essay of nature of god

The Nature of God

Introduction.

“God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” This succinct definition from the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q&A 4) provides a sound place to begin our consideration of the nature of God to help us avoid inaccurate concepts and notions. In our day, many define God as an impersonal “higher power” or an unknowable “intelligent designer.” Others think of God in human terms—something like a larger version of themselves. However, the true and living God is neither an impersonal or unknowable force or a physical being. He is the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God in all His perfections. God is the sovereign Creator and sustainer of all things. God is both incomprehensible and knowable. Christians recognize that God has made Himself distinctly known through the revelation of His Word. The transcendent God reveals Himself in Scripture—by His names and attributes—to be eternally self-existent in all His perfections.

Explanation

There are numerous ways that Christian theologians have sought to describe the being and nature of God. For example, Anselm —archbishop of Canterbury (1093–1109)—in his Proslogion memorably defined God as “that [being], than which nothing greater can be conceived.” In apologetics, this phrase begins what has come to be known as the ontological argument . It is a logical and philosophical explanation of God’s essence that explains one aspect of the being of God. The being and power of God are displayed in all creation, so we can know something about God by means of general revelation (Ps. 19:1–2; Rom. 1:19–20). However, when we consider God’s nature, we are dependent on God’s revelation of His names and character given by special revelation in the Scripture for a full, though never comprehensive, understanding of all that God is.

In the Old Testament, God reveals Himself to His people by proclaiming to us His names. All these names reflect something of the character of the one true and living God. As R.C. Sproul rightly explained , “the most basic affirmation the Scriptures make regarding the nature of God is that He is one.” As such, He is distinguished from all the other gods of the nations. As Psalm 96:5 states, “All the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” He will not share His glory with another. This one God reveals Himself as Elohim (God), El Elyon (God Most High), El Shaddai (God Almighty), Yahweh (His personal name), Adonai (Lord), and Yahweh Sabaoth (Lord of Hosts). A revelation of the names of God in the Old Testament often accompanies some special (usually redemptive) work or act of God. For instance, throughout the book of Job, God reveals Himself as El Shaddai —the Almighty God. When God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush—to prepare Moses to deliver Israel from their bondage in Egypt—He did so by declaring His covenant name, Yahweh. He is “I am who I am,” the eternally existing and unchangeable God who keeps covenant with His people from generation to generation (Ex. 3:14). When God again revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain, He proclaimed His covenant name, Yahweh, together with His attributes: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6–7). The special revelation of the names and the attributes of God highlights His character in such a way that His people can rightly worship and serve Him.

Reflecting on the attributes God has revealed in Scripture, the members of the Westminster Assembly formulated the following careful definition of God in the Westminster Confession of Faith:

There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal, most just, and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. (WCF 2.1)

When approaching the subject of the attributes of God, Reformed theologians have highlighted the importance of the aseity and simplicity of God. In his Reformed Dogmatics , Geerhardus Vos defined aseity as “that attribute of God by which He is the self-sufficient ground of His own existence and being.” God never becomes something other than what He has been from all eternity. God never develops. He is eternally independent, being dependent only on Himself (Isa. 40:13; Rom. 11:34). This truth about God has massive implications both for how we speak of Him and for how we worship and serve Him. God doesn’t stand in need of anything (Ps. 50:10–12).

God is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things, both visible and invisible, who has no need of the creature. We cannot add anything to God. God is free to do as He pleases, and He always does according to the good pleasure of His own decretal will (Eph. 1:11). God did not need to create the world. He did so freely out of His eternal wisdom. Thus, God voluntarily made all things, and He voluntarily reveals Himself, being bound by no external force or person to do so. God desires to display His grace and mercy, together with His wrath. Therefore, He ordained a world in which He could reveal His attributes to His image bearers. Vos explained: “God’s attributes are absolute. In other words, the ground for them resides in His being, apart from the existence of the world, although we must admit that we could not conceive of some of them in action (e.g., grace and mercy) if the world did not exist.”

Simplicity carries with it the idea of the indivisibility of God. God does not possess a certain quantity of love. God is love (1 John 4:8). There is no limit to God’s holiness. He is holy (Lev. 19:2, 20:7, 26, 21:8; Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 1:16). God is never in short supply of His attributes. In fact, it is right for us to say that God is His attributes. His wrath harmonizes with His love inasmuch as His wrath is fueled by His love for His own holy and righteous character. God’s love is holy love . It is loving for God to exercise His justice on the wicked. However, God also acts in holy love toward the elect by removing the wrath they justly deserve by pouring it out on Christ when He became a curse for them on the cross.

Although theologians have sought to categorize God’s attributes in a diversity of ways, the most commonly accepted division is between communicable and incommunicable attributes. Communicable attributes are those characteristics that God chooses to share with image bearers in some measure. For instance, God is righteous and human beings can be righteous in a manner that is similar to how God is righteous and yet not identical with it. Out of His own fullness, He makes His people righteousness. This is a communication by way of analogy. The difference between righteousness in God and the righteousness that He shares with men and women exists in the infinitude of God and the finitude of man. God’s righteousness is not derivative. Righteousness in man is always derivative.

Incommunicable attributes are those characteristics of God that He cannot and will not share with His creatures. God is infinite , eternal, and unchangeable. He is also omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere present), and omnipotent (all powerful). These attributes are part of what it means for God to be transcendent—distinct from and Lord over creation. God remains distinct from the creature; otherwise, He would cease to be God.

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What can we know about God? That’s the most basic question of theology, for what we can know about God and whether we can know anything about Him at all determine the scope and content of our study. Here we must consider the teaching of the greatest theologians in history, all of whom have affirmed the ‘incomprehensibility of God.’ By using the term  incomprehensible , they are not referring to something we are unable to comprehend or know at all. Theologically speaking, to say God is incomprehensible is not to say that God is utterly unknowable. It is to say that none of us can comprehend God exhaustively.

“ Divine Incomprehensibility ”

Tabletalk magazine

Reformed theologians . . . self-consciously see the doctrine of God as informing the whole scope of Christian theology. That’s one of the reasons why Calvinists tend to focus so much on the Old Testament. We’re concerned about the character of God as defining everything—our understanding of Christ, our understanding of ourselves, our understanding of salvation. We turn to the Old Testament because it’s one of the most important sources that you find anywhere in the universe on the nature and character of God. Reformed Christians tend to take the Old Testament very seriously because it’s such a vivid revelation of the majesty of God.

“ The Reformed Doctrine of God ”

God operates according to the law of His own nature. That is to say, God never acts in such a way that would contradict His own holiness, His own righteousness, His own justice, His own omnipotence, and so on. God never compromises the perfection of His own being or character in what He does.

“ Cur Deus Homo ”

God is the ultimate Being. Before there was a universe, there was God. He exists independently of matter and sequence of time. God transcends space and time. He is not limited by spatial considerations (He is everywhere in His fullness continually). Nor is He locked into the present in any way. It is not strictly accurate to say that before the universe was created there was ‘nothing,’ for this, too, is a spatial and temporal idea: before the created universe existed, there was God. Theologians speak of God’s immensity, infinity, and transcendence to describe this and our minds race at the thought of it, unable to take it in. All we can do is acquiesce and worship.

“ Creation Ex Nihilo ”

BRAIN BOOST

Always learning, understanding the nature of god: a biblical perspective, the nature of god is a complex and heavily debated topic that has fascinated theologians for centuries. the bible presents us with a rich and varied picture of god, encompassing his attributes, his character, and his actions throughout history. understanding the nature of god is essential to developing a deeper relationship with him, but it can be difficult to know where to start. this post aims to provide you with a biblical perspective on the nature of god, exploring his attributes, his role in the world, and how we can come to know him more fully. from the old testament to the new testament, we’ll delve into the scriptures to gain a better understanding of who god is and what he means to us. whether you’re a long-time believer or just beginning your journey of faith, this post is sure to offer valuable insights into the nature of god., 1. introduction: the importance of understanding the nature of god, understanding the nature of god is of utmost importance for believers and seekers alike. at the core of our faith lies the belief that god is the creator of the universe and the source of all existence. however, comprehending the nature of god goes beyond this basic understanding..

A deep understanding of God’s nature shapes our perception of the world, our purpose in life, and our relationship with Him. It provides us with a solid foundation for our faith and guides our actions and decisions. When we have a clear understanding of who God is, we can align our lives with His divine purpose and experience a profound sense of fulfillment and peace.

Moreover, understanding God’s nature is essential for building a strong relationship with Him. It allows us to approach Him with reverence, awe, and a genuine desire to know Him more intimately. As we delve into the depths of His character and attributes, we discover His love, mercy, justice, and faithfulness. We come to realize that God is not distant or indifferent but deeply involved in our lives, caring for us and guiding us every step of the way.

Furthermore, understanding the nature of God helps us navigate the complexities of life. In times of trials and challenges, knowing that God is sovereign and in control brings comfort and hope. It assures us that He is working all things together for our good and His glory. It also reminds us of His unchanging nature, providing stability and security in an ever-changing world.

As we embark on this journey to understand the nature of God, it is crucial to approach it with humility and an open heart. The Bible serves as our primary source of revelation, unveiling the multifaceted aspects of God’s character. Through studying Scripture, prayer, and seeking wise counsel, we can gain deeper insights into the nature of God and grow in our relationship with Him.

