Cancel

Tabletalk Subscription
You have {{ remainingArticles }} free {{ counterWords }} remaining.You've accessed all your free articles.
Unlock the Archives for Free

Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.

Try Tabletalk Now

Already receive Tabletalk magazine every month?

Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.

{{ error }}Need help?

Isaiah 45:5

“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”

Science seeks to understand the natural world and its various physical and biological processes. Much of it proceeds by way of taxonomy, wherein things are grouped and defined. We see this especially in biology, where living things are assigned to different categories such as genus, species, and family. Animals with identical attributes are grouped together in the same category and then further subdivided into other categories. Application of this in medicine is particularly important. Rightly categorizing bacteria, for example, is essential to identifying the causes of infections and developing antibiotics to treat them.

As a science—indeed, as the Queen of Sciences—theology also involves taxonomy. Categories such as Creator and creature are vitally important if we are to understand anything about the Lord and His creation. Yet taxonomy in theology is in some ways unique from how we use taxonomy in other disciplines. That is because God is in a class by Himself, a class that transcends all other classes.

Think, for example, of the category of being. There is ultimately no class of being to which belong both God and other things that are not God. Of course, we do refer both to God and to men and women as “beings” in the sense that we are talking about things that are, about things that truly exist in reality. However, that does not entail that God and people are beings in the same sense. It is not that God and people have the same kind of existence and that God is just a bigger, more powerful version of humanity. Rather, there is created being and there is self-existent being. We and everything else in creation belong to the category of created being. Created beings derive their existence from something else, from something that is outside them or preexists them. There are many beings in the category of created being. In the category of uncreated or self-existent being, however, there is only God. In fact, it is a mistake to say that God belongs to the category of uncreated being because that would imply that there is a category separate from and above Him to which He belongs. But that is not the case. God does not belong to the category of uncreated being. He actually is uncreated being.

Our Creator is uncreated being and He is perfect being. As we see in today’s passage, there is no other God besides God (Isa. 45:5). He is unique, possessing all perfections and lacking nothing whatsoever. He is, as we have stated, in a class by Himself.

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

When we start contemplating our Creator and realize that He is in a class by Himself, we are moved to worship. Any contemplation of God or study of His character, in fact, has gone astray if it does not lead us to worship Him in spirit and truth. God is much greater than anything we can conceive of, and that should make us revere Him and His glory.


For Further Study
  • Deuteronomy 32:4
  • Psalm 18:30
  • Isaiah 40:8
  • Matthew 5:48

    What Is Theology?

    How We Speak of God

    Keep Reading Pride and Humility

    From the January 2022 Issue
    Jan 2022 Issue