Q4. What is God?

A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

There are several ways to classify the attributes of God in a study of systematic theology. The way that I find most helpful is a way that one can discern even in this short answer. That is a division between the incommunicable attributes of God and the communicable attributes. Now this is not a neat and tidy division, as we will see. However, they are generally helpful. W. G. T. Shedd gives a helpful definition of these: 

“The incommunicable attributes are those that belong to God exclusively, so that there is nothing resembling them in a created spirit. They admit no degrees, but are divine by their very nature. Such are self-existence, simplicity, infinity, eternity, immutability. The communicable attributes are those which are possessed in a finite degree, more or less, by men and angels.”1 

Whatever way one classifies the attributes of God, one thing we must not do is to make a division between those attributes that belong to God’s being, and then others that belong to his relationship to things (yet still inside himself). Classical theologians have divided between the essence of God (ad intra) and the works of God (ad extra); but we cannot begin talking like so many modern theologians do, as if God himself can be divided between those things that are essentially God and other things that God can will to be different in himself. 

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being

The influence of Calvin on the Westminster Assembly is evident here in the first two attributes listed. In his Institutes, the Genevan Reformer had only really unpacked two divine attributes in his section on God: 1. the spirituality of God and 2. the infinity of God. Some take this in the wrong way. This has been taken in recent decades to imply a rejection of scholastic theology and its speculative method working through all of what God must be like. While it is true that Calvin had quite a bit to say about the impertinence of theological speculation,2 there is a more plausible explanation of his own treatment. Anyone who takes the trouble to read the Institutes, on through, will see that what the Reformer is doing is making an argument against the Roman use of idols, namely of icons or images. And what does that have to do with the spirituality of God and the infinity of God? It is simply that divine spirituality and infinity are the two attributes most directly lied about in the confining of God to an image. In other words, Calvin was doing less systematic theology and more polemical theology at this point. 

What does it mean that God is spirit or “a Spirit”? Jesus had said this in John 4:24, “God is Spirit.” This text is not referring to the person of the Holy Spirit, but rather what belongs to the divine essence. So Watson gives us a good answer to what it means:

“By a spirit I mean, God is an immaterial substance, of a pure, subtile, unmixed essence, not compounded of body and soul, without all extension of parts. The body is a dreggish thing. The more spiritual God’s essence, the more noble and excellent it is.”3

Two other attributes that go together with this idea are divine immensity and omnipresence. Immensity belongs to God in his essence, whereas omnipresence is this same attribute in relation to creatures in space and time. Turretin says, “When God is said to ascend or descend, to go away or to come … it is not said with respect to his essence, but only to the absence or presence of his divine operations.”4 This is the fullness of divine spirituality: “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). 

“Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:23-24)

Now the concept of infinity we have in mind, when spoken of God, is that of limitless or boundless essence. Berkhof offers this as a concise definition: “The infinity of God is that perfection of God by which He is free from all limitations.”5 So “his greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3). Bavinck adds to all this, 

“When applied to time, God’s infinity is called eternity; when applied to space, it is called omnipresence … Infinity is not a negative but a positive concept: it means, not that God has no distinct being of his own, but that he is not limited by anything finite and creaturely.”6

So in other words, infinity is not fundamentally about number, but of essence. Hodge is in agreement that this idea of limitlessness of being makes infinity “a positive idea”7 and not merely a negation. Now the negation comes in its application to time, space, knowledge, power, and so forth. Putting the concept of spirituality together with the concept of infinity, we are arrive at omnipresence only by relating that fullness of divine being to the creature. But some other things must be ruled out. So Hodge adds, “This of course is not to be understood of [as] extension or diffusion. Extension is a property of matter, and cannot be predicated of God. If extended, He would be capable of division and separation; and part of God would be here, and part elsewhere.” 8

“Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord? … To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” (Isa. 40:13, 18)

Likewise with the third attribute, eternity is not first a negation of time or a relation to time at all. Time is a relation to it, but not the other way around essentially speaking. What the Bible does in speaking of divine eternality is to place it in our setting for our immediate understanding. So, the Psalmist says, 

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (90:1-2). 

Some things are called “eternal” or “everlasting” in a secondary sense in Scripture. Most notably, there is that “eternal life” that God gives to his saints: “I give them eternal life” (Jn. 10:28); and “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (Jn. 5:24). Then there is “an everlasting covenant” (Gen. 17:7); and even things like “the everlasting hills” (Deut. 33:15). Clearly, then, not all senses of the eternal are the same. Even when we grasp that God alone has eternity in the most proper sense, a further qualification is required. Is God “in eternity,” or is eternity “in God,” or is all that is in God eternal? He uses language we can understand to build our minds up to see that all eternity is to be conceived as this answer says: in his Being. For instance, “I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am he” (Isa. 41:4); or else, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8; cf. 21:16; 22:13). You see that numerical ideas like “first and last” are meant to communicate that his life encompasses all else. 

