The Unity of God

One of the objections that many people have to the God of the Bible is that they can't reconcile His moral attributes. God's moral attributes are those traits that describe His character such as the attributes of love, mercy, justice, longsuffering, patience, etc. Many don't understand how God can possess all these attributes and yet not contradict His own character. This can be a confusing thing for a Christian to answer.

We know from Scripture that God is one. He is unified in His nature. Deuteronomy 6:4 reads: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one". Though in the Godhead, we have three distinct Persons (Father, Son & Holy Spirit), God is still one in essence and in nature. As humans, it is easy to read God's attributes as isolated and unrelated traits that make God who He is. It first must be understood that God's attributes do not make Him God. You can't just mix different traits together & make God. God is God, the self-existent One. His attributes are those things that we use to describe His very essence. Furthermore, He is not a mixture of different qualities. In His essence, He is love, mercy, wrath, just, patient, etc. For example, God does not just possess the quality of love, He is love as 1 John 4:16 states.

This brings us to our first question: How can God be all-loving, all-justice, all-merciful, etc. at the same time? In our human minds, it would appear that He would be only partly loving, partly just, partly merciful, partly holy, etc. However, Deuteronomy 6:4 clearly states that the Lord is one. He is simple, not in the sense that there is no complexity to God, but simple in the terms that He is not composed of parts or compartmentalized. God is indivisible because He is Spirit according to John 4:24. In theology, this is called the doctrine of divine simplicity. In other words, with God, His very nature demands that He is all something or nothing, but He can't be part something. I've heard the analogy used of a classroom whiteboard to illustrate this point. When we say that the whiteboard is white, hard and flat, we are not saying that the board is white in one place, flat in one place and hard in another place. The entire board is white, hard and flat. We would not say that the board is less flat than it is white or less hard than it is flat. In the same way, every attribute of God is of equal value and in no way contradicts the other. So when someone for instance speaks of God's mercy, they are not devaluing God's love or His justice. It's just that for that particular situation, they are emphasizing His mercy. The Bible for instance in 2 Timothy 2:13 talks about God's faithfulness, but this is not to say that His other attributes are of lesser value or importance or are not simultaneously operating.

So the problem is not that God can't be all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, etc at the same time, but the problem lies in a defect in our understanding of His attributes and how they work together. We will never be able to fully comprehend the ways of God. Psalm 145:3 accurately records this thought when it states: "Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable". The problem with man is that we try to define God based on our limited, finite human knowledge. Based on our life experiences, we try to judge God's character. For instance, when we are chastised, we can only see God's justice being poured out, but we fail to see His love or mercy in the situation. Remember, though God's ways are incomprehensible and we may not understand, they are never contradictory. Sometimes, we overemphasize certain attributes of God because others may be uncomfortable for us to deal with. All too common in churches today, we hear an overemphasis on God's love and little to no mention of His holiness or justice. Because of our lack of understanding, we fail to reconcile God's attributes and therefore resort to isolating them & compartmentalizing them from one another. Some even attempt to reconcile in their minds that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God in the New Testament. These are all man's attempts to reconcile all of God's attributes in our minds, but we will never fully comprehend the ways of God and how they work together. We do know that God is perfect & that all of His ways are perfect. Deuteronomy 32:4 states: "The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He". We also know that His ways are incomprehensible to the human mind as Isaiah 55:9 clearly states: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts".

All of the attributes of God should be a source of comfort to the believer. In a world that is ever-changing and ever-evolving, we can trust in the timeless attributes of our Lord. According to Malachi 3:6, He declares that He never changes. He is a constant source of strength, comfort and peace. We can take heart and declare with the psalmist: "from everlasting to everlasting, Thou are God" (Psalm 90:2).

Sources used: Min. Theologian by Rick Cornish