long range patterns of weather and coin flips display God’s faithfulness…The particularities and unpredictabilities in the coming of rain and the result of individual coin flips manifest God’s creativity…”

  • Chance And The Sovereignty Of God,  Vern S Poythress

Likewise, though life has many random and unpredictable events and choices made by men, yet ultimately God is sovereign over every single one, the overall training pattern and eventual conformance.  The biblical view in Scripture is that God is both transcendent and immanent.   Being transcendent, it means God controls everything.  Being immanent, it means God is present everywhere and is intimately involved in the events in this world.  We can take courage that His Spirit indwelling us will help us overcome the world despite the vagaries of life.

Rom 8:29-30

29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

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