Now the last attribute that belongs to the incommunicable mentioned here is that he is unchangeable. He is immutable. Not only does God not change, but he cannot change. According to Shedd this implies “the unchangeableness of [God’s] essence, attributes, purposes, and consciousness.”9  If we think about it, this also implies that both God’s incommunicable attributes and communicable attributes are unchangeable. And this further means that both God’s natural attributes and what we might terms his personal attributes are also unchangeable. He must have, as Charnock said, no “new nature, new thoughts, new will, new purpose, or new place.”10 So in the Scriptures: “I the LORD do not change” (Mal. 3:6). And He is called “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas. 1:17).  

“[The heavens] will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end (Ps. 102:26-27; cf. Heb. 1:11-12).

Taking divine immutability seriously puts us on a collision course with modern theology. For instance, to say that “All of God’s will is immutable” is the same as to say that “All of God’s decrees are immutable.” To put a finer point on it, that means that God’s determination to do all that he does cannot ever change: not by anything in time, not by anything in eternity. And lest anyone think this is unpractical, the Scriptures say that, “God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose” (Heb. 6:17). Elsewhere he says, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’ (Isa. 46:10), or again, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Ps. 33:11), and, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4), and finally, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num. 23:19)

God is wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Watson calls God’s wisdom “one of the brightest beams from the Godhead,” and he divides this wisdom under two heads: “1. His infinite intelligence. II. His exact working.”11 That all makes sense of the orderliness we see in the world. If it is said by any man that they have a better idea of how part of the world should be, such a finite mind is only borrowing from an order that must be. There is no reality to compare reality with but the one that is. So there can be no wisdom that is not first eternal. So “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the heavens” (Prov. 3:19). It is also seen in achieving the best purposes, as the Confession says about Providence, not only by the use of means, but also “without, above, and against” all of the various means. So a man is called wise who outwits his most crafty nemesis or against who overcomes all odds and obstacles. Paul speaks of God’s way of the cross along these lines: 

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:20-21).

Elsewhere Paul locates the place to find the essence of wisdom not only in Christ’s work on the cross, but in the whole person of the Word made flesh: “which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2-3).

Next there is divine power, or omnipotence. And if I may eliminate a cheap and famous objection from skeptics right off the top—no, God’s omnipotence does not demand, nor make sensible, that he can make a rock too heavy for himself to lift. C. S. Lewis gave a very helpful explanation of why that is:

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, ‘God can.’ It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”12

There are ways to break the logic of this down in a way that applies even more specifically to our skeptical friend who is so worried about that immoveable rock floating around in space. Since this is not a course on apologetics, we move on to what this omnipotence ought to make us consider. First, “power belongs to God” (Ps. 62:11). All other power in the universe is a motion set in motion by God’s might. God’s salvation is omnipotent; he is the “mighty one who will save” (Zeph. 3:17). God’s wrath is omnipotent; he cannot fail to execute his justice—“And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings and routed them” (Ps. 18:14). And yet this power is also infinite: “ Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14) In other words, there is no possible limit to his power. 

The holiness of God is not only his moral purity and brightness, but his transcendence. In other words, the holy is the special. It implies that God is to be conceived as completely separate from all else. All else is common in its essence, and in the fall profane and polluted. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). The holiness of God has implications for our doctrine, our worship, and our ethical life. He is incomparable because of this holiness: “Who is like you, majestic in holiness” (Ex. 15:11). He is to be worshiped for his holiness: “Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” (Ps. 99:5) We are to change the way we live because he is holy: “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). R. C. Sproul’s point is well taken, that of no other attribute does the Scripture attribute the threefold repetition,13 as it does in Isaiah 6:3 and in Revelation 4:8, “Holy, holy, holy.” Other things may participate in holiness. God may separate other things unto himself, and so call them holy. But only God is holy in himself: “For you alone are holy" (Rev. 15:4).

Watson interacts with a misgiving about how God’s holiness can relate to the existence of sin per se.

Objection 1. “But is he not privy to all the sins of men? How can he behold their impurities, and not be defiled?” [There it would seem that Watson’s interlocutor has a text like Habakkuk 1:13 in mind: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.”

Reply 1. “God sees all the sins of men, but is no more defiled with them than the sun is defiled with the vapors the rise from the earth. God sees sin, not as a patron to approve it, but as a judge to punish it.”14

A practical point follows: that holiness is that which separates God from sin, and light from darkness, so it is what separates the church from the world. It clearly distinguishes and thus holiness gives the gospel of Jesus Christ credibility where blending in does not. So we are told, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19).

When we look at divine justice we also have to bring in the associated word “righteousness.” In the Greek there is one word for these—the dikaio word group—whereas in the Hebrew there are two. That can throw us for a loop, and it can also be the source of great mischief. The words “just” and “justice” are roughly the same as “judgment” (מִשְׁפָט). So the idea of either rendering what is due or rectifying a situation to the way things ought to be—these are in view here. Watson offers this definition: “God’s justice is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal.”15 Now “righteousness” (צַדִיק) will sometimes also be translated as “justice,” or in the adjective form, “righteous” and “just” are used interchangeably. Naturally, the Scriptures can use them as twin pillars: “just and upright is he” (Deut. 32:4), or else, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne” (Ps. 89:14). 

