Who Is God? [Simple Systematic Theology, Chapter 3]

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Approximate Reading Time: 41 minutes

This is an expanded version of the notes I use to teach Systematic Theology to my church’s youth group. The goal isn’t to make it “kid-friendly,” but rather to create something valuable for those not exposed to decades of theology. Use this in your own Christian walk or as a guide as you disciple a child or new believer. Get the PDF of this article and my notes here on my Google Drive.

3. God

Table of Contents

Christians center their lives around who God is and what He wants them to do. But if we’re honest, many other religions have people who center their lives around that religion’s gods. So if we don’t believe that all religions are equally true…

  • Why do we believe God is real instead of any other god?
  • Do we have good reasons to believe it, or must we blindly accept it?
  • How can we be confident we understand what He’s really like?
  • Are we wrong about Him if there are things we can understand?

Why do we believe God is real?

Parents tell their children that Santa Claus is real, and those children accept it because someone they trust told them so. However, most adults remember the moment they stopped believing. Perhaps they reasoned that Santa’s existence was impossible, a friend told them, or their parents felt their child was too old to believe in fairy tales. To some, belief in God can feel exactly the same as believing in a jolly, magical man in a red suit.

Although we may not have all the proof we want to know God is real, He has given us as much proof as we need. Below are just a few reasons we’re confident He exists. However, those wishing to dive deeper should look up books or videos on “Christian apologetics.”

Faith and reasonable belief in God

Most Christians would say they don’t need proof that God exists; they just need faith. And it sounds very religious or spiritual to say we’re so confident God is real without any evidence. After all, doesn’t 2 Corinthians 5:7 say we “walk by faith, not by sight”?

By claiming we don’t require proof, we can accidentally say that our belief in God is no different than those who believe in Santa Claus or the gods of another religion. After all, billions of people believe in them based on nothing but what we think is “faith.” So, is our belief in God as reasonable as belief in any other being we can’t see, or is there something about “faith” we misunderstand? Consider what God tells us about faith:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

We often think that everything begins with faith and that with enough of it, we’ll be intellectually confident in things like God’s existence. We may even think faith is some kind of emotion we conjure or a spiritual energy that can be measured. We rarely think of faith as something intellectual or reasonable.

However, God tells us that faith is confidence and conviction, not something that produces them. When we’re sure that something is going to happen in the future (even though we don’t have perfect knowledge of the future), or we’re confident that something is real (even if we can’t see it), we have faith. In other words, when evidence and our reason convince us that something is true, we have faith that it’s true. That’s because another word for faith is “trust.”

We use the word “faith” a lot in Christian circles, but it’s not just a religious term. To better understand faith and its relationship to our belief in God, let’s consider how nearly everyone in the world exercises faith every day. One of the best ways to gain a biblical understanding of faith is to sit in a chair.

Look at the three chairs in the image below:

Chair 1 simply doesn’t exist. No matter how badly we want to believe it’s there, we’ll quickly meet the floor as soon as we try to sit on it.

Chair 2 is a complete mess. Even though it’s a chair (or at least it used to be), no reasonable person would trust it to support them safely.

Chair 3 appears well-constructed with high-quality materials and all the parts in the correct places.

If someone offered you $5 for sitting in the chair that won’t fail, you’d likely pick Chair 3. You can’t guarantee it will hold, but there’s enough evidence to make you trust it more than the others; it exists more than Chair 1 and is much safer than Chair 2. However, you won’t know for sure until you sit in it.

This highlights the three things we need to have faith in anything.

1. We must agree that it exists.

2. We must see that it’s worth trusting.

3. We must act on that trust.[1]

Faith is a part of our daily lives. We trust that the floor won’t collapse with each step we take, our phones won’t explode when we use them, and our loved ones won’t poison us when they give us food. We can never guarantee these things won’t happen, but we trust the floor, phone, or food because there’s enough reasonable evidence to support that trust.

Consider again what God says about faith:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith isn’t based on emotions or blind trust. It’s also not just mentally agreeing that something is true but refusing to act. In the Bible, the Greek word for “faith” could also be translated as “complete trust and reliance.”[2] Like relying on anything else, faith in God is about how we live based on reasonable confidence that He exists and is trustworthy.

So, if faith is confidence in something based on reasonable proof, then what reasonable proof do we have that God exists?

