If not, you might want to check out this infographic which attempts to quickly organize some of the basic attributes of God as revealed in scripture. While nothing like this is perfect, it’s an interesting few minutes to peruse.
Today’s question: Which of these do you find most interesting, or comforting, or surprising, or exciting?
Use that comment box…
This is good money! I am reading grudems book for my intro to Christian theology class. I’ve been thinking a lot about Incommunicable and communicable attributes… Do you think that it’s important to make that distinction between the two? Can’t we group all the attributes of God into one main category? Do you agree with how grudem does this distinction?
I think it took my aback for a second that “wrath” was an attribute of God. Everything else on that list sounds really nice. I mean, I know in a lot of the world and in a lot of churches even, maybe that’s the attribute that’s most “pressed”- but I didn’t really grow up under that. And even with the recent Rob Bell controversy- it really made me face- do I really believe that the Bible teaches that “wrath” is an attribute of God. And I know it does, because God is holy, and sin cannot be in His presence and must be judged- and I’m a sinner- and it makes Jesus’ coming so much more an act of love that He would send His son to take on that wrath that I deserve. It’s overwhelming.
At first I thought, “of course!” But then I thought, “Wait, that’s an interesting question…” Now I’m thinking about it. Will get back to you…
I also find myself loving that one attribute of God is beauty. I believe that humans are created to be fascinated by beauty and since God is the source of all beauty, we look at the beauty of creation and see the beauty of our Creator, fulfilling our life’s purpose…why do we, why do I look for other sources of beauty when I am designed to look at the provided beauty of God though His Son?!!
Tiffany– good call with your thoughts on his wrath. We avoid that one so much. Grudem explains that his wrath is that He intensely hates sin. So we avoid this attribute because we like our sin…a lot.
I am not sure why I am writing on here. The title caught my eye, on facebook. Anyways, while I was reading the post and comments I thought to myself, “are these ways of talking about god helpful?” Let me explain myself: religious groups- generally- struggle with change; they tend to be static, for obvious reasons (sorry, obvious is probably the worst word, but i’m using it anyway). Yet humanity, and their language, is more dynamic than that. To use a classic example, (something strikes me in the wrong way about using the word classic, but again I dont have too much time to worry about that right now) for reasons (which there are quite a few), some christians still use the King James bible and might even tell you that it is the “best” bible. Well, “best” for what? I agree that, it is beautiful to read. However, language has not stood still since the 17th century (?), and so it is not necessarily the “best” bible. People want their bibles to sound and feel like “the bible” as it is in their tradition. They want that “meaty” theological jargon, and black leather. Yet, if you were to travel back to the first century (old time machine argument) and have a conversation with Jesus about justification…well, you wouldn’t, justification is not a word he would have used (nor would you call him “Jesus”, he wouldnt answer to it). So is the goal to sound really “biblical” about theology? If anyone was “biblical” it must have been Jesus, so shouldnt we talk like him? well, that would require us speaking hebrew, or greek, or whatever else he might have spoken in (maybe latin, aramaic). Ahh, but does that make that entire language more “biblical” because it is used in the bible (which oddly is like calling christian rock music “christian”, no its rock n roll..period, it doesnt become christian music, just as much as greek does not become the christian language)? Now we might start asking, what in the world does “biblical” mean anyway. Usually, in my opinion, when a word is used over and over (biblical, worldview, etc.) it usually is a word that passes through us without thought. We begin to be more robotic, more static, more dead, rather than alive, and dynamic. One might think this would be obvious with all the jabs that are taken toward Catholicism for having readings in latin, and the bible for the people type stuff. Would we be imaging god as uncreative humans?
well, I need to cut this short. thoughts? If you want to email me, since I may not check this blog as frequently as my email.: tud54286@temple.edu.
Yo Joel, good to “hear”you! This reminds me of other conversations we’ve had… Anyway, it seems like this is a kind of critique of both (the idea of) the graphic and the use of words like “aseity.” And in that, personally, I agree with you–if things like charts and words become calcified formulas we use to talk about God instead of knowing Him, then, yeah, not good. Not sure about what you’re getting at with the KJV aside though…of course Jesus wouldn’t have said “Justification,” but would he have said “dikaiow”? (Unless he didn’t speak greek.) Not sure why we’d be uncool with using translations of words to convey ideas in our own language. Also not sure why we wouldn’t use “meaty” words to carry lots of freight around in a few letters, all the while teaching people all the huge packages that are contained within. I say, let’s help people create mental categories, fill them with living meaning, and help them think bigger thoughts than they’ve ever thought before. Big, biblical thoughts about God. It seems your main point is at the end–sure, if we’re just trying to “sound” theological, if we lack any living connection to God’s Spirit, if we’re dead inside and fake outside, then we’ll get robotic and static. (Good words.) But if not, then we’ll use all kinds of different words and phrases and shorthands, along with hours-long discussions where we use none of those things, to convey truth. If we couldn’t do that, wouldn’t we have to recite the whole Bible any time we wanted to say anything about God? The main issue to me seems to be: “Are we really alive to Him?” Then, especially if we’ve never thought about something like how self-sufficient God is (something I’m sure Jesus would have conversed about), a little chart with the word “aseity” might help us get excited about a God who doesn’t need anything from us. You agree?
Here’s a stab at a thought on this. Yes, I think it would be fine to say we can group all God’s attributes together when we speak of Him simply for who He is. In some sense He is this One Big Whole… How could you “divide” Him? All we can identify and describe of Him is partial, and since we’re finite we can take only one perspective at a time, so we end up with these different words we use to call these perspectives “attributes.” But it’s all just Him.
But then, when we talk about how we relate to Him we get into how we are in His image…and now we need to see how we may be like Him and how we may not. And those ways we can never be like Him, while they may seem obvious, can be helpful to remember as we seek to glorify Him yet remain humble.
Christians are ever growing in God-likeness, but never in those attributes of which God would say, “That”–“I will not give to another.”
I believe it was Grudem that helped me understand that God can never be just without also being completely loving while bringing forth that justice, or wrathful without being completely good. Also, Gary Habermas has an excellent teaching from the conference message he did at Calvary with the A-B-C formula for grief. The divide indeed helps us communicate but he’s all one trinity.