Here we have an attribute of God that is recognized among the pagans. Some rule of what is right is the great need of any real ethical system. Every student of the typical college introductory course in philosophy will know of the Euthyphro Dilemma. The Christian will find himself ahead of the class here. What is the dilemma? As Socrates posed the problem to Euthyphro, “Is what is right ‘right’ because the gods say so. Or do the gods hold it ‘right’ because it really is?” The dilemma is as clear as day for the polytheists. If we answer the first way, it is arbitrary; and if the second, then the gods are not ultimate. But the next question is this: Why this is not a dilemma for the Christian concept of? Notice that the dilemma contains a hidden premise. It assumes that in order for the divine mind to be in conformity with an essence of justice that is as eternal, immaterial, and unchanging as that mind itself is, such a mind would have to look outside of itself. We get a sense of this in Plato’s “creation myth,” in the Timaeaus. In that dialogue, his idea of a ‘god,’ the Demiurgos, made the world according to the pattern of these eternal forms. This was the sort of idea that gave birth to the Euthyphro dilemma. Modern philosophy professors simply regurgitate this with seemingly no conception of how it does not apply to the Christian idea of God. But this justice of God is nothing less than rectitude with all that God is. Turretin distinguished between universal justice as it is essentially in God, versus particular justice “which gives to each his due.”16

To get a sense of the goodness of God one crucial text to begin with is Luke 18:18-25. Here the rich young ruler came to Jesus to know the way of eternal life. Contrary to the complaint of skeptics, Jesus was not denying his divinity here. Rather, he was deconstructing the young man’s very cavalier attitude to what all is good and what God really requires. He answers in this way:

“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said, ‘All these I have kept from my youth.’ When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’” (Lk 18:19–22).

Now what is really happening in this method of exposure by Jesus? ALL THESE THINGS—the young man boasted. ONE THING he lacked, said Jesus. But behind that was the clueless approach of the young man: GOOD TEACHER. Good this and good that. It was a very common way to approach a rabbi. But there is ONLY ONE GOOD. Can we detect a pattern?

As Lewis once said through the mouthpiece of the Professor in his Chronicles of Narnia, “It's all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”17 Now it took Augustine to really correct what Plato got wrong, but the insight that there must be an immaterial, immutable, and eternal form of all that is ultimate in order for our words to make sense is as true as any other truth. Goodness is first Being.

There is no sense in speaking of goodness as a great value and disposition to bless with what is good unless this were so. Such a definition would just be a big circle! Goodness is the heart to bless with goodness—but what is this good to begin with? You can see the problem. All that we call “good” is usually the reflection of the light of his goodness more than even the beams of light: “The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD” (Ps. 33:5). So good news and good fruit are good in the same way that a beautiful thing is “full” of beauty. That is, it is participating in the Form of what is essentially good. 

“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way” (Ps. 25:8). That God is good is what guarantees that what he seeks to bless with will indeed be for our betterment; but we cannot argue from what we think will better us to the Good. On the other hand, it is out of his goodness that explains his mercy and his kind and patient disposition toward the creature: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Ps 145:9). Brakel, Watson, and others include the mercy of God under this heading.

What does it mean that God is truth? We can understand that only he can explain truth. But in what sense is truth the very divine essence? Pilate asked insincerely, “What is truth?” (Jn. 18:38). Of course the One he was speaking to called himself the truth in John 14:6. But one definition of truth which will help us here is this: Truth is the quality of mind corresponding to being. Now, in a finite mind like the one we all have, that means that the thoughts in our minds correspond to the way reality actually is independent of our minds. But for God, there is no separation between the Divine Mind and the Divine Being. Mastricht divides the concept of God as truth into four parts: “(1) he is true (Jer. 10:10; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 John 5:20); (2) he does not know how to be deceived or how to deceive (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18); and in particular, (3) in his words, he is truthful, and thus they are truth (John 17:17); and likewise, (4) in his works, and thus all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps. 25:10; Rev. 15:3; 16:7). 

Two implications follow for our world. First, our notions of truth must be measured up against God’s absolute Truth: “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Rom. 3:4). Second, God never does anything that is not faithful and true. Or to put it another way, nothing in the works of God could ever contradict the character of God: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13).

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1. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2003), 275.

2. Calvin, Institutes, I.13.1.

3. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 45.

4. Turretin, Institutes, I.3.9.23. 

5. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1932), 59.

6. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:159, 160.

7. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, II.5.5.

8. Hodge, Systematic Theology, I.5.4

9. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 284.

10. Stephen Charnock. Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God, Volume I (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1979), 317.

11. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 71.

12. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 25.

13. R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale Publishing, 1985),

14. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 84.

15. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 89.

16. Turretin, Institutes, I.3.19.2.

17. Lewis, The Last Battle,