Inner understanding

All people know, to some degree, that God exists. Notice how the Bible doesn’t condemn people for being ignorant, but for choosing to reject Him:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. (Psalm 14:1)

Christians are also confident because the Holy Spirit assures us that we are children of the God who exists:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:16-17)

Unlike animals that exist in the present, God has also given humans an innate understanding that there’s something permanent beyond this fading world:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Finally, no one can stand before God and plead innocence of breaking His law. Even if they’ve never encountered the Bible, God has given us an internal understanding of right and wrong. Look at Romans 1:18-32 and take note of three things:

  • What people know (underlined)
  • What people do (bold)
  • What God does because of their actions (italics)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Because God is good, He has given all people an innate understanding of His existence. However, we should not assume that this inner knowledge makes the Bible unnecessary. While this understanding may not reveal everything about God, it is sufficient to recognize that there is a Creator and that the universe operates by moral standards we can choose to obey or violate.

Nature’s role in revealing God

The Romans passage above states that nature itself reveals enough of God’s character that He can hold people guilty for their sins. We want to be careful not to take this further than God intends by thinking nature will teach the gospel or that God has hidden secret messages in nature for those clever enough to find them. Thus, we want to see what God says about the role of nature in helping us know He exists.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:15-17)

God leaving the nations a “witness” is precisely what Paul was referring to in Romans 1:18-32. Not only is nature God’s way of sustaining His creatures, but it also points us back to Him when we realize how He designed our world to provide for His creatures. Although God focused on Israel throughout the Old Testament, He didn’t leave those outside Israel in the dark.

Nature reveals broad evidence of a good and powerful Creator. It doesn’t reveal God through some mysterious hidden code or patterns in the stars, nor does God intend for it to present what is needed for salvation or a relationship with our Creator. As discussed in previous chapters, that is why God gave us the Bible. However, God is clear that His creation is evidence enough of His existence that no one can reasonably deny His existence.

3 logical proofs for God’s existence

There are three common ways to use logic to prove the existence of God. However, when “proving” anything, we want to be very clear with what we mean by that while also being comfortable with what it doesn’t mean.

No, we cannot physically walk up to God, run Him through rigorous tests, and prove beyond scientific doubt that He exists. We can’t build a telescope powerful enough to peek into Heaven, nor a microscope capable of seeing into the spiritual realm. However, we also can’t prove anything without room for doubt.

We can’t prove that anything is real in the same way we demand proof that God is real, because that’s not how things work. When people talk about having “proof” of something, we mean that we have enough certainty based on evidence or reason. Can we prove beyond all doubt that the sun is real? That drinking bleach will kill us? That dogs can’t speak perfect English? No, but there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that compels us to wear sunscreen, hydrate with water instead of a cleaning product, and accept that our dogs will never be good conversationalists.[3]

So when we talk about three “proofs” for God’s existence, we must be honest in how we think about them. Like our discussion about “faith” above, believing in God’s existence comes down to examining the available evidence and acknowledging that, ultimately, there is no better explanation for the things we observe around us.

With a proper understanding of proof, here are three logical arguments that prove God’s existence.

The Cosmological Argument

This argument addresses the question that many people ask as they begin to examine the universe around them: Where did all of this come from?

We ask this because we know that if something exists, something created it. Think of a water bottle. The water bottle can’t create itself, nor can it suddenly spring into existence. If that water bottle exists, something caused it to exist.

The Cosmological Argument takes that same logic and applies it to the universe. If the universe exists, something caused it to exist. Since only intelligent beings can create things, God is the most likely candidate for the creator of the universe.

That is the simple explanation of the Cosmological Argument, and most readers can safely move on to the Teleological Argument. However, others may want to dig deeper into why other explanations aren’t valid. So, to more thoroughly explain why this proves God, let’s first discuss some things we must consider about the nature of the universe.

Consideration #1: Could the universe (and time itself) have always existed?

This one can break our brains a little, but it’s an important place to start. Philosophers and scientists in the past have attempted to argue that the universe has existed forever, with no discernible beginning. However, it’s become clear that this is impossible due to one simple fact: time moves forward.

Imagine we’re watching a movie. We know that for every second we spend watching this movie, the film moves forward one second. We also know that because the movie is moving forward, we could rewind it backward to see what happened previously. And, with enough rewinding, we could get back to the very beginning of our movie and watch it move forward, eventually reaching the point we’re at now.

Now, imagine we’re watching a live recording of everything that has ever happened in the universe. If we paused that video and rewound it one second, we’d see whatever happened one second before our pause point. We could keep rewinding it, one second at a time, and see everything that has ever happened in reverse. But if the universe never had a beginning, we’d never be able to stop rewinding because there would always be something that happened previously.[4]

Everything, even time itself, had to have a beginning. For something to move forward, it needs a starting point where it wasn’t moving forward. Just as all movies start at 00:00 before going to 00:01, our universe also has to have a beginning point to move forward by one second.

