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THE NAME OF GOD

EVERY INQUIRY HAS ITS POSTULATES. No scientific inquiry proceeds altogether without assumptions. Nothing can be studied scientifically without postulating the intelligibility of the universe—an assumption that itself is, strictly speaking, not subject to empirical verification.

Like every other inquiry, theology proceeds with postulates, out of which its data gathering and induction of facts proceed (Origen, OFP 2.1–4). Chief among the postulates of Christian teaching is the assumption that God has taken initiative to encounter humanity in and through human history (Origen, Ag. Celsus 1.11). “Therefore as is only reasonable, we grasp the undemonstrable first principle by faith, and then we receive abundant proof of the truth of the first principle from the first principle itself” (Clement of Alex., Stromata 7.16).

The shorthand term for this primary postulate is revelation. Revelation may be viewed either in a general or a specific sense.

The Joy of Studying God

You are invited to the quiet joy of the study of God—God’s being, God’s power, God’s insurmountable goodness, and God’s unfailing care of creation. Over centuries this subject has been the source of contemplative happiness, intellectual fascination, and moral guidance. (On joy in the contemplation of divinity, see Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatechesis, Prologue; Bonaventure, Breviloquium, prologue; Tho. Aq., SCG 2.1; 2 Richard Baxter, PW 17:157).

The most intriguing questions of the introductory study of God can be stated in plain, uncomplicated words:

In what way is God able to be known?

Is God uncreated?

Is God free?

Is God personal?

Is God compassionate?

Does God exist?

Does Jesus reveal God?

Does God care about us?

Why are we born? Why do we die?

How do we draw closer to God?

How may we participate in God’s life?

Does scripture reveal God?

Does the reception of revelation call for reasoning?

These are among the questions that will occupy us in the first leg of this journey (Book One on The Living God). Chapters 1, 2, and 3 seek to answer honestly what we mean when we say “God.” Chapter 4 asks upon what reasonable grounds we may conclude that God exists in reality and not in our minds only. Chapter 5 asks whether Christianity’s most distinctive contribution to the idea of God might be the teaching that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the work of God as creator and whether God provides for the created order as sustainer, as enabler of natural causality, and as guide of errant human history. Chapter 8 concludes with a discussion of the appropriate method in the study of God: Whether Scripture is trustworthy for Christian teaching and to what extent Christian tradition, experience, and reason are valued sources in the study of God.

Whether God Is Revealed

The Meaning of Revelation

The word revelation unites the two biblical ideas of an unveiling (apokalypsis, disclosure, appearing, coming) of God and a making known (phanerõsis, exhibition, manifestation, expression) of divine mysteries previously concealed (Eph. 3:3; Job 12:22; Dan. 2:22–29). When we say God is revealed we mean that the mystery of God’s presence is unveiled in history (John 9:5; Theodore of Heraclea, Fragments on John 71). God’s redemptive purpose toward humanity is made known (Augustine, CG 11.2). The revelation of God has its central locus in a single personal history—that of Jesus the Christ. Yet the shock waves from that center resound in the farthest reaches of the cosmos (Rom. 8:18–30; 11:15; Calvin, Inst. 1:1–6; Quenstedt, TDP 1:32).

Revelation includes manifestations of God to humanity through reason, conscience, and history. The term general revelation (sometimes called common revelation) encompasses all these forms of divine disclosure (Origen, OFP 1.1–9; Augustine, Conf. 7.10; CG 5.11). Scripture reports revelation as occurring in dreams, visions, and in the divine illumination of the intellect (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q57).

In the maturing religion of the early Hebrew covenant, the focus was upon the divine requirement, human destiny, and the divine-human covenant:

In the consummate revelation proclaimed in the New Testament, God the Revealer appeared in person as the central datum of Christian experience to which the apostolic witness bears testimony (Cyril of Alex., Comm. on Hebr. 1.1; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q57).

Revelation is not primarily the imparting of information but rather the self-giving and self-evidencing of God. Rightly known, God illumines all reality, all human experience, all revelation, and all religion (Sir. 1.1; Clement of Alex., Stromata 1.4; Julia of Norwich, Showings). In this general sense, revelation is present in the history of all religions and is a familiar theme in the study of religions. Judaism and Christianity participate in that history of religions, yet in a special way in that they have understood themselves to be fulfilling the promise of that history (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 1–8, Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 9.1).

General revelation is sharply distinguished from the laborious process of scientific inquiry. In science the subject self works toward discovering the truth; in revelation the truth works toward discovering the subject self. In scientific work, enigmas are gradually unveiled about physics, space, time, atomic structures, DNA, and biological processes through empirical investigation. But these discoveries are not typically viewed as divine revelation. The very character of revelation, on the other hand, implies that God is freely on God’s own initiative allowing the divine intention to become known (Gal. 1:12; 2:2, Chrysostom, Comm. on Gal. 2.2). Previously obscure, the truth is reaching out to become knowable through events in finite history.

The consensual reception of revelation is a highly social process that occurs through the extended generations of communities of prayer and teaching (Eph. 3:3; Lev. 4:13–27; Num. 16). The memory of God’s becoming recognizable is mediated through families, rites, archetypal memories, and intricate modes of institutional influence (Exod. 16; Basil, On the Spirit 27.65–68; Anglican Thirty-nine Articles 20).

General Revelation in Scripture

Scripture often speaks of the general revelation of God to all humanity. The covenant with Noah signals the intention of God to care for all humanity (Gen. 9:8–11), for the covenant was with all the descendants of Noah, that is, all humanity. 2 Pet. 2:5 viewed Noah as a “herald of righteousness” prior to Abraham, and inclusive of all surviving humanity. God has not left himself without witness in any corner of human affairs (1 Kings 19:18; Acts 14:17; Chrysostom, Comm. on Acts, 31). Revelation may be known by some, yet be awaiting the appointed time to be revealed to others (Hab. 2:2).

The New Testament witnesses to a general revelation of God in creation and providence, discernible through conscience, prior to the coming of Jesus and outside the covenant with Israel (Rom. 1:13–2:16; 1 Cor. 10:18–11:1; John 1:9; 2 Tim. 1:3). God can make himself known in creation at any time, anywhere, at any point in history. The revelation in Christ does not limit these broader disclosures, but completes and culminates them. God has spoken “at sundry times and in diverse manners” (not only in one time or in one manner) in a way that prepares humanity for the coming of the Son, the Revealer, God himself (Heb. 1:1).

At the least, this general revelation performs the negative function of leaving humanity without excuse if any should ever claim that they never knew God existed. “When Gentiles who do not possess the law carry out its precepts by the light of nature, then, although they have no law, they are their own law, for they display the effect of the law inscribed on their hearts. Their conscience is called as a witness, and their own thoughts argue the case on either side, against them or even for them, on the day when God judges the secrets of human hearts through Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:14–16). The light that in due time appeared in Jesus was a light “which enlightens every human being” that “was even then coming into the world” (John 1:9, Cyril of Alex. Comm. on John 1.9).

Special Revelation in the History of Israel

Although God is generally knowable indistinctly throughout all nature and history, God has become specially and conspicuously known through a particular history, the history of a people set aside, a holy place, and a salvation history (Esther 3:8; Ps. 122; Matt. 20:17; Augustine, First Catech. Instr. 6). There remains a “scandal of particularity” in all historical revelation. If God is to become known in history, then that must occur at some time and some place in history. The history of salvation is about those particular times and places and events (Deut. 6:20–25; First Helvetic Conf. V; New Hampshire Conf. 6) where the whole of history is revealed through some eventful part. Scripture tells the story of this people of Israel, a set-apart kingdom of priests, called to be a holy nation (Exod. 19:6). Holy Writ tells the story of these times and places (Ps. 145:1–12; Edwardian Hom., CC: 239).

