Merton writes on the incarnation:
The Lord would not only love His creation, emptying Himself, hiding Himself, as if He were not God but a creature. Why should He do this?
Because he loved his creatures, and because he could not bear that his creatures should merely adore him as distant, remote, transcendent and all powerful. This was not the glory that he sought, for if he were merely adored as great, his creatures would in their turn make themselves great and lord it over one another.
For where there is a great God, then there are also god-like men, who make themselves kings and masters. And if God were merely a great artist who took pride in His creation, then men to would build cities and palaces and exploit other men for their own glory. This the meaning of the myth of Babel, and of the tower builders who would be “as Gods” with their hanging gardens, and with the heads of enemies hanging in the gardens. For they would point to God and say: “He too is a great builder, and has destroyed all His enemies.”
God said: I do not laugh at my enemies, because I wish to make it impossible for anyone to be my enemy. Therefore I identify myself with my enemy’s own secret self.
-Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, ch.39
And this is why I have a hard time buying John Piper’s flavour of Calvinism, where God is glorified by (fill in the blank terrible thing) because he’s large and in charge. It seems out of line with the humility of the incarnation, Jesus.
Also, “He too is a great builder, and has destroyed all His enemies.” That sounds closer to the god of Islam. That’s what you get with an incomplete Trinity.