This is a difficult concept to understand, let alone explain. It’s okay if it’s still confusing because we’re trying to grasp something impossible. For now, just know that while most non-Christian scientists and philosophers may disagree on how the universe started, they agree that it did have some kind of beginning.

Consideration #2: Couldn’t everything have been created by chance?

Arguing that “chance” created the universe creates just as many problems as an eternal universe. After all, “chance” is just the possibility of something happening in the future. Think about rolling dice: you roll, and over time, there’s a chance of getting a six. But if time didn’t exist, you couldn’t roll the dice at all, and you’d never be able to roll a six. If the universe didn’t exist, you’d have nowhere for the dice-rolling to occur.

Time only works if the universe exists because time measures how we move from one moment to another. As we discussed in the first point, if the universe can’t be eternal because it’s impossible to have an infinite series of moments in the past, time existing eternally is impossible for the same reason. After all, if the universe was created by “chance,” how much time passed before it happened? How many times were the dice rolled before getting a six?

Ultimately, if the universe didn’t exist yet, neither did time or chance.

[As a side note, we must also remember that “chance” isn’t an intelligent being. Things can’t be created “by chance,” but must instead have something outside the “thing” being created that affects its creation.]

Consideration #3: Something can’t be created from nothing.

As scientists and philosophers observe the universe, they notice certain patterns that govern how everything works. They call these “laws” because things in the universe naturally operate according to them, such as the Law of Gravity. We don’t create these laws; instead, laws are observations we’ve made. Two of these laws help us prove God’s existence, because they tell us why something had to create the universe.

The Law of Causality explains that every effect is caused by something that came before it. If you hear a loud noise, we know something created that noise. If a ball rolls down the street, something makes that ball start rolling. If there’s a carton of eggs in our fridge, a chicken first had to lay those eggs.

Likewise, the Law of the Conservation of Mass tells us that mass cannot be created or destroyed. For our purpose, picture a 20-pound stack of paper. To create that stack, someone used 20 pounds of materials. If we burn that stack, the paper will change, but we’ll still have 20 pounds of stuff left over (ash, smoke, gas). Whatever exists had to get all of its mass from another source, and nothing in the universe is made up of something that wasn’t already in the universe itself.

If this is true for all things in the universe, we also know it must be true of the universe itself. The Law of Causality shows us that something outside of time, space, and physical matter had to make those things begin to exist. The Law of the Conservation of Mass reveals that the universe had to be created from an amount of “stuff” equal to however much is inside it.

Thus, the universe had to be created from a being outside of it that doesn’t need to follow the various laws of the universe.[5]

4. If the universe’s existence was caused by something, what caused that “something”? This is yet another example of how denying God forces us to go backward for eternity.

Let’s imagine that God doesn’t exist, but we know the universe had a beginning.

  • What created the universe? We may say something like “The Big Bang.”
  • What caused the Big Bang? The common belief is that a bunch of matter formed into a really dense point in space before exploding.
  • Where did that matter come from? We don’t know, but it may have been created by some place beyond our universe.
  • Where did the stuff beyond our universe come from?
  • What created the stuff beyond our universe?
  • What created the stuff that created it?

At some point, we must arrive at an “Uncaused Cause.” This means that no matter how far back we go in explaining the universe’s origins, there must be something that wasn’t caused or created by anything else. This “Uncaused Cause” would be something that has always existed, beyond time and space, and is the source that sets everything else into motion.

The Bible explains God as the origin of time, space, and matter:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

The Teleological Argument

This argues for God’s existence based on the universe’s complexity. To explain this, imagine walking through a city and finding a fully charged phone ringing on the sidewalk. In this situation, no one looks at this phone and is amazed that it suddenly appeared, nor would anyone assume that a bunch of electrical components collided together to create the phone. If we were to open the phone and look at its innards, we’d see a delicate electronic system made of individual components, all working together to fulfill the phone’s purpose. A cell phone is designed to work a certain way, and because of that, we know it has a designer.

Likewise, the natural world isn’t a jumbled mess of stuff floating around without purpose. Instead, it appears intelligently designed, as though it has a creator who gave things order and purpose. From the giant sequoia tree to human DNA, the universe is filled with complex systems that, like a cell phone, are composed of individual components all working together to fulfill one or more purposes.

The Teleological Argument observes the world and concludes that something so orderly and functional doesn’t just happen on its own.

The Bible explains God as the designer of such an intricate and complex universe:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14a)

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

The Moral Argument

The Moral Argument proves God exists by observing that the vast majority of people throughout history have had a sense of right and wrong, also known as “morality.” Because humans seem to be naturally moral creatures, we must have gotten this from somewhere. This is especially true because, by and large, humans tend to arrive at the same basic conclusions about right and wrong. Thus, there must be someone beyond ourselves who has set these moral codes within us.