In the following sections, we will explore various aspects of God’s nature, such as His holiness, love, wisdom, and omnipotence. By delving into these topics, we hope to shed light on the profound mysteries of God and provide a biblical perspective that will enrich our understanding and faith. So, let us embark on this journey together, seeking to know and understand the nature of God in a deeper and more meaningful way.

2. The attributes of God: Exploring the characteristics of an infinite being

Exploring the characteristics of an infinite being can be a daunting task, as the nature of god goes beyond human comprehension. however, the bible provides us with glimpses into the attributes of god, giving us a deeper understanding of his divine nature..

One of the fundamental attributes of God is His omnipotence. God is all-powerful, capable of creating and controlling the universe with a mere word. From the majestic creation of the heavens and the earth to the intricate details of every living being, His power knows no bounds. This attribute instills in us a sense of awe and reverence, reminding us of the greatness and majesty of our Creator.

Another attribute of God is His omniscience. God is all-knowing, having perfect knowledge of all things past, present, and future. He has complete understanding of every detail, circumstance, and motive. This attribute brings us comfort, knowing that God is aware of our struggles, joys, and desires. It also reminds us of His perfect wisdom, as He orchestrates the events of our lives according to His divine plan.

God’s omnipresence is yet another attribute that sets Him apart. He is present everywhere, transcending time and space. There is no place we can go where God is not already there. This attribute assures us that we are never alone, that God is with us in every situation. It also reminds us that we cannot hide from Him, as He sees and knows all.

The attribute of God’s love is perhaps one of the most cherished. God’s love is unconditional, sacrificial, and infinite. It is a love that surpasses human understanding, reaching out to every person regardless of their shortcomings or failures. This attribute reminds us of our inherent value and worth in God’s eyes, and it compels us to love and serve others in the same manner.

These are just a few of the attributes of God that we can begin to grasp. As we delve deeper into the biblical texts, we discover more about His holiness, righteousness, grace, and mercy. Though our understanding may be limited, embracing these attributes can transform our perspective and deepen our relationship with the infinite being that is God.

3. God’s omnipotence: Understanding God’s all-powerful nature

God’s omnipotence is a fundamental concept in understanding the nature of god from a biblical perspective. the term “omnipotence” refers to god’s unlimited and supreme power, which is often described in scripture as being beyond human comprehension..

In the Bible, we find numerous passages that highlight God’s omnipotence. Psalm 147:5 declares, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” This verse emphasizes the limitless nature of God’s power and His ability to accomplish anything He desires.

Another example is found in Jeremiah 32:17, which states, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” This verse illustrates God’s ability to create and control the universe through His unmatched power.

Furthermore, the New Testament also affirms God’s omnipotence. In Matthew 19:26, Jesus declares, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This verse emphasizes that there are no limitations to what God can do, as His power transcends human limitations.

Understanding God’s omnipotence helps us grasp the magnitude of His authority and control over all creation. It reassures us that nothing is beyond His reach or ability to accomplish. This knowledge encourages a sense of awe and reverence towards God, recognizing His supreme power and sovereignty.

However, it is important to note that God’s omnipotence does not mean that He will always exercise His power in the same way. God’s actions are guided by His wisdom, love, and righteousness. While He has the power to do all things, His actions are always in accordance with His perfect nature.

In conclusion, God’s omnipotence is a central aspect of His nature as revealed in the Bible. It highlights His unlimited power and ability to accomplish anything. Understanding and acknowledging God’s omnipotence deepens our faith and encourages us to trust in His sovereignty and guidance in all aspects of life.

4. God’s omniscience: Exploring God’s all-knowing nature

God’s omniscience is a fundamental aspect of his nature that sets him apart from any other being. as humans, our knowledge is limited and finite. we can only process and understand a fraction of the vast information that exists in the world. however, god’s omniscience means that he possesses infinite knowledge, encompassing the past, present, and future..

When we delve into the concept of God’s all-knowing nature, it is awe-inspiring to comprehend that He has perfect knowledge of every detail and event that has ever taken place or will take place. From the intricate workings of the universe to the innermost thoughts and intentions of every individual, nothing escapes His awareness.

This aspect of God’s nature is beautifully depicted throughout the Bible. Psalm 147:5 declares, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” This verse emphasizes that God’s understanding is limitless, beyond our human comprehension.

The implications of God’s omniscience are profound. It means that He is intimately acquainted with every aspect of our lives, our struggles, and our joys. We can find comfort in knowing that there is nothing hidden from God – He sees and understands it all. This knowledge also assures us that God has a plan and purpose for our lives, as He is aware of every detail and can guide us accordingly.

Furthermore, God’s omniscience invites us to approach Him with complete honesty and transparency. We can pour out our hearts to Him, knowing that He already knows our deepest thoughts and desires. This opens up a deep and personal relationship with our Creator, as we can trust that He understands us fully.

In exploring God’s all-knowing nature, we are reminded of His sovereignty and wisdom. His omniscience is not merely a collection of facts, but a profound understanding that underlies His divine guidance and providence. It is through this understanding that we can find solace, guidance, and a deeper appreciation for the greatness of our God.

5. God’s omnipresence: Recognizing God’s presence everywhere

Recognizing god’s presence everywhere is a fundamental aspect of understanding the nature of god. the concept of god’s omnipresence is deeply rooted in biblical teachings and holds great significance in shaping our spiritual understanding..

The Bible affirms that God is not confined by time or space. He transcends all physical and earthly limitations, and His presence permeates every corner of the universe. This divine attribute of omnipresence assures us that God is never absent or distant from His creation.

In Psalm 139:7-10, King David beautifully expresses this truth, stating, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” These verses vividly illustrate God’s omnipresence, emphasizing that no matter where we may find ourselves, God is with us.

Understanding God’s omnipresence can bring immense comfort and assurance to our lives. It means that we are never alone, even in the darkest moments or the most challenging circumstances. God’s presence surrounds us, providing guidance, strength, and solace.

Furthermore, recognizing God’s presence everywhere calls us to acknowledge His divine sovereignty and authority. It reminds us that He is intimately involved in every aspect of our lives and the world around us. This understanding encourages us to cultivate a deeper relationship with God, seeking His presence and guidance in all that we do.

In summary, comprehending God’s omnipresence is crucial in our journey of understanding His nature. It assures us of His unwavering presence in every situation and motivates us to seek a closer relationship with Him. Embracing this biblical perspective allows us to experience the profound love, guidance, and peace that comes from recognizing God’s presence everywhere.

6. God’s love and mercy: Understanding God’s compassionate nature

God’s love and mercy are fundamental aspects of his character that are central to understanding his compassionate nature. throughout the bible, we see numerous examples of god’s love and mercy expressed towards humanity..

One of the most well-known verses highlighting God’s love is found in John 3:16, which states, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This verse beautifully captures the depth of God’s love for humanity. It demonstrates His willingness to sacrifice His Son, Jesus Christ, as an ultimate act of love and mercy to reconcile humanity to Himself.

Another powerful example of God’s love and mercy can be seen in the story of the prodigal son found in Luke 15:11-32. In this parable, Jesus describes a son who squanders his inheritance and ends up in a desperate and destitute state. However, when the son returns home, expecting punishment and rejection, his father embraces him with open arms and celebrates his return. This parable illustrates God’s unconditional love and His willingness to forgive and restore those who repent and turn back to Him.

Furthermore, the concept of God’s mercy is intertwined with His love. The book of Lamentations, written by the prophet Jeremiah, declares, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). This passage emphasizes that God’s mercies are limitless and renewed every day. It highlights His compassion towards His people, even in the midst of their failures and shortcomings.

Understanding God’s love and mercy allows us to grasp the depth of His compassion for humanity. It reveals His desire to extend forgiveness, redemption, and restoration to all who seek Him. As we grow in our understanding of God’s compassionate nature, we are called to reflect His love and mercy towards others, embodying His character in our interactions and relationships.

7. God’s justice and righteousness: Exploring God’s fair and just nature

God’s justice and righteousness are foundational aspects of his character that have been explored and debated throughout the ages. as human beings, we often grapple with the concept of justice and struggle to understand how it aligns with a loving and merciful god. however, the bible provides profound insights into god’s fair and just nature, shedding light on the depth and complexity of his divine wisdom..

In the scriptures, we see that God’s justice is rooted in His holiness and perfect moral standards. He is the ultimate judge who discerns right from wrong and metes out appropriate consequences accordingly. God’s justice is flawless and impartial.

One of the remarkable aspects of God’s justice is its redemptive nature. While He punishes sin, He also offers forgiveness and restoration to those who repent and turn to Him. The apostle John assures us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” This verse showcases the profound intertwining of God’s justice with His mercy, as He extends grace to those who seek reconciliation.

Furthermore, God’s righteousness is closely tied to His justice. His righteousness is a standard of moral perfection that He upholds consistently. Deuteronomy 32:4 declares, “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he” . This verse underscores the integrity and uprightness of God, emphasizing His unwavering commitment to righteousness in all His dealings.

As we seek to understand the nature of God’s justice and righteousness, we must also acknowledge our limited human perspective. Isaiah reminds us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”. This humbling truth reminds us that God’s justice and righteousness transcend our finite understanding, and we are called to trust in His wisdom and divine plan.

In conclusion, God’s justice and righteousness are essential facets of His character. They are intricately woven together, reflecting His holiness, perfect moral standards, and redemptive nature. While we may struggle to fully comprehend the depth of God’s justice, the scriptures offer glimpses into His fair and just nature. As we continue to explore and seek a biblical perspective on the nature of God, let us approach these profound truths with humility and awe, trusting in His unwavering righteousness and unfailing love.