God became fully self-revealed in the life of a particular man born of a particular woman (Matt. 1:16; Luke 1:5–2:40). This particularity is a scandal or offense in the sense that God condescends to become human not generally in all but particularly in one (Athanasius, Four Discourses Ag. Arians 3.27, 28; Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity).

That the Messiah is born male, according to Jewish expectation, is a less crucial point than that the Messiah was born at all, and was born as a single individual (hence not male and female), and was born as a Jew (among whom the Expected One was a male heir of the Davidic line; Matt. 1:1–20; Luke 2:4; Rom. 1:3; Rev. 22:16; Augustine, CG 17.8–9).

The worshiping community takes it as a premise that God makes himself known in actual history. Thereafter consequences abound everywhere for the study of God. They pay attention to these events in which God has become known (Acts 10:42; 26:16; Lactantius, Div. Inst. 3.27; Calvin, Inst. 1.6; 1.16). Their importance to the community is not due to their merit but to their attentiveness—their eyes are open to unfolding history.

In the history of revelation, God does not merely speak to himself but to ordinary human beings—particular human beings, persons with names like Abraham, Isaac, Miriam, Amos, Naomi, Jeremiah, Paul, John, and Mary. In prayer humans speak and God listens. In revelation God speaks to human hearers. In this way scripture and prayer feed the dialogue between humanity and God.

The Revealer

Christian revelation refers to the disclosure of God in the person and work of Christ. Christ himself is God’s own revelation, God’s Word. Through Christ all the other moments of divine disclosure draw closer to being more understandable. All of God’s other manifestations, past and future, become better received, remembered, and defined. Christ is the One whom the angels have longed to see, “the desire of all nations,” the goal toward which all the history of revelation prior to Christ had been tending (Hag. 2:7; John 1; Eph. 1).

In Christ the eternal purpose of God, the mystery hidden for ages, the incomparable secret of God, is revealed (1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1; Eph. 3:1–5). Christ is the singular embodiment of truth, infinitely plural in meaning. Christ is the sum and hidden interior meaning of all other genuine revelations of God (Theodoret, Epistle to the Ephesians, 3.5).

In Christ all who behold attentively are able to “grasp God’s secret. That secret is Christ himself; in him lie hidden all God’s treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2, 3). “Great beyond all question is the mystery of our religion: ‘He who was manifested in the body, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels; who was proclaimed among the nations, believed in throughout the world, glorified in high heaven’ (1 Tim. 3:16). Even as Christ became for Christians the inner meaning of the Old Testament history, so does the Old Testament history bestow otherwise hidden meaning upon the history of Jesus who did not come to destroy, but to fulfill, the covenant people and the law (Matt. 5:7). “Our knowledge and our prophecy alike are partial, and the partial vanishes when wholeness comes” (1 Cor. 13:9).

Human beings do not set the conditions for what God can or cannot do. But Christian faith has gained confidence that God will not reveal himself in a way contrary to the way he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ (Augustine, Enchiridion 1.5; Calvin, Inst. 2.10). Christianity does not limit revelation to Christ, but through Christ sees God’s revelation as occurring elsewhere and finally, echoing everywhere.

The more clearly God is seen in Christ, the less ambiguously God is seen everywhere else. This does not result in a syncretism that then quickly forgets that God was made known in Christ and looks for God independently elsewhere (Basil, Letters, 234). For the general revelation of God everywhere is now all the more knowable through the Revealer. Christ is the unparalleled and unrepeatable Revealer through whom other revelations are best understood (Justin, Hortatory Address; Calvin, Inst. 1.14–17; 3.20).

Christianity stands in a unique relation to the Hebrew Bible and Judaism. Judaism is not viewed by Christianity as one among other religions that emerge out of human striving for God. Rather, the God and Father of Jesus Christ freely and sovereignly allows himself to be known in the history of Israel. The Holy Writ of Israel is also the church’s Holy Writ. The salvation history of the people of Israel is indispensable to the salvation history of Christians. The two covenants need each other; one to promise, the other to fulfill (Acts 7:17; Luke 4:21; Matt. 26:54–56; John 19:24–37).

The Word spoken in Jesus is addressed to all humanity (Rom. 5; Col. 1). Attention is riveted upon the meaning of the whole of human history as seen through a particular history. This Word was spoken in a particular time and place and through the life of a particular person who taught, did good, died, and was raised (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:1–4; Luther, Brief Expl.). The New Testament does not assert the universal against the particular or the particular against the universal, but both in relation. Christianity celebrates no other Source and End than the One who makes himself known in Jesus (Basil, Letters 233; Gregory of Nyssa, Ag. Eunomius 2.1).

The Human Recipient of Revelation

Since God’s care for the world focuses on God’s care for human beings, the study of God necessarily includes the study of humanity, our plight and our destiny (Lactantius, On the Workmanship of God). Rightly used, the word theology therefore embraces all that pertains to the study of humanity (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 5). There is nothing in humanity or the cosmic setting of human history that is foreign to God. Theology therefore seeks an integral understanding of the human situation before God (Augustine, CG 5.11). This explains why, viewed historically, the university sprang directly and organically out of the study of God (H. Rashdall, UEMA, I).

Humanity is God’s constant preoccupation throughout the Bible. The Christian study of God cannot neglect God’s own prevailing interest—the redemption of humanity. No Christian theology can speak only of God and never of human beings. There is no part of Christian teaching that does not touch upon good news for humanity. In the Genesis narrative, the creation of human beings is the decisive act of divine creation, in which persons are provided with a capacity for communion with God exceeding that of all other earthly creatures. Christ the Redeemer is completely human while not ceasing to be truly God. The Holy Spirit speaks to human hearts.

From beginning to end, the biblical story is the story of the creation of humanity, the fall of humanity, and the redemption of humanity. Revelation is for human salvation, the mending of human brokenness (Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 3). Early ecumenical theology seldom offers a separate section labeled “anthropology” because humanity is God’s constant concern. When Gregory of Nyssa wrote On the Making of Man, he places the study of man within the study of God, not vice versa.

God pays a high cost (the death of his beloved Son) to become revealed to human beings. That implies that humans are of incomparable value in God’s eyes. When God becomes incarnate, he becomes a human being, not a grasshopper. Why? Human beings are assumed to have a distinctly grace-bestowed capacity to receive revelation. Why would God bother to speak to a grasshopper who could not meaningfully hear?

Humanity is—more than trees or animals—uniquely able to hear, hence the intended recipient of revelation. Human reasoning is created by God with a capacity for reaching toward God by thinking, choosing, and speaking. Human freedom is created by God with a capacity for responsiveness to God. Human personality is created with the restless yearning for communion with the unseen but present personal God (Augustine, Conf. 1.1). Human love is created with some capacity, however distorted, to love God and to love creatures through God. If any creature exists that is more than others prepared for the divine self-disclosure, it surely must be the human creature (Lactantius, Div. Inst. 2.9). God comes as incomparably personal Visitor into interpersonal meeting with men and women.

