The attributes of God are specific characteristics of God discussed in Christian theology. These include omniscience (the ability to know everything), omnipotence (the ability to do anything), and omnipresence (the ability to be present everywhere), which emphasize the infinite and transcendent nature of God. Additionally, God is often described as eternal (without beginning or end) and immutable (unchangeable), indicating a constant and perfect existence.
Other attributes include holiness (moral purity), rectitude (righteousness), justice (fairness), love (compassionate care for creation), mercy (forgiveness and kindness), and goodness (benevolent will toward others). God is also described as sovereign over creation.
These attributes provide a framework for understanding how God is perceived to interact with the world and humanity, forming the basis for various theological doctrines. In Reformed theology, God's attributes are often distinguished between those that can be shared with humans (such as love and justice) and those that cannot (such as omnipotence and omnipresence).
Classification Many Reformed theologians distinguish between the communicable attributes (those that human beings can also have) and the incommunicable attributes (those that belong to God alone).Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1979. Donald Macleod, however, argues that "All the suggested classifications are artificial and misleading, not least that which has been most favoured by Reformed theologians – the division into communicable and incommunicable attributes."Donald Macleod, Behold Your God (Christian Focus Publications, 1995), 20–21.
Many of these attributes say what God is not – for example, saying he is immutable is saying that he does not change. According to Deirdre Carabine,
Apophatic theology is the opposite equivalent of cataphatic theology (also known as affirmative theology), which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is. In line with the cataphatic, the attributes of God may be classified under two main categories: His infinite powers. His personality attributes, like holiness and love.
Millard Erickson calls these categories God's greatness and goodness respectively.Millard Erickson, Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1985.
Sinclair Ferguson distinguishes "essential" divine attributes, which "have been expressed and experienced in its most intense and dynamic form among the three persons of the Trinity—when nothing else existed." In this way, the wrath of God is not an essential attribute because it had "no place in the inner communion among the three persons of the eternal Trinity." Ferguson notes that it is, however, a manifestation of God's eternal righteousness, which is an essential attribute.
The theology of the attributes and nature of God has been discussed since the earliest days of Christianity, with Irenaeus writing in the 2nd century: "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all things". In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes which remain widely accepted. As time passed, Christian theologians developed systematic lists of these attributes, some based on statements in the Bible (e.g., the Lord's Prayer, stating that the Father is in Heaven), others based on theological reasoning including the 1251 list of the Fourth Lateran Council, which was then adopted at Vatican I in 1870 and the Westminster Shorter Catechism in the 17th century.
According to John of Damascus
In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes for God in his An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book 1, chapter 8). These eighteen attributes were divided into four groups based on time (such as being everlasting), space (such as being boundless), matter or quality and the list continues to be influential to date, partially appearing in some form in various modern formulations.
According to Aquinas In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas focused on a shorter list of just eight attributes, namely simplicity, perfection, goodness, incomprehensibility, omnipresence, immutability, eternity and oneness. In Aquinas' thought, Battista Mondin distinguishes between entitative attributes and personal attributes of the subsistent being that is God.
Entitative attributes concerns God as regards to the fact that in Him essence and existence coincide. They are: infinity, simplicity, indivisibility, uniqueness, immutability, eternity, and spirituality (meaning absence of matter).
Personal attributes of God are life (fullness, beatitude, perfection), thought, will and freedom, love and friendship. The object of the thinking and will of God is God Himself, so to speak, His essence, since He is the Highest Good and the perfection of all perfections. But God also addresses His thought and His will towards humans for their own good.
Enumeration The Westminster Shorter Catechism's definition of God is an enumeration of his attributes: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question and Answer 4. This answer has been criticised, however, as having "nothing specifically Christian about it."James B. Jordan, "What is God?," Biblical Horizons Newsletter, No. 82. The Westminster Larger Catechism adds certain attributes to this description, such as "all-sufficient," "incomprehensible," "every where present" and "knowing all things".Westminster Larger Catechism, Question and Answer 7.