To explain, consider a referee in a sports game. From beginning to end, they do their job by:

  • Determining if a player should receive a penalty
  • Making sure the game is played within the designated boundaries
  • Deciding if a team has correctly scored a point
  • Ensuring all equipment meets a certain standard
  • Declaring whether a team has legitimately won

A referee’s job is to ensure that participants play the game correctly. But how do they determine whether that’s happening? If they’re a good referee, they realize their job is simply to enforce the rules of the game.

A referee uses a set of rules outside of themselves to decide whether something is right or wrong. A play is declared legal or illegal based on how it aligns with the rulebook. We also decide whether a referee is good or bad based on how fairly they enforce the rules.

Now, imagine trying to referee a game with no rules. How would penalties be given? What would be the standard equipment that players could use to win? How would a team even win in the first place? Most importantly, how would fans get angry at them for making bad calls?

This is the heart of the Moral Argument. Throughout history, people have consistently adhered to a similar set of moral laws, with families or law enforcement officials punishing those who violate these laws. Likewise, people have a conscience that bothers them when they violate it. But where do people get this shared sense of certain things being right while others are wrong? What makes humans play by similar rules?

The Bible explains that God is the outside source who determines right and wrong:

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature, do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)

According to the Bible, we aren’t moral because we live in a society that’s been influenced by the Bible. Even most people who have never heard God’s word still understand that murder is wrong, while protecting human life is good. Morality is a shared human trait that is seen from our inner consciences to how entire societies craft their laws.

Some may argue that societies developed morals because it was the only way to preserve humans. After all, without rules, we’d all end up devouring one another. Therefore, humans developed things like laws and consciences for the common good.

However, this argument has a significant flaw that lends even more weight to morality coming from an outside lawgiver. Namely this: How do we know it’s good to preserve human life? What “rules” do we look to when claiming one thing is right (living with laws to protect human life) while another is wrong (living without rules at the risk of destroying human life)?

The reality is that without a higher standard, we can’t call anything right or wrong any more than a referee can call a foul in a game without established rules. If we say it’s good to create functioning societies, is that just a personal opinion? How can we reject someone who says they believe it’s good to destroy human life? Without an objective moral standard outside ourselves, we are actually incapable of declaring anything right or wrong, good or evil, fair or unfair.

After all, what right do we have to say it’s wrong when:

  • People are treated differently based on skin color or gender
  • A business intentionally sells poorly made products that kill people
  • Scam artists steal elderly people’s money
  • A judge takes a bribe and declares a criminal “innocent”
  • Someone spreads lies about us

We know these things are wrong. We can’t even say, “It’s wrong because it breaks the law,” because we call the leaders of other countries “evil” when they allow attacking, imprisoning, torturing, or murdering certain kinds of people in their country. But without objective moral standards beyond ourselves, we cannot live as though good or evil even exist. We cannot claim that certain behaviors are inherently evil unless there is a standard set of moral rules that everyone must abide by.

Thus, we prove God by observing that we do inherently understand morality, which means there is someone above humans who gave us a set of standards and a conscience to help us follow them.

Does this prove the existence of God or just a powerful being?

If we’re honest, these arguments don’t demand that the specific being we call God exists. The only thing they prove is that something out there created everything and instilled morality in humans. However, with the evidence available to us, God is the only logical conclusion we can reach.

Consider this logical sequence of thoughts:

  1. We know that the very existence of the universe requires some sort of creator (see the Cosmological Argument).
  2. Because of the universe’s intricate design, we know this is an intelligent creator who gave purpose to its creation (see the Teleological Argument).
  3. Giving humans a sense of morality and justice shows this is a good and personal creator who wants its creation to operate according to certain rules (see the Moral Argument).
  4. A creator like this would likely want to be known by the intelligent creatures it created.
  5. This creator would need to make itself known by direct appearances or through an objective source.
  6. Looking at all of history, no religious text matches the Bible when it comes to reliability, consistency, and being an accurate reflection of reality; it reveals to us the ways the creator made personal appearances in the past and declares to us that He means to communicate to us through the Bible today.
  7. Thus, the most logical conclusion is that the Bible is this creator’s way to reveal Himself to His creation.

Considering all of the options available to us, nothing makes as much sense as the existence of the God of the Bible. “There is no God” falls apart because there must be an “Uncaused Cause,” while other religions fail to come close to the credibility of Christianity. We can offer many solutions apart from God, but none of them will hold the same weight.

It’s possible that we’re wrong at step 6, and that the Bible is a manufactured book of fiction. But the evidence is definitely on the side of the Bible being the way the universe’s creator has chosen to speak to His creation today. Thus, because creation requires a creator, the most likely explanation is that the God of the Bible is this creator.

