God's Independence

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Romans 11:33

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

Philo, the Jew, compares the great God to a tree, and all creatures to the leaves and fruits, which are all in the tree; but the metaphor is not complete, because you may remove fruit from the tree, but there can be no creature out of the power and will of God by which alone it can exist at all. If you remove the fruits from. the tree the tree has at least lost something; but if all creatures were destroyed, yet still the Lord would be as infinitely God as He is now; if the creatures were multiplied, God were no more — and if diminished, He were no less. The creatures, may be likened to the waves, and God to the great sea; the waves cannot exist apart from the sea, nor the creatures apart from God: but no earthly figure of the Divine can be complete, for the waves are a portion of the sea, but the creatures are not God, nor do they contribute to His essence or attributes. The sea would be diminished if the waves were gone, but if you could take all creatures away, God would be no less God, nor less infinite than He is now.

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