Faith Seeking Intelligibility

In faith revelation becomes a matter of inner certitude and assurance. Revelation bears testimony to God’s action. Faith receives and believes and thereby transforms the knowing process. Faith then shapes reasoning (Origen, Ag. Celsus 1. 9). “By faith we perceive that the universe was fashioned by the word of God, so that the visible came forth from the invisible” (Heb. 11:3). Reason judges according to what the mind can see and know by sense experience. Faith nurtures reason’s seeing. Its evidences are attested in a community in order that faith may become consensually received and its joy known (Heb. 11:1; Clement of Alex., Stromata 2). Faith is that response which trusts that God speaks truly and reliably.

Classic Christian teaching seeks to understand in a reflective and orderly way what God has revealed (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 5). It seeks to put the many sentences, episodes, and maxims of the Bible into a whole, orderly, consistent statement about the overarching meaning of the message revealed in Holy Writ (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 4.33–36). There is no Christian theology without the Bible. There is no Bible without an inspirited community to write, remember, and translate it, to guard it and pass it on, study it, live by it, and invite others to live by it. The Bible provides means by which the Christian message can be received into the minds and hearts of each new generation. It is from the Bible that Christianity learns how God is revealed.

The Christian study of God is faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum; Anselm, Proslog. 1), a branch of learning in which the faith of the Christian community is seeking to make itself intelligible. Faith has learned from experience to trust that God’s self-disclosure in history as attested by Scripture is true, reliable, and worthy of trust. Faith reasons as far as it may behold the mysteries of God revealed in history (Eph. 1:9). These mysteries are greater than human intellect, yet if reason studies the history of God’s self-disclosures in a thoroughgoing and receptive way, faith grows toward understanding, since understanding is susceptible to growth (Augustine, Answer to Skeptics).

It is this sort of emergent, maturing understanding that the study of God (theology) seeks to nurture. It is a knowledge that is not to be equated with faith, but that emerges out of faith. It is not a form of knowing that is simply infused or given directly to the recipient by God, but acquired only with human effort enabled by grace. It is a knowledge that differs from philosophical inquiry about God because it exists as a response to revelation (Hab. 2:2, 3). Its reasoning is not self-sufficient, but lives out of its being illumined by the history of revelation (Augustine, Enchiridion 30, 31; Calvin, Inst. 3.2; 4.8).

Whether God Can Be Defined

A simple organization is fitting to the study of One who is adored as the most simple of all realities. This chapter focuses upon a question so plain that it cries out for a plain answer: What do we mean when we say “God”? Are any of the words we use to speak of God actually appropriate to the reality of God?

Can God Be Defined?

If definition means clarifying the boundaries of a thing so that it is placed in a known category and compared to other species, then God cannot be defined. For God is not an object that can fit into our categories of objects (John of Damascus, OF 1. 1; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q1.7). Our minds and language cannot specify accurately the limits of that reality which transcends measurement in space and time (Augustine, On Chr. Doctrine 4.2). God “surpasses human wit and speech. He knows God best who recognizes that whatever he thinks and says falls short of what God really is” (Tho. Aq., TAPT: 89).

Hence Gregory the Theologian cautioned: “It is difficult to conceive God, but to define Him in words is an impossibility.” “It is impossible to express Him, yet even more impossible to conceive Him. For that which may be conceived may perhaps be made clear by language, if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly, to any one who is not quite deprived of hearing or slothful of understanding. But to comprehend the whole of so great a Subject as this is quite impossible and impracticable, not merely to the utterly careless and ignorant, but even to those who are highly exalted, and who love God” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 38.4)

Classic Christian teaching has often acknowledged that the being of God is ultimately indefinable because God sees all with eternal simultaneity while we see parts only within time. This is why Scripture speaks of God as “dwelling in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16a), as “the one whom no mortal eye has ever seen or ever can see” (1 Tim. 6:16b). Only the infinite God can fully comprehend the infinite (Augustine, On Chr. Doctrine 1.6; Hilary, Trin. 1.6).

Must God then remain completely undefined? If so, this book must end here, for it is about God, and one cannot write a book about a Subject that is in every sense unknowable. No. Even within its temporal limits, the human mind can take small steps toward thinking precisely about God. What steps?

Defining by Negation

It is possible to distinguish God from everything else that exists (Clement of Alex., Stromata 8.2; Augustine, On Chr. Doctrine 1.6). In this sense it is not only possible but surprisingly easy to define God, for God is not finite, not time-bound, not partial, not dependent, not this thing, not that thing, and so on. Not…not…not. This approach is sometimes called apophatic theology (meaning that it proceeds by negation, from the Greek apophanai, “to say no,” refers to “mentioning by not mentioning”), denying that God can be equated with anything finite. This “negative way” defines God by what God is not, namely, any thing, any created being.

It is on this basis that short definitions such as that of the Augsburg Confession are formed, largely showing what God is not, and distinguishing God from all created things. There God is defined as “without body, without parts, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness” (italics added). At least we can reason that God is not a material body, not measurable in divisible parts, not limited in power, not partial in wisdom or goodness. This negative form of definition sets forth a series of terms that are properly ascribed in their fullness only to God.

The preliminary definition of God in classic Christian reasoning hinges primarily upon the clarification of a series of terms, called the attributes of God. They usually begin by showing what God is not in the slightest degree, and only then what God is to the largest possible degree (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 1. 58; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q13.2).

One of the most influential of classical Protestant attempts at such a definition is the Westminster Larger Catechism, whose leading definition of God brings together many of the terms that the worshiping community lifts up in prayer: “God is a Spirit in and of Himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (for similar short definitions, examine the Creed of Dositheus, art. I; New Hampshire Conf., art. 2; Batak Conf., art. 1, in CC: 486, 335, 556). These terms are all viewed as attributes of God, defining who God is by what God is not.

While acknowledging the indescribable divine mystery, it is nonetheless possible to say more, as did Paul: “For (in the words of Scripture) ‘who knows the mind of the Lord? Who can advise him?’ We, however, possess the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). The next step asks: How did the ecumenical consensus speak, beyond simply asserting negations?

A Classical Approach to Defining God

The apostles taught that we understand God best by looking at Jesus. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 1:9b). If God is made known in Jesus, then we do well to define God in relation to what we know of Jesus. Classic exegesis has sought to define God’s character by beholding the character, teaching, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ (Athanasius, Letter 60 to Adelphius).

Christian teaching does not view God as one among the class of objects called gods, for there is “none like him” (Isa. 46:9). Of this reality there can only be one (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q45–48). No finite being has the insurmountably good qualities that are uniquely ascribed to God. Although the uncapitalized term god (meaning idol, a created object that is worshiped) may be rightly used as a noun to speak of a class of projected or assumed divinities, the word God as expressed in the prayers of Christian worship is the name of the One worthy of true worship, distinguishable from all created objects.

A personal noun is distinguished from a common noun, which indicates what an individual object has in common with other objects of its class. God cannot be a common noun because there is nothing else in God’s class (Justin Martyr, Second Apol. 6; Luther, Bondage of the Will; Calvin, Inst. 1.10; 3.20). We make our first mistake if we think of God as a common noun rather than a personal noun. God is a name, used in the way we address a person—with a name (Hilary, On Trin. 1.5). We do not ordinarily name our houseplants unless they come to display qualities that remind us of actual persons (and in that case we know we are doing something a bit zany).

Unlike a houseplant, God is a personal noun, more like David or Mary, because God names an incomparably personal being having consciousness and freedom (Chrysostom, Comm. on Philippians 7 Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God 6).

When we speak of God as the Source and End of all things, we are already indicating that God is different from everything else. To express that difference in a careful way is the subject matter classically discussed under the heading of “God’s names and attributes” (John of Damascus, OF 1.2–3; Calvin, Inst. 1.10.3; 1.13–16).