God’s grace

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Last, but certainly not least, when discussing why we know God is real, is that God enables it. This can be one of the most frustrating aspects of examining evidence for God. We can look at the various evidences for God’s existence and find them completely convincing, leading us to say things like “It’s so obvious! Why don’t more people see this?”

And, ultimately, we can’t point to our own cleverness as the primary reason we believe God exists. The evidence is there, of course, but we can look at the world and see that people still reject it for other, lesser explanations. It’s also true that evidence can convince people that God exists, yet they’ll still reject Him. While faith in God’s existence does involve evidence that He’s real, it also requires acting on what we know. And for many, they willingly suppress the truth of who God is, or what He calls them to do, because God hasn’t given them the “spiritual discernment” needed to follow Him.

God’s grace allows us to believe in Him, just like it’s God’s grace (not just compelling arguments) that must convince others.

A final note for evidence of God’s existence

Just like the Bible isn’t true because all the evidence says it is, God’s existence doesn’t depend on us being able to provide enough proof of Him. However, just like the Bible, it’s also reasonable to expect that a being who does exist will have a reasonable amount of evidence for it. Of course, this is made incredibly difficult when we realize that God is a spirit (as we’ll discuss in a moment) while we primarily function in the physical world. However, as we have seen, God has provided us with sufficient evidence in the physical world to give us overwhelming confidence in His existence.

Like sitting in a chair, we can’t guarantee that our faith is well-placed. Perhaps we’re all in a computer simulation, or maybe we all just exist as part of some other being’s dream. Maybe the atheists are right and everything did come from nothing. It’s okay not to live with 100% certainty. However, based on all the evidence available to us, the most reasonable thing to rest in is that God is real and that what He’s revealed in the Bible is just as trustworthy as He is.

So if we’re confident that God exists, what else can we know about Him to give us confidence that He’s also trustworthy?

What is God like? (God’s attributes)

In theology, we discuss two categories that help us understand what the Bible reveals about God’s characteristics, often called “The Attributes of God.”

God’s incommunicable attributes

These are characteristics that we are incapable of experiencing in any capacity. Though the Bible reveals them, they are unique qualities of God. These can often be difficult to wrap our heads around because we usually understand things based on past experiences or by comparing them to other things in the world. For example, someone born blind can’t fully comprehend the experience of seeing color, but people will often explain it by drawing on other things they already understand (i.e. red is hot, blue is the feeling of cool water, yellow is happiness).

However, because God is unlike anything in His creation, we can’t fully understand Him because we can’t point to something else and say “God is like this.” Any time we do that, we diminish Him. As I said, this can at times be frustrating because we want to understand Him and can be uncomfortable by admitting that we don’t. As we discuss these, readers are encouraged to respond with awe and worship at a God who is not like us.

With that said, let’s do our best to understand what the Bible reveals about God’s incommunicable attributes.

Aseity (or “self-existing”)

This means that nothing created God, and He doesn’t need anything outside Himself to exist. Furthermore, this also means that God has never lacked anything, nor does anything in His creation supply Him with something He needs. God’s entire being is completely independent from anything else.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24-25)

Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. (Job 41:11)

God makes it clear that He doesn’t need anything. One practical way this impacts us is what we say about why God chose to create the universe, and especially people. It can be tempting to think that God did it because He was lonely and needed us. However, doing so means that God was somehow imperfect without us, and that God depends on creatures He created and sustains to provide Him with something He lacks. Rather, in His aseity, He is the one who provides everything we need to exist and continue existing.

Immutability (or “unchanging”)

As the name implies, God is constant in His actions, motivations, character, and everything that makes Him who He is.

For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

God is unlike us because we change constantly. Whether learning new information, lacking sleep, or having a series of good or bad experiences, who we are today vastly differs from who we were 10 years ago. Sometimes that means we look back and are thankful that we’re wiser and more mature, while there may be other areas where we see how we’ve weakened in our convictions, beliefs, or actions. This shouldn’t surprise us since we are beings who don’t know everything, have new (often unexpected) experiences that change us, and are constantly trying to be better than we were yesterday.

However, we are thankful that God doesn’t change with new information. If nothing else, Christians are comforted by the assurance that God will never change His mind about salvation. If He were a God who changed, it would be entirely possible that He could one day say “I’ve changed my mind: Jesus Christ’s sacrifice isn’t enough for their salvation. I’m scrapping this whole thing and punishing everyone for eternity.” But as Christians, we rest knowing that God isn’t a being like us whose mood or beliefs change based on new circumstances or experiences.[6]

Eternal

As humans, we can understand eternity as it relates to the future. However, God isn’t only a being who will exist forever into the future, but He has also existed forever in the past.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

We briefly encountered this idea during the Teleological Argument above. For God to have created everything “In the beginning,” He had to exist outside of time (i.e. before the “beginning.”) This idea can frustrated people as much as the Teleological Argument itself because we are beings who only understand what it means to exist in time, where everything has a beginning.