8. The Trinity: Understanding the concept of the triune God

The concept of the trinity is a fundamental aspect of understanding the nature of god from a biblical perspective. it is a concept that has intrigued theologians and believers for centuries, as it attempts to unravel the intricate nature of god..

The Trinity refers to the belief that God exists in three distinct persons – the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit – while still being one God. This is often described as a mystery, as it surpasses human comprehension and logic.

The Bible provides glimpses of the Trinity throughout its text, offering insights into the relationship between the three persons. For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, indicating their equal importance and unity.

Furthermore, the New Testament frequently depicts interactions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, highlighting their distinct roles while emphasizing their unity of purpose. For instance, Jesus speaks of the Father sending the Holy Spirit to guide and empower believers.

Understanding the Trinity requires recognizing the unique characteristics and roles of each person. The Father is often depicted as the creator, the Son as the redeemer who came to earth in human form, and the Holy Spirit as the comforter and guide who indwells believers.

While the concept of the Trinity may be complex, it ultimately reveals the richness and depth of God’s nature. It invites believers to explore the mysterious unity and diversity within the Godhead, encouraging a deeper relationship with the divine.

By grasping the concept of the triune God, believers can gain a greater understanding of the love, grace, and power that emanate from God. It serves as a foundation for worship, prayer, and living out one’s faith in accordance with biblical teachings.

In conclusion, the Trinity is a profound theological concept that allows believers to delve into the nature of God as revealed in the Bible. While it may remain a mystery in its entirety, exploring the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can deepen one’s understanding and appreciation of the divine.

9. Divine providence: Recognizing God’s guidance and care in the world

Divine providence is a concept deeply rooted in the biblical understanding of god’s nature. it refers to the belief that god is actively involved in the world, guiding and caring for his creation. from the grandest events to the smallest details of everyday life, divine providence teaches us to recognize god’s hand at work..

Throughout the Bible, we see numerous examples of divine providence. Whether it’s the story of Joseph being sold into slavery only to rise to a position of power in Egypt, or the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, these accounts highlight God’s intentional and purposeful involvement in human affairs.

Recognizing divine providence requires a shift in perspective. It means viewing the events and circumstances of our lives through a lens of faith, acknowledging that there is a higher power orchestrating everything for a greater purpose. It’s about trusting in God’s wisdom and sovereignty, even in times of difficulty or uncertainty.

Divine providence also reminds us of God’s care for His creation. Just as a loving parent watches over and provides for their children, God watches over us with a tender and compassionate heart. He knows our needs before we even ask, and He works in mysterious ways to bring about blessings and opportunities for growth.

Understanding divine providence can bring a profound sense of peace and reassurance. It reminds us that we are not alone in this world, but rather, we are held in the loving embrace of a God who never leaves nor forsakes us. It encourages us to seek His guidance and trust in His plan, knowing that His ways are higher than our ways.

As we delve into the depths of understanding the nature of God, recognizing divine providence becomes an essential aspect of our faith journey. It opens our eyes to the miraculous and awe-inspiring ways in which God interacts with His creation. So let us cultivate a heart that is attentive to divine providence, and may it deepen our relationship with the Almighty as we walk in His guiding light.

10. Conclusion: Embracing a deeper understanding of God’s nature and its impact on our lives

In conclusion, embracing a deeper understanding of god’s nature can have a profound impact on our lives. the bible provides us with a rich source of wisdom and insight into the character and attributes of god. as we delve into the scriptures and seek to comprehend the nature of god, we are invited into a transformative journey of faith..

By understanding that God is loving, compassionate, and just, we can find comfort and solace in times of difficulty and hardship. We can trust in His unfailing love and know that He is always present, ready to guide and support us. This understanding allows us to surrender our worries and fears, knowing that God holds us in the palm of His hand.

Furthermore, recognizing God’s omniscience and omnipotence enables us to have confidence in His plans for our lives. We can rest assured that He knows what is best for us and will work all things together for our good. This knowledge frees us from the burden of trying to control every aspect of our lives and allows us to surrender to His divine will.

As we deepen our understanding of God’s nature, we also come to appreciate His grace and mercy. We realize that despite our shortcomings and failures, God’s love for us is unwavering. His forgiveness is limitless, and through Jesus Christ, we can experience redemption and restoration.

This deeper understanding of God’s nature should not merely be an intellectual pursuit but should also transform our hearts and actions. It should lead us to extend love, compassion, and forgiveness to others, mirroring the character of God in our relationships and interactions.

In conclusion, embracing a deeper understanding of God’s nature opens up a world of spiritual growth, peace, and purpose. As we immerse ourselves in the scriptures and seek to know Him more intimately, we are drawn into a divine connection that transcends our earthly existence. May we continually strive to comprehend the nature of God and allow it to shape our lives, bringing us closer to Him and impacting the world around us.

We hope you found our blog post on understanding the nature of God from a biblical perspective enlightening and thought-provoking. Exploring the nature of God is a profound and complex topic, but through careful examination of scripture, we have sought to provide a comprehensive overview. Remember, this is just the beginning of your journey in understanding the nature of God, and we encourage you to continue studying and seeking wisdom. As you delve deeper into this topic, may your faith be strengthened, and may you find a deeper connection with the divine.

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Nature, Degree and Words of God Essay

Introduction, the roles that god assumes when reigning and the doctrine of resolution, the plan and purpose for god’s sovereign election, god’s purpose and providence in creation, definition of miracles and why god allows them to happen, how god makes himself known, the fatherhood roles of god, god’s major characteristics.

God is absolute and has every right to exercise His authority. His word is final because of the powers He has over all beings. God is infinite, and people cannot understand his nature. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the nature, degree, and words of God in order to explain His true nature.

God is the center of the universe. He controls all aspects of creation. All the attributes of God are core and supreme. God is sovereign in salvation. He has the power to demonstrate mercy, justice, holiness, forgiveness, and wrath. God is love, and His love supersedes the capabilities of man.

God’s sovereign election is His act of choosing Jesus Christ as the savior. He made this choice on the basis of no foreseen advantage. The aim of electing Jesus was to save all sinful beings through his grace. The people elected by God are those who are set to receive salvation. God’s sovereign election surpasses the goodness of those chosen. He chooses at his pleasure.

God’s ultimate plan is to reveal Himself to human beings. He uses His capabilities to be conscious of everything that occurs and make certain revelations. He sees everything at once. Similarly, He proclaims events simultaneously. It was his plan to create the universe, human beings, and Angels. His aim was to ensure that salvation becomes a fruit available to everyone. God’s purpose was to elect those who believe in salvation and at the same time condemn the non-believers.

A miracle is an event that cannot be explained by human beings. It follows the laws of nature. Experiments cannot reveal their mode of occurrence. People associate miracles with God and His chosen subjects. The subjects include miracle workers, religious leaders, and saints. Miracles can work along or against nature. An example of a miracle is the healing of patients suffering from AIDS. God allows miracles to happen in order to strengthen the faith of human beings. He intends to make people live in divine health and administer total healing to mankind.

God makes himself known through all of his creation. Through the creation of the universe, God shows harmony and order. The formation of the world’s invincible qualities like eternal power and heavenly nature have been known, understood, and perceived from everything made by God. King David wonders how God notices human beings despite the fact that He made the sun and other heavenly bodies.

God is interested in the affairs of human beings, the same way a father seeks to guarantee the well-being of his children. In the Holy Trinity, God comes first, then Jesus and finally the Holy Spirit. God is the creator, giver of life, giver of the law, and the protector. God, through Jesus Christ, is the savior of mankind.

God is eternal, immutable and reliable. He is just and does not show favor for anyone. He reflects His justness in nature through random occurrence of miracles. God is one. The fact that He is one does not prevent him from meeting the needs of all people. God is the provider. His role as a giver is evident in nature. He is the source of the air that we breathe and the sun that lights the earth.

God is sovereign, infinite and all powerful. He exists in eternity. He simultaneously perceives the past, the present and the future. The word defines God as God. Although it is hard to explain who God is, we can explain his love and sovereignty through clues provided by nature.

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The Nature of God and Humanity

Traditionally, the nature of God is perceived in Christianity through the lens of the Triune. Namely, God is seen as the omnipotent amalgamation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The specified interpretation also implies that God holds absolute power over every human being, as well as every element of nature and reality, in general. The specified notion of God is clearly communicated in Genesis 1:1-2: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” ( New International Version, 2011 , 1:1-2). Therefore, the universe, as well as every creature that inhabits it, including people, represents God’s creation.

Furthermore, God is deemed as the omnipotent, or all-powerful, omniscient, or all-knowing, omnipresent, or all-present, and omnibenevolent, or embodying the concept of goodness. The described approach toward understanding the nature of God, in turn, has been the source of numerous discussions and disputes, mainly, due to the contradiction pointed out by St. Augustine (Okaneme, 2020, p. 2). Namely, given the presence of evil, the coexistence of characteristics of omnipotence and omnibenevolence in God might seem as contradictory (Collins, 2019, p. 87). However, on further consideration of this issue, one might note that the presence of evil may be interpreted as a part of the Divine Plan that people cannot fully understand and embrace. Thus, while the described dilemma has not been resolved fully, multiple solutions to it have been suggested.