If ten believers got together and wrote a definition of God and then approved it by a seven-to-three vote, this would not make it normative for Christian teaching. It becomes true for Christian teaching not by changing styles of popular consensus but by resonance with the consensus of apostolic teaching and ancient ecumenical clarification confirmed by all subsequent centuries of faithful consent (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 3.1–4; Vincent of Lérins, Comm. 2).

Consensual Definition

The classic consensual definition of God is true not because it tallies votes exhaustively, but because it corresponds truthfully to what the worldwide intergenerational worshiping community knows of God revealed in history. Christians have a true definition of God only if Christ’s revelation of God is true, and truly remembered (Augustine, On Chr. Doctrine 1. 6). It can be stated in a concise sentence:

God is the uncreated source and end of all things; one; incomparably alive;
insurmountable in presence, knowledge, and power; personal, eternal
spirit, who in holy love freely creates, sustains, and governs all things.

Many alternative forms of language are possible, but these terms are among the most familiar in the classic Christian tradition. Four essential features are condensed in this spare sentence that form the backbone of classic deliberations on the right naming of God:

The Transcendent Nature of God—God alone is One, eternal, infinite, necessary, sufficient, independent, uncreated, Source of all.

The Outreaching Majesty of God—God in relation to creatures is almighty, all-knowing, and everywhere present.

The Free Personal Spirit of God—God is incomparably free and irreducibly Spirit, while remaining personally addressable.

The Moral Character of God—is holy Love.

Every discrete word and category of these four groups of terms is implicit in the classic consensus. Only a fuller clarification of these four levels will constitute a convincing account of the meanings associated with the name God as known in Christian worship.

All of these descriptive terms are valid only insofar as the Holy One allows the divine life to be expressed through limited human language. Christian teaching can thus be saved the embarrassment of always needing to resort to vague claims and subjective feelings. This becomes plausible only by explaining these attributes in their intrinsic connection.

Naming God

God in Scripture does not deal with humanity anonymously (as if without a personal name). God is willing to let the recipients of divine mercy know the divine name, Yahweh (He who is, Gen. 2:4–9; Exod. 4:1; Ps. 23:1).

Indeed, many names have emerged in the history of salvation to speak of this incomparable personal reality. Among Scripture’s names for God are Yahweh (Lord, Isa. 6:3), Yah (a contraction of Yahweh, Exod. 15:2); El (Mighty One, Gen. 14:18–19; Ps. 90:2), Elōhīm (Gen. 1:1), Elōah (Job 33:12), Adōnaī (Lord, Ps. 38:22), Adōn (Lord, Ps. 8:1, 9), El Shaddaī (God Almighty, All-sufficient, Gen. 28:3), Theos (God, Mark 1:24), and Kyrios (Lord, Mark 1:3). Though different, these names point to a single reality, God. God is the Teutonic languages’ way (also Gott, Gud from the Gothic gheu, to invoke or to sacrifice) of calling the name of the One who in Scripture is called Yahweh, El, and Theos (Jerome, Letters, To Pamachius 57.9; TDOT 1:242–61; Calvin, Inst. 1.10.3; TDNT on “theos”).

The revelation of God’s personal character is closely connected with these names that reveal God’s nature. Characteristically in Hebraic Scripture, God’s very being is revealed to us through these sublime names. Their meanings are not able to be exhaustively analyzed, but are able to be humbly contemplated. The classic discussion of divine attributes is best viewed as a secondary development of scriptural names for God. They assist Christian teaching in ordering, limiting, and regulating Christian language about God (Origen, Ag. Celsus 1. 24; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trin.; Calvin, Inst. 1.5).

In no case do these scriptural names imply that God can be fully comprehended in essence (as God is known to himself) merely by being named (Gregory of Nazianzus, First Theol. Orat., Orat. 27; Hilary, On Trin. 4.2). For God is the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16) “whom no one has ever seen or can see” objectively (1 Tim. 6:16), but who is beheld in the mind and heart (Augustine, Sermons 7.4; WSA 3/1:235). This does not imply that God is wholly unnameable. When Moses prayed that God would reveal his glory, “The Lord answered, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will pronounce in your hearing the name Jehovah….’ But he added, ‘My face you cannot see, for no mortal man may see me and live’ (Exod. 33:18–20). Thus, though invisible, God is not nameless or in all ways unknowable (Tertullian, Ag. Praxeas 4–5; Chrysostom, Comm. on John 15.1–2).

Two of these names in particular—Yahweh (Lord) and Elohim (God)—point succinctly to the divine reality. They are especially laden with meaning when combined in the condensed ascription: Lord God (Yahweh Elohim, Gen. 2:4).

The name Yahweh (Jahweh or Jehovah or YHWH) is closely connected with the intensification of the Hebrew verb to be. YHWH has more “be” than all other conceivable forms of “be.” His is a form of “to be” that will still be when all other forms of being are no longer anywhere.

“Then Moses said to God: ‘If I go to the Israelites and tell them that the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name, what shall I say?’ God answered, ‘I AM, that is who I am. Tell them I AM has sent you to them’” (Exod. 3:13–14). Yahweh (I AM) suggests the awesome meaning: “HE WHO IS” or “HE WHO IS WHAT HE IS” (NRSV alternatively translates: “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”). Yahweh incomparably IS.

One named “I am because I am,” suggests that there is no external cause for God’s existence outside himself. The name Yahweh unites the notion of One who purely is with the notion of One who is in the process of continually becoming disclosed through historical revelation (Justin Martyr, First Apol. 58; Gregory of Nyssa, FGG: 87). In a remarkable passage, John’s Gospel recalled that Jesus said of himself: “In very truth I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58), in a way that suggests that in Jesus we meet nothing less than the personal self-disclosure of YHWH, “I am” (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.13; Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word 11).

El, the most frequent name by which God is called in Scripture and by the Semites in general, has the root meaning of “Strong and Mighty One,” the One whose incomparable power elicits reverent fear or awe (Ignatius, Ephesians 11,; John Cassian, Conferences, 2d pt., 11.11–13; Tho. Aq., ST 1–2 Q41–44; Calvin, Inst. 3.1; 3.4.31; 3.12.1). Elōah and Elōhīm are related terms referring to this unspeakably powerful One whose awesome presence instantly inspires reverential awe. Elōhīm is plural in form—a Hebraic way of saying that this name points to the fullness or glory of all the powers of the divine nature. When Yahweh and El are united, as in Lord God, Elōhīm is the generic name for God and Yahweh is the personal or proper name.

Among complementary names are El Shaddaī, “God Almighty” (NT: Pantokratōr); El Elyōn, “God Most High” (Greek Septuagint: Hypsistos); El Olām, “the Everlasting God” (Aiōnios, Rom. 16:26); Yahweh Sābāōth, “Lord of Hosts” (Ps. 46:7). These primitive, personalized names of God suggest attributes (such as almighty power, omnipresence, infinite wisdom) and have in time become the nucleus of the tradition’s more deliberate reflection on the divine attributes (Justin Martyr, Second Apol. 6; Dialogue with Trypho; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 2.30). These names correlate closely with the attributes we will be discussing: majesty, eternity, omnipotence, and holiness.