God being “eternal” also helps us better understand why He is unchanging. God doesn’t change with new information or as time progresses because He doesn’t experience time like we do. The images below can help us wrap our minds around how a timeless God experiences His creation that is bound by time:

Because we are governed by time, we can only currently experience what is happening. We can’t go back even one nanosecond to experience something again, nor can we experience both this present moment and one nanosecond in the future. We also can’t experience things that happened before our personal “time” began. This also explains why we change – who we are now is a different person than who we were last year because we have an entire year of new experiences that have shaped us one one form or another.

However, God isn’t like us. As the creator of both creation and the concept of time itself, He isn’t limited to only experiencing the current moment. Because He isn’t stuck in a timeline like us, He can experience all moments at once. Thus, God doesn’t change because He doesn’t have new experiences from one moment to the next.

Of course, God relates to His creation in ways that our natures require. Throughout the Bible, we do see that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interact with creation in a time-bound way. For example, God appears to Moses in the burning bush for a certain amount of time. He speaks words that last a certain number of seconds. Jesus carried out His earthly ministry for a few decades before ascending to Heaven. Yes, God does interact in our timeline, but as an eternal being He is also outside of time itself.

Omnipresent

This means that God is present everywhere. God is not a spatial being who can only be in one place at one time, thus who He is isn’t contained to a measurable space. Not only is He capable of being anywhere, He is fully aware of what’s happening in every nook and cranny of His creation at every moment.

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! (1 Kings 8:27)

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:7-12)

Perhaps this isn’t surprising once we understand God as an eternal being. After all, if He’s experiencing all of His creation at once, it’s only logical to conclude that He’s experiencing these moments everywhere. He’s present on Jupiter, the earth’s core, and in whatever room we’re in right now.

However, we want to be very careful how we think about this. Throughout history, people have been misguided in believing God’s very essence is present throughout the entire universe.[7] They would believe God is present in trees, rocks, the air, and all living creatures. In other words, whatever we touch is, in some way, God Himself.

The image in “Eternal” above helps us maintain a better understanding. By God being omnipresent, we mean that He is present, aware, and engaged with every area of His creation at all times. Nothing is hidden from Him, nor does anything surprise Him or happen outside His notice. God doesn’t exist in trees, rocks, or animals, but He’s present and aware of absolutely everything happening with those things.

Simplicity (or “Divine Unity”)

To quote Rapunzel from the movie Tangled, “Don’t freak out!” When we first hear that God is “simple,” it’s natural to be offended that we would call God something so offensive. We may be especially upset because, up to this point in understanding God’s incommunicable attributes, we can agree that understanding God is no simple matter!

When we talk about God’s simplicity, we don’t mean that He is simplistic. At its root, “simple” means that someone isn’t composed of parts that can be separated. A truck is complex, not simple, because you can add or remove its individual parts. Even the smallest, most basic elements in the universe could, in theory, be cut in half.

Practically speaking, God’s simplicity means that He can never be more or less than what He is. God isn’t a being who possesses various qualities, but instead, God is those qualities. For example, we often look at God in the Old Testament, compare Him to what we see in the New Testament, and say something like “God is filled with more wrath in the Old Testament, but once Jesus comes, He seems a lot more merciful.” When we say that, what we really say is that God is sometimes more wrathful and less merciful, or vice versa. But if that were the case, then God would stop being God because He would be subject to change.

Instead, consider how God Himself tells us about how His mercy and wrath work together:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

While being merciful, He is equally wrathful against the unjust. God isn’t more of one than the other, but rather God is fully merciful, fully just, fully loving, and fully every other attribute. God is all of these at all times, and He can never increase or decrease one over the other.

We’ve saved simplicity for last because it can be far less confusing once we’ve understood God’s other incommunicable attributes. Being immutable (unchanging), God always remains who He is. Being eternal, a God who exists outside of time can’t be more loving in one moment because He doesn’t exist moment to moment. Because He’s self-existing, He doesn’t find Himself more or less complete at various times.

God is simple, simply because God isn’t a collection of different parts or attributes that He can add or remove at a given moment.

We’ve focused on how God’s simplicity affects His attributes, but it’s worth noting how this affects His essence. Although God interacts with His creation through the three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), we must also recognize that God isn’t three separate beings. If He were, that would mean that God would be a spatial creature where each person occupies their own space. He’s not like us where we occupy a certain amount of space from one moment to the next. By existing outside of creation, God doesn’t occupy space like we do, and therefore can’t be measured or divided.