In turn, the nature of humanity from the perspective of the Gospel is presented by the story of Adam and Eve. Namely, according to the Old Testament, the the human race emerged after God created Adam and Eve, giving them the responsibility of caring for Earth and granting them free will as the ability to make decisions and act according to the chosen options. Thus, it as the act of free will that encouraged Adam and Eve to abandon Heaven and succumb to sin, therefore, erasing the possibility of ever returning to the state of being sinless, which they has retained until their notorious fall. In turn, the misstep in question has contributed to shaping the origin of humanity to a tremendous extent, adding another component that would become an inherent property of the humankind and, therefore, be regarded as an inseparable part of its origin. Namely, the presence of sin as another vital component of the origin of humanity needs to be mentioned in order to encompass the entire complexity of the human nature according to the Gospel.

Thus, while being created to become an inseparable part of God’s Kingdom, the human race was tainted by the original sin, which would become an inalienable part of its origin, which remains the root cause of the problems that people encounter in their lives. Consequently, getting rid of the inherent sin and achieving redemption and the following salvation is seen as the ultimate purpose of the humankind (Nothwehr, 2019, p. 73). Overall, the Gospel portrays the dual nature of the humanity, emphasizing the presence of the divine force as one of the essential elements that crated the humankind, and simultaneously focusing on the inherent original sin as an inalienable part of the humankind. Thus, the nature of the human race should be seen as complex and requiring thorough theological discourse.

Collins, J. M. (2019). The evil-god challenge: Extended and defended. Religious Studies , 55 (1), 85-109.

Nothwehr, D. M. (2019). For the salvation of the cosmos: The church’s mission of ecojustice. International Bulletin of Mission Research , 43 (1), 68-81.

Okaneme, G. (2020). The problem of evil and the best of all possible worlds in leibniz’s theodicy: Philosophical excogitations. Journal of Applied Philosophy , 18 (4), 1-19.

New International Version . (1983). Web.

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A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies

The Nature or Attributes of God

OCR Philosophy

This page: full notes      A* summary notes       C/B summary notes

Introduction.

This topic is not about whether God does exist, but about whether God can exist. It is not about assessing the arguments for or against God’s existence but takes a step back from that and is about whether the concept of God actually makes sense in the first place. The concept of God is traditionally a being which is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient. The question of whether this concept makes sense depends on whether there is a conflict, contradiction or inconsistency in those attributes themselves, between those attributes or between those attributes and key Christian doctrines. If the supposed conflicts cannot be resolved then the concept of God is argued to be incoherent.

Omnipotence

Descartes’ voluntarism.

A tiny minority of theologians and philosophers, most notably Descartes, argue for ‘voluntarism’; the view that God’s omnipotence involves the power to do anything, even the logically impossible. Descartes gives the example that God could have made it false that twice four makes eight. He thinks that God has the power to change mathematical, geometric, logical and moral truths. We may be unable to imagine 4 plus 4 not equalling 8, but that doesn’t mean God lacks the power to have made it so:

“It would be rash to think that our imagination reaches as far as his power”

Descartes’ argument is that because of God’s ‘immensity’ “nothing at all can exist which does not depend on Him.” This includes maths and logic.

“I admit that this is unintelligible to us. Yet on the other hand I do understand, quite correctly, that there cannot be any class of entity that does not depend on God; I also understand that it would have been easy for God to ordain certain things such that we men cannot understand the possibility of their being otherwise than they are”

Descartes concludes that logic is a human limitation, but not a limitation for God on which all things, including maths and logic, depend. Thus, the rules of logic are decided by God and they then emanate from his mind.

Voluntarism is incoherent: If it is possible for God to make 1+1=3, then it looks like it is possible for 1+1 to equal 3. In that case, it cannot be logically necessary that 1+1=2. By attributing to God the power to do the logically impossible, voluntaristic omnipotence seems to destroy logical necessity. If God can do the logically impossible, then it is possible, and therefore it is not logically impossible. Nothing would be logically impossible if it were possible for God to do it. Voluntarism thus undermines the concept of logical impossibility that it is based on. Voluntarism is the view that God can do the logically impossible, but then it’s not logically impossible and nothing is logical impossible, thus voluntarism undermines the concept it is trying to make a claim about and is thus self defeating.

Defence of the coherence of Voluntarism:   arguably it is not the case that God being able to do something logically impossible makes it possible. It might seem impossible for God to be able to do something without that making it possible, but surely if God can do the logically impossible then he could make it that his being able to do something does not make it possible?

Descartes’ theory of omnipotence undermines theodicies

Responses to the problem of evil seem to be undermined by a voluntarist view of God’s omnipotence. The reasons usually given for why God allows evil is that it’s not logically possible for God to eliminate evil without contradicting his divine justice (Augustine), taking away our free will (Augustine & Plantinga) or opportunities for growth from evil (Irenaeus & Hick). However, if God can do the logically impossible, then it seems he could eliminate evil without removing our free will or opportunities for growth. So why hasn’t he? Descartes’ Voluntarism therefore seems to undermine defence of God against the logical problem of evil.

Aquinas on omnipotence

Aquinas argued that the correct definition of omnipotence was the ability to do any logically possible thing. He argued that God’s power is founded on God’s infinite divine nature which “possesses within itself the perfection of all being”. Therefore, God’s omnipotence can only bring about things consistent with the perfection of being.

That does not include things which are logically impossible: “that which implies being and non-being at the same time” cannot be brought about by God “not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing.” So, God cannot create something which both exists and does not exist because it is not consistent with being, the perfection of which his power is founded on. Aquinas concludes:

“it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.”

Even though God cannot create impossible things, that is not a limitation of his omnipotence, once properly understood as power founded on the perfection of being.

The paradox of the stone provides a criticism of Aquinas. It is the question of whether God could create a stone so heavy he can’t lift it. This is problematic for omnipotence because if God can create the stone, there is something he cannot do – lift the stone. If he can’t make the stone, there is something he cannot do – make the stone. It looks like Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence struggles to address this. It’s easy for Aquinas to dismiss whether God can create four sided triangles as that would be logically impossible. Creating a really heavy stone doesn’t seem like a logically impossible task though, so surely God should be capable of doing it. In that case, he cannot lift the stone though, which equally doesn’t seem like a logically impossible task. So, there is some logically possible action which God cannot do, thus invalidating Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence as being capable of doing all logically possible actions. Descartes doesn’t have this problem because he would claim that God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift and then he can also lift it. That is a logically impossible solution, but that’s no issue for Descartes’ view of omnipotence.

Mavrodes defends Aquinas here by arguing that in fact the stone is logically self-contradictory if we notice the full context. It’s not just a really heavy stone – it is a stone ‘too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift’. Since by definition an omnipotent being could lift any stone, there is no such thing as a stone too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift, and thus it is in fact a logically impossible thing, just like a four-sided triangle. Therefore, the answer to the paradox is that God cannot create the stone and the reason is that it is logically impossible, but that doesn’t detract from God’s omnipotence according to Aquinas’s definition which is therefore still valid. So, Aquinas would say God can’t make the stone but that’s because it can’t be done, just like making a square circle.

Self-imposed limitation

Self-imposed limitation is a third way of resolving issues regarding omnipotence. It suggests that the only limits on God’s power are limits God chose. God still has the power to do anything he chooses as God is only limited by God’s own choice. So, God is still technically omnipotent, despite being limited, as it is a self-imposed limitation.

One reason God might self-limit is that that when creating the universe, God made it logically consistent and orderly. This means that if he did something logically impossible within the universe, that would disrupt the logical order of universe and make it chaotic, probably uninhabitable. Since God does not want to do that to his creation or to humans, he must have limited his ability to do logically impossible things within the universe.

Another reason God would self-limit is because of God’s intention for humans to have free will. It is typically considered important in Christianity for our salvation that we have free will so we can choose good over evil. However, our having genuine free will, or what Plantinga would call ‘significant’ free will, requires that God does not intervene to stop us every time we do something wrong. If God did that, we would have free will in a technical sense, but it would not be significant because it would be prevented from having an impact on the world.

Does it really make logical sense for an omnipotent being to be capable of limiting itself? Arguably genuine limitation requires actual inability which seems to require an inability to throw off or discard that limitation. Yet in that case, it seems God would be reducing the number of things he could do, so he wouldn’t be able to do everything he previously could, making him not omnipotent.

However if it’s merely that God chooses to limit his power to logical actions when acting within the universe, technically he isn’t actually limiting himself, just choosing not to do certain things, which seems perfectly consistent with omnipotence.

Voluntarist critique of self-imposed limitation

Self-imposed limitation is useless from the voluntarist perspective. The self-imposed limitation idea is that, logically speaking, God has to limit himself in order to achieve his goal of bringing us into loving relationship with us. Free will and a logical orderly universe are necessary for achieving that goal. Therefore, God must choose to not interfere with our free will or the logic of the universe. His power is constrained, though only due to his choice because of his goals. The issue is, a voluntarist could argue that can argue that omnipotence involves the power to do the logically impossible. That being the case, God can interfere in our free will or the logic of the universe without  destroying free will or the logical order of the universe. That is impossible and doesn’t make sense – but God can do the logically impossible and therefore doesn’t have to make sense! So there is no need for God to self-limit even to bring about what he wants (a loving relationship with us). This makes proposing the self-imposed limitation view pointless. It’s trying to solve something that isn’t a problem.

