Last week on Friday I started this journey through the flow of revelation in the Bible.
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God
1.1 What Christians Believe
1. We will be taking several trips through the Bible on our journey, each one in a different part of the land. In preparation for each trip, we start with the map. For example, we are going to start our pilgrimage by talking about God the Father, our first trip through the land of Scripture. Before we begin, let's look at the map to see where we're headed. That is to say, what do Christians believe about God?
Christians believe that there is only one God. Uniquely, we believe that the one God exists as a Trinity -- one God, three persons. How this works exactly is a mystery. The early Christian councils prohibit us from confusing the three persons or dividing their substance. The Christian councils of the first few centuries said everything they could say without really being able to clarify how one God could be three persons. Virtually every illustration or picture used to try to explain it breaks down.
We will discuss the divinity of Christ, the nature of the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity in general soon enough. For now, we want to focus on God the Father.
2. God is often said to have two kinds of attributes or characteristics. One set is usually connected with God as he is in himself (incommunicable attributes). We humans do not possess these attributes to any degree. The other category of attributes then relates to aspects of God that we might also possess to some degree (communicable attributes). For example, just as God is love, we can also love.
God's self-characteristics include attributes like his self-sufficiency (aseity), his unchanging nature (immutability), his eternity (timelessness), and his simplicity (unity). To be frank, I wonder whether we still conceptualize these attributes inevitably in relation to our universe. God exists beyond our universe, and God reveals himself in terms we can picture at least a little. We may have no point of reference for God outside this universe, leading God to communicate himself to us by analogy.
To expand on God's incommunicable attributes, God does not need the universe. He does not need us. He would still exist if the universe were not here. He is self-sufficient. In relation to our sense of time, God is eternal. From what we can perceive in this universe trying to look out, God cannot be broken down into parts like we can (simplicity). God's nature does not change in the way he relates to his creation (immutability).
An attribute that Christians have classically believed but that is sometimes questioned today is a sense that God does not experience emotional change as he interacts with the world, called God's impassibility. This attribute follows naturally from the sense that God is all-knowing or omniscient, another characteristic of God that is sometimes questioned or modified by some today.
If God knows the future -- which is classically part of what it means for him to be omniscient -- then the events of time do not surprise him. That is to say, his reactions to events were known from eternity past. By contrast, human emotion (when it is not merely biochemical) is always a response to a new thought or new information. We get angry because we find out someone has done something unjust, for example. But in God's case, he knew that evil was going to be done from eternity past. Accordingly, his reaction must be planned rather than in the manner of human anger as a reaction.
We will explore many of these concepts in further detail as we work through the biblical texts.
Along with omniscience, God is also classically said to be all-powerful (omnipotence) and everywhere present in the universe (omnipresence). God's omnipotence is usually connected to strength rather than to possibility. That is to say, there are logical contradictions that are not usually included within omnipotence. To say that God can make a literal rock that is not literally a rock is logically incoherent. It is not what is usually meant by God's omnipotence.
3. God's communicable attributes are usually connected to the concept that God created humanity in his image. So, just as God is love, we humans are commanded to love. Just as God is holy, we are called to be holy. We will find that the holiness of God is a little tricky because, in many respects, the holiness of God relates to the Godness of God, which humans do not possess. Holiness in people is somewhat different from holiness in God.
Knowledge, wisdom, justice, mercy, truthfulness, patience -- these are all attributes of God in Scripture that ideally would also be characteristics of God's people. Christians have traditionally tried to hold in tension the concept of God's love with his justice. 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. Yet God is also holy, a characteristic that is often associated with judgment (cf. Isa. 6:3-5).
This will be a key aspect of the biblical flow of revelation about God that we will explore in this chapter.
Key terms
attribute -- a characteristic of God
aseity -- God is self-sufficient.
immutability -- God's nature does not change.
eternity -- God has always and will always exist.
simplicity -- God's substance is undivided. He does not have parts.
impassibility -- God does not experience emotional change.
omniscience -- God knows everything, classically including the future
omnipotence -- God is all powerful and can do anything that is possible
omnipresence -- God is everywhere present
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