As with every other incommunicable attribute, it’s okay if God’s simplicity leaves us scratching our heads. Remember, we are limited creatures trying to understand a limitless creator. The key takeaway is that God doesn’t just choose to use more of one attribute over another. We cannot separate God’s love from God’s justice, because that would mean those things exist outside of Him. Instead, our unchanging God is all of His attributes equally and always.

God’s communicable attributes

While incommunicable attributes were difficult to grasp because they’re so foreign to our own experience, “communicable attributes” are familiar because they are things we’ve all experienced in limited amounts. Of course, we want to remember that even though we can understand and experience these to some degree, God experiences them fully, perfectly, and at all times. In addition, God’s attributes differ from ours because we are human beings who can exercise things like love and justice to varying degrees, but God is those things. In other words, God’s essence cannot be separated from His attributes, nor can He be more loving one day and less loving another.

As we discuss these, readers are encouraged to respond with thankfulness that God is perfect in all of these and seek to honor Him by imitating Him in the attributes we share with Him.

Spirit

We often picture God as a kindly old man with a white beard. Among the many issues with that picture, one is that we tend to imagine God with a physical form. However, the Bible is very clear that God isn’t made of matter:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

In Greek, the word “spirit” literally means “breath or wind.” On a cold day, we can see that our breath doesn’t keep a constant shape or have defined edges. The wind is an invisible force that acts, but can’t be seen. This is how God describes Himself.

Spirits are also alive (in the sense that they exist), intelligent, and personal. Though we may not live and experience the world as spirits, we are physical and spiritual creatures. We understand what it means to be more than just flesh and bone, and those who die will also exist as a spirit until they are resurrected into their bodies to either spend eternity with Christ or stand before Him in judgment.

Omnipotent (or “all powerful”)[8]

God isn’t just the most powerful being that exists. He has unlimited power, meaning that nothing can hinder or prevent Him from accomplishing whatever He wants to accomplish. Moreover, because His power is unlimited, He doesn’t struggle to accomplish His will, nor can others do things that mess up His plans.

It’s worth noting that, like all creatures, God only exercises His power according to His nature. If you ask people, “What would you do with one million dollars?” their answers will vary, but those answers will always align with the character and nature of that person. Someone may pay off their debts, buy a house for their parent, donate some to charity, or even do something vengeful. When given the power to accomplish almost anything, people’s choices always align with who they are.

People sometimes ask, “If God can’t choose to sin, is He all-powerful?” Or, more seriously, “Why can’t God use His power to just forgive everyone’s sins?” God, like us, will only exercise His power according to who He is. God is perfectly holy and would never sin, and His perfect love would never make Him violate His perfect justice.[9] He is all powerful, but His powerful will never cause Him to be anything less than who He is.

The LORD of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” … For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back? (Isaiah 14:24, 27)

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)

Omniscient (or “all knowing”)[10]

When we say that God is “all knowing,” we mean more than simply “He knows all the information in the universe.” While that’s true of a God who is present everywhere at all times, that’s not all there is to His omnipotence. God doesn’t just know all things past and present, but also all things future. However, He’s not like a fortune teller who can simply look forward to see what happens, nor a meteorologist who reads current signs to predict future events; rather, as an omnipotent God, He exercises His power to declare what the future will be.

remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ (Isaiah 46:9-10)

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:8)

Holy

When the Bible talks about how God is “holy,” we mean that He is entirely separate from His creation and anything evil. We see God’s holiness throughout the Bible. He hates sin, punishes wickedness, and refuses to be associated with corrupt things. God’s holiness is so unique and incredible that angelic beings surround His throne and constantly cry out, “Holy, holy, holy!” 

“There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God. (1 Samuel 2:2)

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14–16)

God is unique in His holiness. However, He also calls for His people to mimic this attribute. He wants Christians to intentionally be separate from evil and wickedness, living as people who act more like their God and less like the corruption in the world around them. God’s perfect holiness, and His desire for His people’s holiness, is at the heart of many of His actions and commands throughout the Bible.

Love

Though this may be one of God’s easier attributes to grasp, it’s also difficult for many of us to understand because we often lack a biblical understanding of what love truly means. Biblical love is sacrificial, hope-filled, and intentionally acts for the ultimate good of the thing you love. Love is a choice, not an emotion.

So when we say “God is love,” we mean that God acts for the good of His creation, the three persons of the Trinity, and His own name. Love isn’t something God feels, but is something He actually is.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

That means He cannot be more loving to some more than others, or that something outside of God can influence His love as though it were an emotion. Just as God’s very essence is holy, eternal, unchanging, etc., God’s very essence is also perfectly loving. Because love is part of God’s very nature, everything He does expresses all His attributes working together at once, rather than Him choosing to use one more than another.