The special name Adōnai, “my Lord,” arose about 300 BC out of the reluctance of pious Jews to pronounce the divine name, later translated into Greek as Kyrios. The testimony of Thomas to the lordship of Christ, “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28), brings together in the New Testament the two earlier traditions of naming God as Adōnai (for Yahweh) and Elōhimagem (God). The single New Testament text that best draws together in Greek these key Hebraic names for God (Elōhimagem, Yahweh, Adōnai, and Shaddaī is the remarkable ascription in Revelation 1:8, where the divine Word declares: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord [Kyrios, i.e., Adōnai] God [Theos, i.e., El], who is and who was and who is to come, the sovereign Lord of all [Pantokratōr, i.e., El Shaddaī].” It is through the historical activity of the One thus named that God’s character has been made known to the remembering community (Tertullian, Ag. Praxeas 22; Ag. Marcion, 1.6).

Father (patimager, abba) suggests a caring parental relationship of generativity and guardianship. In intention the term may apply to analogies of both mothering and fathering, both nurturing and protecting (Chrysostom, Comm. on John, 25–26). Scripture views God as the one who engenders all things by creation (Gen. 2:4; James 1:17), especially of human beings, as their personal guide and protector (Isa. 63:16; Acts 23:28), but even more so of those who have through baptism become God’s children by adoption and grace (Luke 11:2; John 3:3–10; Chrysostom, Comm. on John 24.2; Rom. 8:15). God as Father is most fully beheld and understood in the light of God coming as Son (John 10:15). So decisive is this parental metaphor that it becomes the leading contribution of Christianity to the Hebraic understanding of God, and the central feature of triune teaching.

Whether God’s Character Can Be Ascertained

Five Methods of Knowing God’s Character

In classical Christian teaching five methods of knowing God’s character converge:

  1. It is essentially from God’s own self-disclosure that God’s character has become known. Thus the revelation set forth in Scripture and fulfilled in Jesus is crucial to all Christian speech about God’s qualities (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 3). These characteristics of God are revealed and discovered in the events of the history of revelation. They cannot be abstracted, as if separable, from the events of the history of covenant.
  2. Nonetheless, some attributes can be partially inferred through reasoning about causality, that is, from effect to cause (the way of causality, via causalitatis), by carefully and rightly attributing to God the cause (original, virtual, or permissive) of every effect (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q44).
  3. Other attributes may be derived through reasoning by way of negation (via negativa), denying as applicable to God the limits and defects we find in creaturely things (Novatian, On Trin. 4).
  4. Oppositely some attributes of God may be derived through reasoning by way of heightening, or eminence (via eminentiae), ascribing to God in the highest degree all the best that we behold in creaturely life (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q5).
  5. Finally, there are qualities of the divine character that can be inferred a priori or deductively by means of thinking consistently about the consequences of the very idea of God—for whatever is essential to the idea of perfect being we may reliably know to be characteristic of God alone (Anselm, Proslog. 2–5; for alternative views of these varied approaches, see Dionysius, Div. Names 1.5; Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q12.12; Q13.1; Calvin, Inst. 1.14–16).

The rest of this chapter will assess all these approaches to knowing God, beginning with knowing God’s character through revelation as declared in Scripture—the primary mode found in the classic Christian writers.

What Are Attributes?

Attributes of God are qualities that belong to God’s essential nature and that are found wherever God becomes self-revealed. They are those reliable character patterns that belong to God as God. We attribute these to God based upon what we as a community know of God’s self-disclosure in history. Only God has these qualities (John of Damascus; OF1. 14; Calvin, Inst. 1.5). If in the fullest conceivable measure God is rightly understood as the Source and End of all things, full of goodness and truth, then God may be said to have a definable character, and may be counted upon to act in ways consistent with the most merciful, just, loving, almighty, good character conceivable.

God’s way of knowing which knows all is a quality attributable only to God. All human beings have a will, but having a will that is perfect in holy love and able to perform all that it desires is an attribute of God. All living things have life, but having life in such an incomparable way that all things live through that unique life is an attribute of God (Tertullian, Ag. Praxeas 25–27; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q18; Chemnitz, LT 1).

The essence of something is understandable from its abiding attributes—its defining qualities. Similarly, the nature of God is made understandable to us by our looking at the qualities that are intrinsic to God’s being and therefore always present in God’s revealed activity. God would be completely unknowable if there were no energies, characteristics, or qualities attributable to him, but solely an essence known only to himself (Novatian, Trin. 1).

These attributes are distinguishable from the actions of God. The particular act of a person is not in the fullest sense the same as that person over time moving with continuity through numerous situations. So God’s character over the whole of time is more fully definitive of God than is a single action of God. God’s particular acts arise out of God’s essential nature and character (Hilary, On Trin. 7.21; Calvin, Inst. 1.13; 2.3.10).

To attribute to God such qualities as infinity or mercy is to concede them as belonging rightfully to God as an essential and permanent feature of God’s character. The divine attributes are those belonging only to God in their fullest sense. They are essential to the divine nature. Hence they are not subject to being gained or lost by God.

Why Attributes Are Possible and Necessary in Speaking of God

It would be absurd to try to worship God without implicitly thinking of some divine attributes, such as holiness, love, presence, or power. Every thought of God or prayer to God assumes something about God’s attributes. There is no way to speak to, of, or about God without speaking in some way of God’s defining qualities or abiding attributes. Only by clarifying these can one arrive at an acceptable statement of what is meant in Christian teaching by the proper name God (John of Damascus, OF 1. 1–3).

Christian teaching has a duty to say straightforwardly just what is meant by the word God in order to speak at all about its major subject: God as understood by the community of faith. Christian teaching builds upon the modest awareness that God is truly and sufficiently revealed to us through an actual history. God has not misrepresented himself through revealing to us in scripture these names and characteristics (Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, 1 Cor. 2:10; Calvin, Inst. 1.10; Chemnitz, LT 1:43; Quenstedt, I: 300, 320).

Why We Ask Who God Is Before We Ask Whether God Exists

Why are God’s attributes taken into account before discussing God’s existence? My intention is first to set forth that understanding of God that arises in Christian worship and then inquire whether the classic exegetes provide plausible reasons for believing that this incomparable reality exists. Note that this classical sequence is typically reversed in almost all modern discussions. But here I am following the classical order: setting forth the characteristics of God as understood by the worshiping community, and only then seeing if it is reasonable to believe that such a God does indeed exist as claimed.

This is why some of Christianity’s earliest teachers deferred the question of the reality or existence of God until the being of God had been sufficiently clarified (Novatian, Trin. I–9; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 4.4, 5.1). They began their discussion of God with a clarification of the divine attributes (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 2. 1–2; Gregory of Nazianzus, Second Theol. Orat. 1–4) and subsequently spoke of reasons for proclaiming that such an incomparable One truly exists (Theophilus, To Autolycus, Bks. 1. 3–6, 2.3, Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.15; Gregory of Nazianzus, Second Theol. Orat. 5–7).

Thus it is fitting first to consider the question of who God is (God’s being), and then to ask whether God is (God’s existence), for it seems idle to ask whether something exists until one has first defined, envisioned, or imagined it.

The Unity of Diverse Attributes

The qualities intrinsic to God are one in God, yet many in our perception. In their unity they reveal God’s singular character and personality. In their variety they allow us to behold and praise various aspects of the divine activity, and to name the one God by different names using guarded metaphors. “The diverse names we give to God are not synonyms, for they convey diverse meanings, though everything is one in his reality” (Tho. Aq., Compend. 25, TAPT: 94). The beauty of God’s holiness blends all attributes into a single unified effulgence of the divine glory (Ps. 29:2; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit).