Descartes’ theory has its own problems. You might decides Descartes isn’t right however.

Omniscience, Free Will, Omnibenevolence & Time

Boethius grappled with the puzzle of divine foreknowledge – the idea that God knows what we are going to do before we do it. If he does, how can we have free will? Boethius thought this needed solving because if we don’t have free will, then how can God judge us fairly, sending us to heaven or hell. That would seem to question his omnibenevolence. Yet if God didn’t know what we were going to do next, that would seem to question his omniscience.

Omniscience seems to conflict with free will which then conflicts with omnibenevolence.

Boethius’ solution was to suggest that God is eternal – outside of time. This would mean God sees all time (past, present and future) simultaneously in the ‘eternal present’. God’s eternal omniscience does not interfere with our free will – he simply sees the results of our free choices in our future in his eternal present. So Boethius saves God’s omnibenevolence from the criticism that divine foreknowledge would determine our actions making him unjustified in rewarding or punishing us for them. God’s knowledge is not ‘ fore knowledge’ – it does not exist ‘prior’ to our action as it exists outside of time.

If our future actions are known, they are fixed and thus not chosen. However, while God’s knowledge may not determine our choices, nonetheless it still seems like the results of our choices are fixed and inevitable. Surely we cannot do anything other than what God knows we will in fact do. Therefore we don’t have the ability to do otherwise, and so how can we have free will?

Boethius responded to this challenge by distinguishing between simple and conditional necessity. He agreed that God knowing our future actions made our actions necessary – but only conditionally necessary. He illustrated conditional necessity with observing someone walking. If you see someone walking, it is necessary that they are walking. However, that necessity is conditional on their having chosen to walk. The walker might not have chosen to walk, and then it would not have become necessary that they are walking. This is very different from the normal sort of necessity – simple necessity – which means something cannot fail to exist or occur, regardless of whatever choices people make.

Everything we have done in our past, are doing in our present, and will do in our future, are all observed in God’s ‘eternal present’. Everything we do is ‘present’ to God. Therefore, our future actions have the same kind of necessity that the person walking has; conditional necessity. God sees our future actions and in his present they thereby become necessary, but only on the condition that we chose them. So Boethius has defended his original claim, that there is no incompatibility between omniscience and free will because God sees the results of our free choices.

Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach

Anselm attempts to improve on Boethius’ theory, arguing that God’s eternity followed from the definition of God as ‘that than which none greater may be conceived’.

Humans are within time, so we perceive time unfolding moment by moment. Being within a particular time/place is a limitation which ‘confines’ a being to having certain parts of itself existing at one time/place and other parts of itself at others. So, as an unlimited being, God cannot be within time like we are.

Anselm does not think that God is radically disconnected from time, as Boethius seems to suggest. Anselm wants to reconcile the eternal view with God’s action within time, for example with God being the sustaining cause of every place and time. His solution can be seen in the title to chapter 19 of the Proslogion :

“That he is not in place or time, but all times and places are in him” – Anselm.

Anselm argues that although God is not in time, God still has some relationship to time. All of time is in God. For us, time unfolds moment by moment. For God, all the moments of time , whether in our past, present or future, are equally and eternally present. All of time always exists in divine eternity. God is eternally present with all moments of time and everything that happens within time, not by merely ‘perceiving’ all of time from outside of time as Boethius says, but by all of time actually being in God and thus eternally present to and with God.

Dimensions. The first dimension is a straight line, the second includes is a flat plane and the third includes up and down, e.g. a cube. The fourth dimension is time, which involves duration and change of spatial things.

In space, objects can be extended through the three spatial dimensions, meaning they take up particular physical coordinates in space. Four dimensionalism is the view that we can understand time as an object’s extension through the fourth dimension.

Anselm scholar Katherin Rogers identifies Anselm as the “first coherent four dimensionalist”. Anselm claims that just as all of space is contained in one moment in time, so too is all of time contained in eternity. Eternity is thus the totality of the fourth dimension. Rogers’ interpretation goes further and claims that Anselm understands Eternity as a “sort of fifth dimension”, higher than the fourth dimension, containing the lower four dimensions, (all times and all spaces) within it.

“Just as the present time contains all place and whatever is in any place, in the same way the eternal present encloses all time and whatever exists in any time.” – Anselm.

The crucial thing to understand is that a dimension contains dimensions lower than it within it. E.g. a 3 dimensional cube contains 1 dimensional straight lines. So too is it with space, time and eternity. All of 3 dimensional space is contained within four-dimensional moments (time), and all the moments of time are contained within eternity. All times and everything in time exists within God’s eternal present and thus exists with God in eternity. This is how God’s whole being is with all places and all times.

Anselm thus addresses the omniscience-free will-omnibenevolence issue by claiming that while events within time such as future actions are not fixed, nonetheless in eternity they are occurring simultaneously with all other events.

“that which in eternity cannot be changed, is changeable by free will at some time before it exists.”

Our future actions do not yet exist within time, but in eternity they always exist . So, God knows our future actions because he exists simultaneously with them in eternity, though within time they are not yet fixed. Anselm came to the somewhat radical conclusion that God therefore actually learns when he knows our future actions, which is controversial. It’s the only way to make sense of free will though. Free choices can only be known by observing them, they cannot be predicted.

“Just as something in eternity neither was nor will be but just is, and nevertheless it was or will be in time without any contradiction, in the same way that which cannot change in eternity, in time at some temporal point before it happened, is shown to be changeable through free will without any inconsistency. However, although nothing is there [in eternity] but what is present, it is not a temporal present like ours, but an eternal [present] in which all times are contained. Just as the present time contains all place and whatever is in any place, in the same way the eternal present encloses all time and whatever exists in any time.” – Anselm

A consequence of Anselm’s theory is that God learns our future actions by being with them in eternity. God doesn’t know our future actions through predicting them since genuinely free choices are unpredictable. He knows our future actions through apprehending them by being simultaneous with them in eternity. Some argue that this seems to conflict with omniscience. If he learned our future actions, then before he learned them he didn’t know them. That implies he is not omniscient. It is incoherent to suggest that an omniscient being could learn.

We can defend Anselm by arguing that technically, since God is outside time, he has always known our future actions. In eternity, our future actions always exist. So, there was never a time when God did not know our future actions, despite knowing them by learning them. This is because God’s learning of our future actions is not an event within time. In eternity, God always learns of our future actions which  always exist .

This is similar to how Christ was ‘eternally begotten’ by the father in the Nicene creed. It is important to the idea of the trinity that the Son is somehow derived from the Father; that the Father begat the son. Yet it is also important that the son has always existed (since he is God). So, if Christ is eternally begotten by the Father, then there was no time when Christ did not exist, despite his existence being derived from the father. There was no point in time when Christ was derived; the derivation is eternal. Similarly, God’s learning of our future actions is eternal.

Anthony Kenny’s critique of the eternal view

Kenny claims that if God is eternal/timeless, then all events in history are happening at the same time for God, e.g. the battle of Hastings and the fire of Rome are happening at the same time as Kenny is writing his book. Kenny rejects that as ‘radically incoherent’. There a causal relation and sequence between events within time. The fire of Rome necessarily happened before Kenny wrote his paper. Yet if all things were perceived simultaneously, it seems an atemporal being could not know one happened before the other, but this seems to bring omniscience into question. Another example is that God would see Boethius writing his book at the same time as Boethius’ body lies in his tomb. That seems incoherent. Boethius’ view seems to wipe out the temporal distinction between events in time.

Anselm’s four-dimensionalism can be used to respond to Kenny as it arguably improves Boethius’ position. The issue with Boethius, that Kenny points out, is that if God sees all time simultaneously, then that suggests that all temporal events really are occurring simultaneously, which seems false since many events in history are not simultaneous.

However, Anselm claims that there are two types of simultaneity; simultaneity within time and simultaneity within eternity (outside of time).

“eternity has its own unique simultaneity in which exist all the things that exist at the same place or time, and whatever exists in the different places and times.” – Anselm.

We could call these two types temporal simultaneity (within time) and eternal simultaneity (within eternity) .

All events are simultaneous in eternity because they are equally present to God. Within time, many events will be non-simultaneous with each other. Anselm’s point is that two events could be temporally non-simultaneous and yet eternally simultaneous.

Temporal events like the fire of Rome and Kenny writing his paper are indeed temporally non-simultaneous and yet they are also eternally simultaneous with God in eternity. So, it’s not that God is outside time viewing it as it ‘truly is’, as seems the consequence of Boethius’ formulation, which absurdly denies temporal distinctions between events within time. Rather, Anselm holds that different temporal events are distinct within time, yet all times are contained within eternity, in which all temporal events are simultaneous with God and with one-another. So there is no issue of denying the temporal distinctness of some events in time, since on Anselm’s view they are, nor is there the issue of God seeing things as simultaneous when they aren’t, since they actually are (at least, they are eternally simultaneous).

To put it in terms using dimensions, Anselm regards temporally distinct events in the dimension of time to be contained, with all other events, in the higher dimension of eternity where they are simultaneous with each other and with God. So, Anselm maintains the distinctness of temporal events despite the eternal simultaneity of all events by relating temporality to eternity in that eternity contains the lower dimension of temporality.