One of the clearest examples of God’s attributes working together is at the cross.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)

We see God demonstrating His love by sending Jesus. However, God’s love cannot work on its own to simply overlook our sins. Thus, His justice and righteousness were also exercised when the Father was satisfied (“propitiated”) by punishing Jesus for how we’ve broken His laws.

Justice and righteousness

God is never cruel, unfair, or unjust. He acts in perfect fairness to both punish evil and promote good. This is why He is often described as an ancient judge:

But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he ministers justice to the peoples with uprightness. (Psalm 9:7-8)

However, as we discussed how God is perfectly loving, we must remember He is also perfectly righteous. And because He won’t use one attribute at the expense of another, we cannot promote the idea that God’s love will ignore people’s sins. Just as we expect a good judge to give a criminal the punishment they deserve, our loving God also promises that He will punish those who break His laws:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)

Because God is good, He must punish criminals. This is why a clear understanding of the gospel is so vital! Because Jesus took the divine punishment we deserve, God’s justice was satisfied. Those who have truly turned from their sins and asked Jesus to save them no longer need to fear the judgment their sin deserves. After all, a righteous judge won’t punish someone’s crimes a second time.

Truth and faithfulness

God is perfect and reliable in His knowledge, words, and actions. Everything about God is true, and anything against God is false. We can always trust Him to tell us what is true and right through the Bible, and we can likewise always trust Him to do what He promises.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:3-4)

As we see throughout the Bible, God’s faithfulness also includes His reliability. Though it would be enough for Him to simply never lie, we also see that He never fails to care for His people. Although it can sometimes seem like God is failing us in the moment, we know and trust that God will never fail to do what is best for those He loves.

Patient and long-suffering

God deals patiently with His creation and never acts hastily, emotionally, or impulsively. When dealing with His enemies, He patiently allows them to live in total rebellion to Him, not immediately giving lawbreakers what they deserve even though He’s always aware of their lawbreaking. Likewise, even though His people no longer deserve punishment, He still demonstrates His perfect patience by allowing us to pursue things that are not holy instead of Him.

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

From our imperfect perspective, God’s patience can seem like He’s ignoring us or being unfaithful. We think that we’ve been perfectly patient, and when He doesn’t act how we want, we sit in judgment over God and His lack of action. However, when we seek to fully understand God in all His attributes, we can take comfort in knowing that God’s perfect timing and decisions may not align with what we want, but that never means He’s failed.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

Good

Like all His other attributes, God doesn’t just act good in the same way we tell a child to choose to be good. Acting good means that we compare our behavior to some higher standard. Instead God is the standard we compare ourselves to because He is good.

            You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. (Psalm 119:68)

Because God is good, we also trust that everything He does is good. On its surface, that may not seem difficult to agree to. However, when we experience a painful life event, or when God appears to do something we believe is unfair, we can trust that it must be good because a good God is at work in those situations.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

God’s goodness also helps us understand what sin really is. Both the Hebrew and Greek versions of the word mean “missing the mark,” which someone might say when shooting an arrow at a target and failing to hit it. Sin, at its most basic understanding, is “doing or thinking anything that fails to align with God’s goodness.” This is why the Bible can sometimes seem so harsh on sins that seem small to us. We can’t define sin and evil based on our standards of good, but by comparing them to the character and will of a perfect God.

[1] We even see this in salvation. Salvation requires us to know who Jesus is (He exists), that He alone can save us from the punishment for our sin (He’s trustworthy), and then call out to Him to save us (we act).

[2] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 375.

[3] Though that doesn’t stop some of us from talking to them!

[4] This is also known as an “infinite regress.”

[5] The laws of the universe say matter can’t be created, but God doesn’t have to obey those laws like everything else in the universe.

[6] We do see God appear to change His mind in places like Exodus 32:9-14, Isaiah 38:1-6, and Jonah 3:4-10. The easiest way to understand these circumstances isn’t that God changed because of new information, but that His interactions with time-bound people changed based on His unchanging nature. When God chooses not to destroy people, it’s because it aligns with His unchanging desire to show mercy to those who repent of their sin.

[7] This is called “panenthiesm.”

[8] Some consider omnipotence an incommunicable attribute. I place it here because humans know what it is to have power to accomplish our will.

[9] This is why Jesus Christ died for sins. Out of perfect love, God the Father sent the Son to satisfy perfect justice without violating either attribute.

[10] Some consider omniscience an incommunicable attribute. I place it here because humans can understand what it means to know things.

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