Hick suggests that when enumerating the attributes of God, the starting point should be his self-existence ("aseity") which implies his eternal and unconditioned nature. Hick goes on to consider the following additional attributes: Creator being the source of all that composes his creation () and the sustainer of what he has brought into being; personal; loving, good; and holy. Berkhof also starts with self-existence but moves on to immutability; infinity, which implies perfection eternity and omnipresence; unity. He then analyses a series of intellectual attributes: knowledge-omniscience; wisdom; veracity and then, the moral attributes of goodness (including love, grace, mercy and patience); holiness and righteousness before dealing finally with his sovereignty.
Aseity (self-existence) The aseity of God means "God is so independent that he does not need us."D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), 1996. It is based on , where it says that God "is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything" (NIV). This is often related to God's self-existence and his self-sufficiency.
Eternity The eternity of God concerns his existence beyond time. Drawing on verses such as ("Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God"), Wayne Grudem states that, "God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time."Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 168. The expression "Alpha and Omega" also used as a title of God in the Book of Revelation. God's eternity may be seen as an aspect of his infinity, discussed below.
Goodness The goodness of God means that "God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval."Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 197. Many theologians consider the goodness of God as an overarching attribute – Louis Berkhof, for example, sees it as including kindness, love, grace, mercy and longsuffering.Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 70–72. The idea that God is "all good" is called his omnibenevolence.
Critics of Christian conceptions of God as all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful cite the presence of evil in the world as evidence that it is impossible for all three attributes to be true; this apparent contradiction is known as the problem of evil. The evil God challenge is a thought experiment that explores whether the hypothesis that God might be evil has symmetrical consequences to a good God, and whether it is more likely that God is good, evil, or non-existent.
Graciousness The graciousness of God is a key tenet of Christianity. In , it is part of the Name of God, "Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God". The descriptive of God in this text is, in Jewish tradition, called the "Thirteen Attributes of Mercy".Middot, Shelosh-'Esreh". Jewish Encyclopedia.
Holiness The holiness of God is that he is separate from sin and incorruptible. Noting the refrain of "Holy, holy, holy" in and , R. C. Sproul points out that "only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree... The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory."R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Scripture Press Foundation, 1986), p. 38.
Immanence The immanence of God refers to him being in the world. It is thus contrasted with his transcendence, but Christian theologians usually emphasise that the two attributes are not contradictory. To hold to transcendence but not immanence is deism, while to hold to immanence but not transcendence is pantheism. According to Wayne Grudem, "the God of the Bible is no abstract deity removed from, and uninterested in his creation".Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 267. Grudem goes on to say that the whole Bible "is the story of God's involvement with his creation", but highlights verses such as , "in him we live and move and have our being".
Immutability Immutability means God cannot change. refers to the "Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (NIV). Herman Bavinck notes that although the Bible talks about God changing a course of action, or becoming angry, these are the result of changes in the heart of God's people (Numbers 14.) "Scripture testifies that in all these various relations and experiences, God remains ever the same."Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, p. 146. Millard Erickson calls this attribute God's constancy.
The immutability of God is being increasingly criticized by advocates of open theism,D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, p. 63. which argues that God is open to influence through the prayers, decisions, and actions of people. Prominent adherents of open theism include Clark Pinnock, Thomas Jay Oord, John E. Sanders and Gregory Boyd.
Impassibility The doctrine of the impassibility of God is a controversial one.James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White (eds.), Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009. It is usually defined as the inability of God to suffer, while recognising that Jesus, who is believed to be God, suffered in his human nature. The Westminster Confession of Faith says that God is "without body, parts, or passions". Although most Christians historically (saint Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin being examples) take this to mean that God is "without emotions whether of sorrow, pain or grief", some people interpret this as meaning that God is free from all attitudes "which reflect instability or lack of control."Rowland S. Ward, The Westminster Confession for the Church Today, 27. Robert Reymond says that "it should be understood to mean that God has no bodily passions such as hunger or the human drive for sexual fulfillment."Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (2nd ed., Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 179.