Classic Christian teachers warned against emphasizing one attribute at the expense of another. A good person will manifest good behavior. That behavior varies in situations where different responses are called for. God is the infinitely good One with the most varied conceivable qualities that are wonderfully unified in the divine character (Hilary, On Trin. 4.15:71–75; Anselm, Monologium 17; Wesley, Sermons, “The Unity of the Divine Being”). God’s perfectly integrated character is precisely the appropriate balance of these excellences or insurmountably good qualities (sometimes rendered “perfections” Tho. Aq., ST 1, Q19). As history unfolds there may be one occasion when one of the attributes (such as justice or holiness) may seem to the believing community to be relatively more recognizable or dominant; at another time another attribute (eternality or mercy) may come more clearly into view. But regardless of which attribute may be recognizable at any given moment, all attributes are unified in an appropriate integration in the eternal being of God. What appears to be divided within a temporal perspective is simple and united in God (Hilary Trin. 7.1; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q13.4, Calvin, Inst. 1.13; Chemnitz, LT 1.43).

The history of theism is plagued by mistakes caused by overemphasizing a single one or set of attributes while neglecting others. Aristotle stressed God’s absolute essence, aseity (underived existence), self-contemplation, transcendence, and immutability, yet failed to grasp God’s relationality, closeness, and covenant love toward humanity. Kant rightly grasped God’s justice as it impinges upon human reason and conscience but did not fully acknowledge God’s mercy, grace, and power. Wieman understood God’s relationality but did not sufficiently affirm God’s sovereign freedom (Aristotle, Metaphy.; Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphy of Morals; H. N. Wieman, Source of the Human Good).

A healthy equilibrium in the Christian teaching of God grows as the faithful become firmly grounded in the interpenetrating qualities of the divine attributes so as to not exaggerate one to the neglect of others (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q12, 1:48; Pearson, Apostles’ Creed: 40). Each attribute complements the others so that taken together the glory of God embraces and manifests all attributes in perfect tension, correspondence, and complementarity (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 6; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q15, Q31). All the attributes fitting to God are united and inseparable in God’s being.

Scripture shows how God’s name (hence character) is known precisely through events in which God’s activity has been recognized and received by the community of faith. It is not an abstract idea or speculation that God is incomparably just, good, powerful, and present. For God has revealed himself as such through historical activity, through the whole length of the divine-human encounter (Letter to Diognetus, 6–12; Athanasius, Ag. Heathen 38–40).

It is nonetheless possible to distinguish these attributes conceptually, even though in God’s unitary being they remain inseparable. For God’s presence, for example, is not the same as God’s knowing. Though distinguishable in language, they are united in God. God’s being is integral, self-congruent, expressing over time each of these distinguishable attributes.

In God, to be is to be incomparably strong. To be God is to be unfailingly merciful. No single characteristic can be viewed independently, as if separable from the rest. God is not at one moment unmercifully strong and at another moment unwisely omnipotent. God is always mercifully strong and wisely omnipotent. Nor is God at one time just, at another time loving, and at another time all-knowing. God’s whole being, inclusive of all attributes, is present in each of the discrete attributes that faith recognizes and celebrates. God is fully and simultaneously all these attributes, and more than any language could attribute (Novatian, On Trin. 2, Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 5). This notion is interwoven with faith’s affirmation of God’s simplicity. God is not divided up into our petty conceptions of God’s attributes. In all attributes, God is, and remains, simply and completely God (John of Damascus, OF 1.9; Hilary, On Trin. 9.1; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q3; Calvin, Inst. 1.10.3).

The Biblical Revelation of the Character of God

In Hebraic religion, God is known by what God does. What God does is remembered and recollected as history—the history of God’s encounter with humanity. In these encounters, God is remembered as having a definable, discernible character by those whom God has met: “He made known his ways to Moses and his acts to the people of Israel” (Ps. 103:7; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.9). It is through that story of God’s actions that we come to say something in language about God’s character, reliability, and personhood (Julia of Norwich, SGL 6; Calvin, Inst. 1.8).

The ways of this One are disclosed for our enjoyment, celebration, salvation, and instruction (Pss. 25:4; 119:3). The Jewish-Christian study of God inquires into a history (the history of Israel and universal history) to get the picture of how God has become known (Deut. 5:6). Yet history is a highly complex cacophony of many generations of human experience. It seems virtually impossible to condense all that experience into a single, central, revealing insight or meaning. Yet in the events surrounding the ministry of Jesus, Christianity understands and proclaims that God has become self-disclosed so as to reveal the inner meaning, direction, and end of universal history (Augustine, CG 16–18).

The biblical history resists systematization. Yet since the Bible wishes to address each hearer as a whole person, it invites and requires that each believer seek to bring its loose ends together, to listen for its unity, and to try to see it integrally. It calls for systematic, cohesive thinking about its varied events and messages. History does not readily lend itself to systematic statement or definition, yet Christian teaching rightly persists in modestly seeking internal consistency and clear definition concerning God’s self-disclosure in history (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 6; John of Damascus, OF 4.17).

Whether or in what sense God “exists” must indeed remain a major concern of Christian apologetics, which seeks to make God plausible to those who do not participate in the community of faith. But biblical writers were far more concerned with polytheism than with atheism, and with idolatry than with formal theism. Their central problem was not whether God is, but rather who God is (Gen. 28:10–22; Ps. 20:1; Isa. 9:6; Jerome, Comm. on Is. 3.9.16–17).

What is the character of God? To Whom do we address our prayers? What sort of language can one ascribe to this transcendent reality? (Exod. 3:13–16; Gregory of Nazianzus, Theol. Orat. 4.18). If God has become self-revealed in history, just as human beings make themselves known by their self-disclosure, what kind of character can we say God has? (Gen. 22:1–18; Gen. 37–50).

The Role of Doubt in Faith

There is still room for doubt in biblical faith. The exodus wanderers were subjected to despair and anxiety that God might not fulfill his promises (“Is the Lord in our midst or not?” Exod. 17:7). Jeremiah complained that God was like a deceitful wadi, as if God occasionally came in like rain on the desert and swept everything away, and then did not appear for a long while (Jer. 15:16). Job was tormented by questions about the fairness of God and the remoteness of God (Gregory I, Morals on Job 9.27–28).

Some say, “God has forgotten; he has hidden his face and has seen nothing” (Ps. 10:11; Jer. 5:12). Doubts of this type are intensely present in key moments reported by Scripture, but they have emerged precisely out of a radical sense of the sovereignty of God and the providential presence of the almighty God—precisely because God has appeared at some points in history.

Worshipers who today experience profound doubts about God can at least know that they belong to a community whose greatest minds have from time to time experienced such doubts (Job 3:1; Jer. 2:4–37; Augustine, Conf. 2.9).

Knowing God by Negation and by Analogy

God is known by stating what God is not, and by stating what God most surely is. This involves two ways of reasoning: by limiting and by heightening. These two ways are among the most recurrent of classic Christian attempts to speak clearly of God according to the ecumenical consensus:

the way of negation (via negativa)

the way of heightening or intensifying (via eminentiae).

In order to prepare the way for speaking discretely in these two ways, it is first necessary to show how analogies may function prudently in theological reasoning—how they are used and sometimes abused.

The Usefulness of Analogy

The self-constrained use of analogy has helped Christian teaching think in a disciplined way about the qualities characteristic of God. The proper use of analogy is distinguished from rigid, univocal language which allows only a single meaning to a word. Analogy is also distinguished from evasive, ambiguous, uncertain language called equivocation. Equivocal language too loosely allows words to have multiple meanings and thereby makes definite statements impossible. Finding the path on the high ground between these two gullies is the modest task of thinking cautiously by analogy.