The Everlasting view

Swinburne claims God exists within time. Before the creation of the universe, God existed in a durationless non-metric time. Once the universe had been created then time began to unfold moment by moment – both for creation and for God. God thus knows what we have done in the past and what we are doing in the present. However, regarding the future, God only knows the logically possible choices we could make, not which choice we will actually make. This resolves the apparent conflict between omniscience with free will and subsequently with omnibenevolance because if God does not know what we are going to do next, there is no conflict with free will and thus omnibenevolence is not called into question in his punishing us for our actions. God is omniscient in that he knows everything which can be known.

Swinburne argues that an eternal God could not respond to people’s prayers, since that would require acting within time.

Eternal vs everlasting on the issue of God’s relationship with us including prayer

Aquinas argues that Prayers aren’t responded to by God in real-time, however. “We do not pray to change divine decree, but only to obtain what God has decided will be obtained through prayer”. The function of a prayer is to make people feel psychologically closer to God or in order to gain the benefits that God has already designed the world, through his providence, to be the effect of prayer.

However Swinburne doesn’t think we can’t feel close in the sense of being in a loving relationship with an eternal being. He says an eternal God would be unchanging and thus be a “pretty lifeless thing”. Swinburne argued that a relationship with God based on love is a two-way process which requires an ability for God to respond to us, and vice versa. This could only work if God was within time.

Aquinas argues that since God is perfect he cannot change, as any change for a perfect being would necessarily be a change away from perfection. Therefore God cannot change, and so he cannot be in time.

Eternal vs everlasting: biblical evidence

Biblical evidence for the everlasting view. Swinburne also argued that it only makes sense to understand God’s actions in the bible if we see them as responses to human’s free choices. E.g the 10 plagues of Egypt. God sent the first plague, waited to see if the Pharaoh would let the Jews go. He didn’t, so God sent the second plague, and so on until plague number 10. Wolterstorff argued that God being omniscient doesn’t include knowledge of the future. The future doesn’t yet exist, therefore knowledge of it would be illogical

Counter-examples. Jesus also knows that Judas will betray him and that peter would betray him three times before the cockerel crowed. So it seems that Jesus/God does know future human actions. There are also the examples of old testament prophecies which suggest God knows the future.

Arguably God knows what we’re going to do next like a parent knows what their child will do next, because they know them really well but don’t actually know for sure.

This doesn’t seem to accurately capture the nature of biblical prophecies, however, which are portrayed as absolutely certain.

The Logical problem of evil

The problem of evil, specifically the logical problem of evil is relevant to this topic because it attempts to show that the attribute of omnipotence and omnibenevolence cannot both co-exist with the existence of evil.

The logical problem of evil is the a priori argument that evil and the God of classical theism (as defined as omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient) cannot exist together. In other words, there is no possible world in which both evil and the God of classical theism exist. Their co-existence is impossible. Mackie argued for this.

Mackie’s version of this argument is the ‘inconsistent triad’ which argued that the God of classical theism (omnipotent and omnibenevolence) cannot exist if evil exists. Either Omnipotence, omnibenevolence or evil must not exist, since all three are inconsistent. Omnipotence entails the power to eliminate evil. Omnibenevolence entails the motivation to prevent evil. Something cannot possibly exist if there is a being with the power and motivation to eliminate it. Therefore, if evil exists, an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God cannot exist. God could at most be omnibenevolent or omnipotent but not both. This is known as the Logical problem of evil which claims that it is logically impossible for both God (as defined with omnipotence & omnibenevolence) and evil to both exist. This is an a priori argument because the conclusion follows from a logical analysis of the definitions of the concepts ‘omnibenevolence’, ‘omnipotence’ and ‘evil’, without reference to experience.

Augustine vs the logical problem of evil

The logical problem claims that it is impossible for God and evil to co-exist. Augustine’s theodicy claims that God allows evil because we deserve it. If the logical possibility of that claim can be defended, then Augustine will have defeated the logical problem of evil.

Original sin violates moral responsibility: It’s not ethical for all humanity to be blamed for the actions of Adam and Eve. This suggests an indefensible view of moral responsibility – that people can be responsible for actions committed by others which is of special absurdity in this case since the action occurred before they were even born.

Augustine is not actually arguing that God himself blamed all humanity for Adam’s sin, he’s merely pointing out that it was a factual consequence of Adam’s sin that all future humanity, in Adam’s loins, became infected with original sin. This made us into sinful beings from birth. So it’s not that we are being punished for the actions of our ancestors. We are being punished because we are sinful beings; because we have original sin.

It’s not our fault that we have original sin, so it still seems unfair and thus incompatible with omnibenevolence to suggest that we deserve punishment for it. Especially when considering cases like a child with cancer, it’s difficult to maintain that a child deserves cancer because it has original sin. Augustine would have to say that it is God’s justice for a child to get cancer and that God is still omnibenevolent despite allowing it. That is logically inconsistent with God being omnibenevolent.

Augustine insists that God’s reasons and justice are beyond our understanding. We should not try to use our limited human minds to judge God. It might seem unfair, but Augustine puts it down to the “secret yet just judgement of God” , indicating that it is inscrutable – impossible for us to understand – but we should have faith it is just. Augustine points to Psalm 25:10: ‘All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth,’ and concludes: “neither can his grace be unjust, nor his justice cruel”.

It is debatable whether the view that logic is invalid in understanding God can really solve the logical problem of evil. Arguably that simply fails to provide a logical response.

Possible exam questions for the Nature or Attributes of God

Easy Is the concept of God coherent? What is the relationship between divinity and time? ‘If God is omniscient, humans can’t have free will’ – Discuss. Analyse the implications of God’s eternity.

Medium Is Swinburne correct that God is everlasting/temporal? Can God be omnipotent? Can God be omnibenevolent? ‘The divine attributes of God conflict with each other’ – Discuss. Assess Boethius and Anselm’s view on God’s relationship with time. Does God know future human actions? ‘God is limited by divine self-limitation’ – how far do you agree? Does God have divine foreknowledge? Can God justly judge human actions? Critically compare Boethius with Swinburne on God’s relationship with time. Assess Boethius’ claim that God is eternal/atemporal.

Hard Assess Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach. Does Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach adequately explain divine action in time? Evaluate Boethius’ view of divine action and time. Critically compare Anselm with Swinburne on God’s relationship with time. “It is not necessary to resolve the apparent conflicts between divine attributes” – Discuss.

Quick links

Year 12 philosophy topics: Plato & Aristotle. Soul, Mind & Body. Design/Teleological argument. Cosmological argument. Ontological argument. Religious experience. Problem of evil.

Year 13 philosophy topics:   Nature & Attributes of God. Religious language. 20th Century philosophy of language.

OCR Ethics OCR Christianity OCR essay structure OCR list of possible exam questions

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The Nature of God

Topic 1 – The Nature of God

• Describe the reasons Christians might give in support of their belief in God. [8]

There are many different reasons as to why Christians might give in support of their belief in God. Most Christians would believe in god as they have been informed by their vicar or priest in church. Christians believe that the world is designed so there be a designer who completes the job. Not all Christians would give the same reason for their belief in God.

Some Christians would say that the fact that we feel guilt for the things we do wrong is evidence for God. Others might believe that the universe needs an ultimate cause and only God can explain this.

 Other Christians might have a personal experience of God, for example they may have prayed for healing and felt that God cured them. These are all explanations to god’s existence.   They might say that god is creator, because there must be a first cause or they say that the world is an intelligent planet so somebody must have made it; they might also say that you feel bad when you commit a felony or do something that you’re not meant to be doing god is making you have that feeling.

This is a preview of the whole essay

(b) Explain how believing that the Bible is the word of God might affect the lives of

Christians. [7]

Christians of today would often read the bible on a regular basis for spiritual and ethnic guidance in difficult times in their lives. To most Christians the bible is the most important book in their homes as it really relaxes and clams them down when times get hard and emotional for them. The bible can also be seen as a source of encouragement and hope which is important to Christians as this can be seen as a backbone to give them confidence. Since the bible is Holy it would not be treated like any unread book, the bible ranks above all books and would be treated with the upmost respect.

 The bible has that type of spiritual power over Christians. Although the bible may be holy positive book there are still disadvantages with it. Christians who really believe in the lord and take the statements in the bible seriously like the Ten Commandments, it would really have an impact on their life as it would be extremely difficult to follow the commandments correctly without making a single mistake; this would cause stress and frustration to Christians.

( c) ‘There is no way of knowing what God might be like.’

Do you agree? Give reasons to support your answer and show that you have thought

about different points of view. You must refer to Christianity in your answer. [5]

I agree with this statement because we would not actually be able to see or be in contact with the lord as he is ultimately beyond human understanding as God is not really a human he is more like a spiritual being which our senses would not be able to make out. Others would think differently because they could still get images of lord regardless of actually seeing him or not. However I feel that even though I have never seen the lord I still have possible images in my head of what he could like from Christian stories of the bible.

Document Details

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• Subject Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

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The Nature of God.

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The Law of Nature and Nature’s God in the Declaration: One Moral Law Revealed in Two Ways

The Sermon on the Mount by Henrik Olrik, c1855. In the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew 5-7, Jesus taught the Golden Rule, to “do to others as you would want them to do to you.”

The Declaration of Independence of 1776 tells much about the founding philosophy of the United States of America.  One philosophical principle that the American Founders asserted in the Declaration was the “Law of Nature and Nature’s God.”  This universal moral law served as their moral and legal basis for creating a new, self-governing nation.  One apparent aspect of this law is that it was understood in Western thought and by early Americans to be revealed by God in two ways—in nature and in the Bible—and thus evidences the Bible’s influence in America’s founding document.