Every language has the word good or its equivalent in its vocabulary. All users of the word good know that there are degrees of goodness. When Christian teachers have cautiously applied this ordinary human word (good) to God, they have applied it cautiously by analogy, i.e., by some proportional comparison to what we know to be like human goodness, remaining aware that God’s goodness is also vastly unlike human goodness (Gregory of Nyssa, Ag. Eunomius 11.1, 2). Although God is insurmountably good, we know that even our best conceptions of goodness do not do full justice to the infinitely wise, eternal goodness of God. We do well to avoid using the word good univocally, as if the word had only one strict meaning that applied in exactly the same way to our goodness and God’s goodness (Novatian, On Trin. 2). Yet in avoiding this extreme we must not bend so far as to apply language too ambiguously or equivocally, which would suppose that human goodness is in every respect different from God’s goodness. In this case we would equivocate on two completely different meanings of the word good. Rather, we rely upon a constrained analogy (which is neither univocal nor equivocal) that says that God’s goodness is in some ways akin to and in other ways distinct from what we know of human goodness (Luke 13:18–21; Maximus of Turin, Sermon 2.2; Tho. Aq.; ST 1 Q13, 1:59; Calvin, Inst. 4.17.21, 32).

A prudent analogy proportionally compares God’s insurmountable goodness with our limited but real goodness, so that what we know of human goodness is in some sense really correlated, though modestly and self-critically, with what we know about God. Thus we can say with some confidence, in recollecting the history of language about the divine-human encounter, that God is good, although God’s goodness is not to be finally constricted univocally in terms of our limited, culturally shaped, class-oriented conceptions of goodness (Origen, OFP 2.5; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q6, I). Analogy is a most important intellectual tool in Christian teaching, yet is best used modestly and self-critically.

God transcends every human picture of God. Though God is sufficiently revealed to the apostles in Christ, much remains as yet unrevealed: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9; Isa. 64:4). Neither the way of negation or of analogy reveals how the divine is perceived from God’s own perspective. That is impossible to state, since the only competent perceiver is God.

The Christian community proceeds on the confident assumption that the ultimate Source and End of being desires to become known by us. For this reason God is becoming intentionally revealed to us: “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). Now I see from within the frail limitations of human perception, listening, intelligence, intuition, language, and egocentric willing. But I live in hope that a full disclosure awaits the end of history in a way that will be consistent with what we know of the Father through the Son (Origen, De Princip. 1. 6; Augustine, CG 22.29).

Clarifying What God Is Not: The Negative Way

Classic Christianity has found it easier to say what God is not than what God is. There are two major, complementary ways that classical theism has found to attribute human, descriptive language to God: The first is by constantly saying No: “God is not this, not that, not anything finite, limited, dependent, caused, or created.”

This is the negative way (via negativa) of reasoning toward God. This way seeks to form an appropriate idea of the greatness of God by removing from thought and language everything that would make God small or limited, or less wise or less holy than we already know God to be.

We know with certainty that there are some things that God clearly is not, such as air, earth, fire, and water, fireflies, comets, and buzzards (although God may at some time be metaphorically described as something like any of these). The negative way tries to trim from our language about God all those words that imply limitation and imperfection (Dionysius, Myst. Theol. 2). Thomas wrote: “What manner of being God is not may be known by eliminating characteristics that cannot apply to him, such as composition, change, and so forth” (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q3).

This is the simpler, and probably more ancient, way to speak safely of God without misrepresentation. Rooted in a long tradition influenced by Greek, Talmudic, and patristic thought, Philo, Dionysius, and Maimonides have been among the most influential exponents of the negative way, which has doggedly argued: “God is not like that.” “God is more than that.” In fact, God is not anything to which one can point objectively, for God is no object. In this way one can derive some reliable knowledge of God (if only by negation), in the sense that one can know what God is not (Dionysius, Myst. Theol. 2, 3).

Even on this narrow basis it is surprising the extent to which classic writers could speak of God. For if it is apparent that God is not anything finite, then one may speak rightly of God’s infinity, ruling out from the reference to God anything that is limited, countable, and measurable. If one can know that God is not visible, then we can speak of God’s invisibility, ruling out from the being of God anything capable of being seen or objectified. Insofar as God is not circumscribed by any particular space or restricted to the changing temporal order, it is possible to speak of God as immeasurable and immutable. These prefixes beginning with in or im or un (implying negation) therefore may help clarify many characteristics of the divine life: incomprehensible, incorporeal, immeasurable, immortal, immutable, and infinite. All belong to the negative way, where we sing: “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.”

Psalm 139 fittingly declared the personally present transcendence of God exceeding all our categories of understanding:

O Lord, you have searched me, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? (Ps. 139:1–7)

Apart from the incarnation, there is in God no finitude, no temporal restriction, no limited locality. There are no limits to God’s knowledge of the world and humanity. There is no way to escape the presence of the living God. God knows our human downsittings and uprisings, actions and movements. God is acquainted with our habits, ways, plans, and despairs. If at times we may deceive our fellow creatures, we cannot deceive this One.

To speak rightly of God, we must first rule out all conceptions that imply limitation. The negative way attempts to do this in a disciplined and deliberate way. It is a way of knowing what God is not, which becomes an important avenue toward reliable but limited knowledge of who God is (Novatian, On Trin. 4–8; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q12).

The Way of Heightening: Attributions from Proximate Creaturely Perfections

The other way of thinking analogically is classically called the way of heightening or eminence (Latin: via eminentiae). Unlike the negative way, it does not remove comparisons, but offers language to show that God is like the best we can envision. God is the eminent or highest degree of the most perfect things we know (Dionysius the Areopagite, Myst. Theol. 3; Hollaz, ETA: 190; Gerhard, LT 3:86). This way of reasoning proceeds by comparing God with desirable qualities of creatures which are already known and universally conceded to be good, great, noble, just, or worthy of adoration. We compare God with the observed excellence of powers and virtues we regard as most highly valued and adored. This positive way proceeds by intensifying observed human excellences to their highest conceivable degree and positing them of God (Augustine, CG 11.24).

The way of eminence beholds something that we know to be good and attributes that correspond in their fullest dimension or proportion to God (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q5, 6). The argument begins by looking at limited creaturely things, interpersonal relationships, ourselves, and our societies. There we see striking evidences of justice, goodness, beauty, and other excellent qualities. By this means we come to speak of God as the fullest measure of the best that we know, even if known in an imperfect way (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 6.4–9). Note that we are not here referring to immanence (to indwell, from in manere), but to eminence as height.

Who does not know what it means to be treated unjustly? Everyone implicitly knows this about justice: It is better to be treated fairly than unfairly. In this way God becomes conceivable as that One who is fair in the highest degree imaginable, that is, perfectly just (Acts 7:52; Anselm, Monologium; Tho. Aq., ST 2–2ae Q58).

The Supremely Good Being: From Degrees of Goodness

This positive way of reasoning by height (eminence) can be illustrated in the term Supreme Good, by picturing a scale of degrees of excellence:

  1. Better than the best we know
  2. The best we know
  3. Known by general consent to be something good
  4. Known to be lacking in some good
  5. Lacking good altogether

Anyone can see that 4 is better than 5, and that 3 is not as good as 2. But is there a distinction between 1 and 2? If you answer 1 is better than 2, you have made a theological decision: Something is better than the best we know. This is what Christian theistic reasoning has meant by the way of eminence: the attribution to God of the height of goods and perfections, analogous to what is in part known, but beyond complete knowing (Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q12).