The “Law of Nature” is the moral or common sense embedded in man’s heart or conscience (as confirmed in Romans 2:14-15).  It tells one to live honestly, hurt no one, and render to everyone his due.  The law of “Nature’s God” as written in the Bible and spoken by Jesus Christ consists of two great commandments—to love God and love others (as found in Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:28-31, and Luke 10:25-28).  The first commandment, first found in Deuteronomy 6:5, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.”  The second commandment, often referred to as the Golden Rule and first found in Leviticus 19:18, is to “love your neighbor as yourself” or, as expressed by Jesus in Matthew 7:12, to “do to others as you would have them do to you.”  Thus the content for both the natural and written laws is the same.

The law of Nature and God can be traced through the history and writings of Western Civilization.  This principle is found, for example, in medieval European thought.  In his 1265-1274 Summa Theologica , published in 1485, Italian theologian Thomas Aquinas acknowledged a “two-fold” moral law that is both general and specific:

The natural law directs man by way of certain general precepts, common to both the perfect [faithful] and the imperfect [non-faithful]:  wherefore it is one and the same for all.  But the Divine law directs man also in certain particular matters….  Hence the necessity for the Divine law to be twofold. [1]

Aquinas explained that the written law in the Bible was given by God due to the fallibility of human judgment and the perversion of the natural law in the hearts of many.  In the 1300s, medieval Bible scholars referred to the “Law of Nature and God” as a simple way to describe God’s natural and written law, its two expressions.  The phrase presented this law in the same order and timing in which God revealed it to mankind in history—first in creation and then in Holy Scripture.

During the Reformation period, French religious reformer John Calvin affirmed this two-fold moral law in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion , observing, “It is certain that the law of God, which we call the moral law, is no other than a declaration of natural law, and of that conscience which has been engraven by God on the minds of men.” [2]   He further explains, “The very things contained in the two tables [or commandments in the Bible] are…dictated to us by that internal law which…is…written and stamped on every heart.” [3]   Incidentally, Puritan leader John Winthrop, who led a large migration of Calvinist Puritans from England to the American colonies, identified God’s two-fold moral law in his well-known 1630 sermon, A Model of Christian Charity , delivered to the Puritans as they sailed to America.  He taught,

There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation one towards another:  …the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law and the law of the Gospel….  By the first of these laws, man…is commanded to love his neighbor as himself.  Upon this ground stands all the precepts of the moral law which concerns our dealings with men. [4]

During the Enlightenment period, British philosopher John Locke, who was influential to the Founders, wrote of the “law of God and nature” in his 1689 First Treatise of Civil Government . [5]   This law, he further notes in his 1696 Reasonableness of Christianity , “being everywhere the same, the Eternal Rule of Right, obliges Christians and all men everywhere, and is to all men the standing Law of Works.” [6]   English legal theorist William Blackstone, another oft-cited thinker of the American founding era, recognized the two-fold moral law in his influential 1765-1769 Commentaries on the Laws of England .  This law, he believed, could be known partially by man’s imperfect natural reason and completely by the Bible.  Due to man’s imperfect reason, Blackstone like Aquinas observed, the Bible’s written revelation is necessary:

If our reason were always, as in our first ancestor [Adam] before his transgression, clear and perfect, unruffled by passions, unclouded by prejudice, unimpaired by disease or intemperance, the task [of discerning God’s law and will] would be pleasant and easy.  We should need no other guide but this [reason].  But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience, that his reason is corrupt and his understanding is full of ignorance and error.

This [corruption] has given manifold occasion for the benign interposition of divine providence which, in compassion to the frailty, imperfection, and blindness of human reason, has been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation.  The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures. [7]

Portrait of Samuel Adams by John Singleton Copley, 1772.

Founding-era Americans themselves recognized the two-fold moral law of nature and God.  American revolutionary leader Samuel Adams was, for example, one significant voice on the law of Nature and God during the American Revolution.  He referred to this law as the source of man’s natural rights in his 1772 Report on the Rights of Colonists , asserting, “‘Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty’ in matters spiritual and temporal is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature.” [8]   Later, in a 1792 address to the Massachusetts legislature, Adams again referred to this two-fold law:

All men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator.  They are imprinted by the finger of God on the heart of man.  Thou shall do no injury to thy neighbor, is the voice of nature and reason, and it is confirmed by written revelation [in the Bible]. [9]

In his 1796 Senate notes, American Founder and second president John Adams recognized the two-fold Law of Nature and God as the same moral law:

One great advantage of the Christian Religion is that it brings the great principle of the Law of nature and nations—Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you would that others should do to you—to the knowledge, belief, and veneration of the whole people. [10]

Official Portrait of U. S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson

American Founder, Supreme Court Justice, and lawyer James Wilson elaborated on the natural and written moral law in his 1790-1791 Lectures on Law :

That law, which God has made for man in his present state, which is communicated to us by reason and conscience, the divine monitors within us, and by the sacred oracles, the divine monitors without us…has been called natural.  As promulgated by the holy scriptures, it has been called revealed law.  …  But it should always be remembered, that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source.  It is the law of God.  [11]

Both the natural and written law, Wilson emphasized, are given by God and necessary for fully understanding God’s moral law.  He explained, “The law of nature and the law of revelation [in the Bible] are both divine.  They flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source.  It is, indeed, preposterous, to separate them from each other.  The object of both is to discover the will of God—and both are necessary for the accomplishment of that end.” [12]   This law, Wilson asserted, upholds the maxims to obey God, to injure no man, and to faithfully fulfill one’s engagements.

In conclusion, while Americans have complete religious freedom and are not required to hold a religious belief in the Bible or Judeo-Christianity, it is important for Americans to recognize and appreciate that the early colonists held a certain philosophical worldview when founding the United States.  This worldview derived largely from Western thought and their beliefs and values.  Indeed, they apparently affirmed the two-fold idea of a moral law for mankind, found in nature and the Bible.  When the Founders wrote the “Law of Nature and Nature’s God” into the Declaration, therefore, they were likely referencing the law that came not only from human nature and reason but from written revelation in the Bible.  Thus the Declaration, as Gary T. Amos observes in his Defending the Declaration:  How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence , “makes the Bible a fundamental part of the legal foundation of America.  …The phrase…incorporates by reference the moral law of the Bible into the founding document of our country!” [13]

Portrait of Benjamin Rush by Charles Willson Peale, c1818

The Declaration’s “Law of Nature and Nature’s God” serves not only as the legal basis for the American founding but is also a testament to the philosophical, religious beliefs and values of a people who sought to create a godly, free, and just nation—a nation that closely reflected the kingdom of heaven on earth.  It is the creed of a people who sought to abide, with God’s grace and help, by God’s law of love.  Citing the words of Jesus in John 13:34-35, American Founder Benjamin Rush expressed well an American view of such values in a 1791 letter on the “Defense of the Use of the Bible in Schools:”

Let us not be wiser than our Maker.  If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into our world would have been unnecessary.  He came to promulgate a system of doctrines , as well as a system of morals.  The perfect morality of the Gospel rests upon a doctrine which, though often controverted, has never been refuted.  I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God.  This sublime and ineffable doctrine delivers us from the absurd hypotheses of modern philosophers concerning the foundation of moral obligation, and fixes it upon the eternal and self-moving principle of LOVE.  It concentrates a whole system of ethics in a single text of scripture:  “ A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you .” [14]

Michael Novak in his On Two Wings:  Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding affirms the biblical, Judeo-Christian values that influenced early Americans and shaped the American founding:  “In those days, faith permeated philosophy and lifted it above its own limitations.  …  The vast majority of the American Founders and the whole ratifying people thought and acted in the conviction that the American theory of rights is religious as well as reasonable.” [15]

[1] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica , trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, pt 2/Q 91, Article 5, trans Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benziger Bros., 1947) in Christian Classics Ethereal Library, ccel.org < https://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/home.html >.

[2] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion , vol. 3, bk. 4, trans. John Allen (Philadelphia, PA:  Philip H. Nicklin, 1816), 534-535.

[3] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion:  A New Translation , vol. 1, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh, Scotland:  Printed for Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 430.

[4] John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity, 1630 , in Puritan Political Ideas, 1558-1794 , ed. Edmund S. Morgan (Indianapolis, IN:  Hackett Publishing, 2003), 75-93.

[5] John Locke, First Treatise of Civil Government , in Two Treatises on Government , bk. 1 (London:  George Routledge and Sons, 1884), 142, 157, 164.

[6] John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures , Second Edition (London:  Printed for Awnsham and John Churchil, 1696), 21-22.

[7] William Blackstone, Blackstone’s Commentaries in Five Volumes , ed. George Tucker (Union, NJ:  Lawbook Exchange, 1996, 2008), 41.

[8] Samuel Adams, Report on the Rights of the Colonists , 20 November 1772, in American Patriotism:  Speeches, Letters, and Other Papers Which Illustrate the Foundation, the Development, the Preservation of the United States of America , comp. Selim H. Peabody (New York:  American Book Exchange, 1880), 33.

[9] Samuel Adams to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 17 January 1794, in The Writings of Samuel Adams:  1778-1802 , vol. 4, ed. Harry A. Cushing (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 356.