Traditionally the term perfections of God has been reserved to those qualities that intrinsically belong to the divine essence. Divine attributes are qualities that our language attributes to God that seek to do proximate justice to the divine perfections (Didymus the Blind, Comm. on 1 John 4.12; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q4).

This attribution of language is not in itself a mystery. It is an ordinary fact of human speech. Degrees of goodness are recognizable in all human experience. Everyone knows how to say better or worse in their own native language. Though we may disagree on how to rank some created good, no one is foolish enough to deny that there is a difference between some things that are fairly good, some a little better, some really and invariably good, and some are indescribably good, even beyond our imagination. God belongs to the highest category in the scale.

The Supreme Being: Reasoning from Degrees of Being

This same positive way of reasoning “by heightening” (eminence) can also be illustrated in the term Supreme Being by picturing a scale of degrees of conscious participation in being:

  1. That which most completely is and always will be
  2. Human life, consciousness, and freedom
  3. Animal life, limited consciousness, and movement
  4. Plant life, vegetative growth, and reproductive life
  5. Lifeless, inorganic matter
  6. That which never has been
  7. That which never has been or can be

Anyone can easily see that 6 participates in the fullness of being less than 5, and that 3 does not share in being as fully as 2. But is there a distinction between 1 and 2? If you answer that 1 more completely exists than 2, you have made a theological decision: Something can be conceived which is, as Anselm famously said: “That than which nothing greater can be conceived” (Proslogion 1). This is what Christian theistic reasoning has meant by the way of eminence applied to being, or that which most is. The argument ascribes to God of the height of being, even if it is beyond what we can know within our form of being in time (Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Oration, 1; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q12).

Begin reflecting at the bottom of the scale: Some things can be imagined that never can be, and have never been. Others could have been but were not. Some things participate in being at a very low level of awareness. The capacity for plants to participate interactively in their environments is greater than that capacity of rocks, yet rocks are participants in being in an important sense, inasmuch as they last much longer than plants, even though without life. Human intelligence is far more capable of self-consciously participating in being than is instinctual animal consciousness.

By analogy it is reasonable to posit another reality at the apex of the scale: One who insurmountably is more than anything else thinkable, who more fully shares in being, grounds being and embraces all being. This One is more fully than any other being, and is more fully conscious of being than any other conceivable being. To posit that One who supremely is, by the way of heightening or eminent thinking, is to reliably know, learn, and affirm something about God: God supremely is (i.e., Supremely Being, or the Supreme Being). For how is it reasonable to have a scale of degrees of perfection without also positing the apex of that scale? Leaving it blank does not solve this dilemma. The scale itself requires that it be completed, with null at one end and infinity at the other end, with nonbeing at one end and supreme being at another end; otherwise the scale itself is defective and incomplete (Augustine, Trin. 5.16.17; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q4, 5, 12).

I AM as God’s Name in Hebrew Scripture

This is an appropriate point at which to note that, rightly understood, the word being (cognate with the direct name “I AM”) is a more intensive word than the flat word existence (even in English, but more so in its Hebraic, Greek, and Latin roots). Existence, as its root meaning (existere) suggests, includes an ex, a standing-out, a coming out of being into definite manifestations. Existence requires a “standing” (sistere) “out from” (ex) being. The English language has to stretch in order to say that being in this sense may be thought of as the ground of existing, but the Greek and Latin terms that were familiar to the early church teachers made this point more transparent. For one cannot exist (stand out) without something to stand upon (being), just as one cannot subsist (stand firm, from sub + sistere) without having something (being, esse) to support one’s subsistence.

Even in modern speech, existing seems a less full term than being, and “merely to exist” less weighty than “to be.” One would never render Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” by saying, “To exist or not to exist.” In English we freely use both terms (being and existence) interchangeably of God, for it is no less fitting to say that God exists than that God has being or simply is. But God is (sing it fortissimo: IS) more fully, completely than any creature could be. Thus the term existence does not pertain to God in precisely the same way that it pertains to creatures. For God is—immeasurably, necessarily, and eternally—whereas creatures exist measurably, contingently, and temporally (Tertullian, Against Marcion, 1.3.; Tho. Aq., ST 1 Q2; SCG 1. 13). Hebrew Scriptures did not use terms like God’s essence or substance, but they did speak often of God as Yahweh (the incomparable “I AM”), the One who insurmountably is.

The Sequence of Attributes

We now turn from preparing the way to speak to speaking clearly and descriptively of God’s attributes: How might the characteristics of the divine life be properly ordered into a whole mosaic that brings them fittingly together, or into a sequential argument that moves from one point to another?

The most satisfactory classical classification distinguishes four types of attributes of God: primary, relational, interpersonal, and moral attributes. These four are (a) those attributes that belong to God’s essence apart from God’s creative work; (b) those that arise necessarily out of the relation of God with the created order; (c) those that arise out of personal and interpersonal analogies, inasmuch as the revelation of God is personal, and human beings, the recipients of revelation, are persons; and (d) those that arise necessarily out of the relation of free personal beings capable of moral choices.

These four levels may be distinguished as follows:

  1. The primary or essential attributes (sometimes called absolute, incommunicable, quiescent, or prerelational) are intrinsic to God prior to any possible connection or relation with creatures.
  2. The relational attributes (sometimes called relative, communicable, operative, or postrelational) are also intrinsic to God, but can only be conceived in relation with creatures in time and space.
  3. The interpersonal and personal attributes are also intrinsic to God, but can be conceived only by analogies from personal existence and from interpersonal excellences.
  4. The moral attributes (sometimes called axiological—value based, or areteological—virtue based, or teleological—purpose based), like all attributes, are intrinsic to God, but these may be conceived only in the moral sphere of a relationship between responsible and free beings.

These four levels will be set forth in the next two chapters (primary and relational in Chapter 2, and personal and moral in Chapter 3).

Some arrangement or organization is required. It is not aesthetically, psychologically, or logically satisfactory merely to list the attributes alphabetically or arbitrarily. Scripture itself does not provide a specific or definitive order, although it does provide terms that tend to fall into a certain sequence that reason can reflect upon, aesthetically arrange, and logically place in symmetrical order. The sequence that will follow is derived not from any single classic Christian biblical teacher but from many in combination, which ecumenical teaching seeks to harmonize. Most important are the ordered discussions of divine attributes by Novatian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, and John of Damascus. Their teaching helps provide a way of looking synoptically at the characteristics of the divine life.

This organization of terms provides key building blocks for a preliminary clarification of the meaning of the biblical name Yahweh Elōhimagem, or the Lord God, to whom Christian worship is addressed. This classification seeks to be consistent with scriptural priorities and church tradition, rational in its conception and sequence, meaningful to experience, and aesthetically appropriate to a sense of rational design:

Attributes of God

No conceptualization of God, however careful, can be adequate to its incomparable Subject (Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible, 3.1). Even if God is revealed, yet God may have characteristics that remain unknown to us. Nevertheless, though our knowledge of God’s attributes is admittedly incomplete, that limitation does not dislodge the confidence of Christian teaching that the revelation of God in Scripture is sufficient for salvation. The worshiping community affirms that whatever characteristics God has that remain unknown must be in harmony with what God has made known and accessible through the history of revelation, the historical experience of the believing community, and rational reflection.