[10] John Adams, Diary, Notes of a Debate in the Senate of the United States, 24 August 1796, in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States , vol. 3, ed. Charles F. Adams (Boston:  Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 423.

[11] James Wilson, Lectures on Law, Part 1, 1790-1791 , in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson , Vol. 1, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia, PA:  Lorenzo Press, Printed for Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), 104, 120.

[12] Wilson, Lectures on Law , 120.

[13] Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration:  How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence (Brentwood, TN:  Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1989), 60.

[14] Benjamin Rush to Rev. Jeremy Belknap, “A Defense of the Use of the Bible in Schools,” Philadelphia, 10 March 1791, in Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical , 2 nd ed., by Benjamin Rush (Philadelphia, PA:  Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 105.  John 13:34 states:  “A new commandment I [Jesus] give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

[15] Michael Novak, On Two Wings:  Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (San Francisco, CA:  Encounter Books, 2002), 82.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

—– Sources for more information: Kamrath, Angela E.   The Miracle of America:  The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief .  Second Edition.  Houston, TX:  American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Aquinas, Thomas.  The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas .  Part 2, No. 1/QQ 1-XXVI.  Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province.  New York:  Benziger Brothers, 1911.  Google Books.  See Question 91, Articles 4 & 5, and Question 94, Article 5.

Related posts/videos: 1.  The Puritans’ Moral Authority Was the Bible 2.  Great Awakening Principle:  The Judeo-Christian Law of Love 3.  Great Awakening Principle:  The Value and Dignity of the Human Being 4.  American Revolution Debate:  The American Quest for a New Republic 5.  The Bible was the Most Cited Source of the American Founding Era 6,  American revolution Debate:  Proper Submission to Authority 7.  American Revolution Debate:  Obedience to God Over Man 8.  The American Quest for Self-Government 9.  The Creator God:  The Basis of Authority, Law, & the Rights of Man 10.  Self-Evident Truth:  A Common Sense View of Equality and Rights in the Declaration 11.  The Law of Nature in the Declaration:  The Universal Moral Law of Mankind 12.  The Law of Nature in the Bible 13.  The Law of Nature and Nature’s God in the Declaration:  One Moral Law Revealed in Two Ways 14.  The Law of Nature in the Declaration:  The American Basis and Standard for Just Civil Law 15.  The American Defense of Unalienable Rights in the Declaration  16.  The Unalienable Right to Pursue Happiness in the Declaration 17.  America’s Founding Philosophy in the Declaration:  God as Supreme Judge, Lawgiver, and King 18.  The Purpose of American Civil Government 19.  Unabridged:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution 20.  A Brief Overview:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution 21.  When the People Rule:  The Principle of Popular Sovereignty in the U. S. Declaration and Constitution 22.  The American Principle of Equality in the Declaration 23.  Bible Education and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 24.  The Bible-Inspired Influences on the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights 25.  Responsibility:  The Fourth Most Important Characteristic of America

Poster:  Declaration of Independence

—–

Activity:  The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 7, Part 1, Activity 6:  Identifying Biblical Principles in the Declaration, p. 237, 372-376.  MS-HS.

Identifying Biblical Principles in the Declaration

Purpose/Objective:   Students learn key principles of the Declaration of Independence including Creator God, God as Supreme Judge, Law of Nature and Nature’s God, Rule of Law, Popular Sovereignty, and Consent of the Governed, and how historical, influential thinkers and early Americans connected these concepts with the Bible.

Suggested Readings: 1)  Chapter 7 of  Miracle of America  reference/text.  Students read sections 7.1 to 7.12, 7.18, & pp. 236-237. 2) Essay/Handout:  Principles of the American Revolution by Angela E. Kamrath found in the “Supporting Resources” of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 354-356, or in the “Miracle of America Snapshots” handout under member resources at americanheritage.org . 3)  “Historical Figures Quoted in Miracle of America ” and “References to the Law of Nature and Natural Rights in Miracle of America ” in “Supporting Resources” of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 347-348, 360-61, 366-371. 4)  Related blogs/videos (see above). Matching Card Game: Beforehand, the teacher should print, copy, and cut the matching game cards for a class set.  If students work in small groups of 2 or 3, the teacher will only need to create 10-15 plastic bags of cards to make a class set.  Before the game, the teacher should show and discuss the art image “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo with students.  Students should be familiar with this image before playing the game.  Follow game instructions.  See “The Creation of Adam” Michelangelo painting and the “Matching Card Game” instructions and cut-outs in the “Supporting Resources” section of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 372-376.

To download this whole unit,  sign up as an AHEF member  (no cost) to access the “resources” page on  americanheritage.org .  To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the  AHEF bookstore .

Copyright © American Heritage Education Foundation.  All rights reserved.

Dr. Danilo Petranovich is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Petranovich is the Director of the Abigail Adams Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Previously, he taught political science at Duke University and Yale University.  His scholarly expertise is in nineteenth-century European and American political and social thought, with a special emphasis on American culture and Abraham Lincoln.  He has authored a number of articles on Lincoln and is currently writing a book on nationalism and the North in antebellum America.  He is a member of Harvard’s Kirkland House.  He holds a B. A. from Harvard and a Ph. D. in Political Science from Yale University.

Dr. Richard J. Gonzalez (1912-1998) is Co-Founder of AHEF.  Dr. Gonzalez served as Chief Economist and a member of the Board of Directors for Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Mobil) in Houston, Texas, for 28 years.  Later, he served as an economic consultant to various federal agencies and studies including the Department of Defense and the National Energy Study. 

He consulted with the Petroleum Administration for Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization. In 1970, he was appointed by the U. S. Secretary of the Interior to the National Energy Study.  In addition, Gonzalez chaired and directed many petroleum industry boards and committees.  He served as director of the National Industrial Conference Board, chairman of the Economics Advisory Committee-Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and chairman of the National Petroleum Council Drafting Committee on National Oil Policy.  Gonzalez also held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, University of Houston, University of New Mexico, Stanford University, and Northwestern University.  From 1983-1991, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas IC2 Institute (Innovation, Creativity, and Capital).

Gonzalez authored many articles and papers on topics ranging from energy economics to the role of progress in America. His articles include “Economics of the Mineral Industry” (1976), “Energy and the Environment: A Risk Benefit Approach” (1976), “Exploration and Economics of the Petroleum Industry” (1976), “Exploration for U. S. Oil and Gas” (1977), “National Energy Security” (1978), and “How Can U.S. Energy Production Be Increased?” (1979).

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Gonzalez earned his B.A. in Mathematics, M.A. in Economics, and Ph.D. in Economics (Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors) from the University of Texas at Austin.  He was and still is the youngest candidate ever to earn his Ph.D. from UT-Austin at the age of 21 in 1934.

In 1993, Dr. and Mrs. Gonzalez were recognized by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medals for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles.”

Selected Articles: 1.  “What Makes America Great? An Address before the Dallas Chapter Society for the Advancement of Management” (1951) 2.  “Power for Progress” (1952) 3.  “Increasing Importance of Economic Education” (1953) 4.  “Federal Spending and Deficits Must Be Controlled to Stop Inflation” (1978) 5.  “What Enabled Americans to Achieve Great Progress? Keys to Remarkable Economic Progress of the United States of America” (1989) 6.  “The Establishment of the United States of America” (1991)

Eugenie Gonzalez is Co-Founder of AHEF. Mrs. Gonzalez was elected to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Trustees with Dr. Herman Barnett III and David Lopez from 1972-1976 and was a key designer and advocate for HISD’s Magnet School program.  With HISD and AHEF in 1993, she designed and implemented HISD’s annual American Heritage Month held every November throughout HISD. 

Jeannie was recognized in 1993 by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles” with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medal and in 2011 by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) for “Outstanding Achievement through Education Pursuits” with the Mary Smith Lockwood Medal.  In 2004, she was honored to receive HISD’s first American Heritage Month Exemplary Citizenship Award.

Jeannie was a volunteer, participant, and supporter of M. D. Anderson Cancer Hospital, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, Gethsemane United Methodist Church, Houston Grand Jury Association (board member), League of Women Voters, Houston Area Forum, the Mayor’s Charter Study Committee, Vision America, Houston Parks Department, and Houston Tennis Association.  She was instrumental in the founding of the Houston Tennis Association and Houston Tennis Patrons.

In her youth, Jeannie was the leading women’s tennis player in the Midwest Section of the US Lawn Tennis Association and competed at the U. S. National Championships.  She attended by invitation and became the first women’s tennis player at the University of Texas at Austin.  In 1932, 1933, and 1934, Jeannie was women’s finalist at the Houston Invitational Tennis Tournament which became the River Oaks Invitational Tennis Tournament and is now the USTA Clay Court Championships.  She was instrumental in bringing some of the nation’s top amateur tennis players to that event.  Jeannie became the first teaching tennis professional at Houston Country Club and River Oaks Country Club, starting active junior programs at each.  Jeannie and her father, Jack Sampson, were jointly inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 2012.

Claudine Kamrath is Outreach Coordinator, Office Manager, and Resource Designer for AHEF. She oversees outreach efforts and office administration. She also collaborates on educational resource formatting and design.  She has served as an Elementary Art Teacher in Texas as well as a Communications and Design Manager for West University United Methodist Church in Houston. She also worked as a childrens’ Camp Counselor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She holds a B.A. in Art and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Texas at Austin as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston. She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Brian Domitrovic is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Domitrovic is a Senior Associate and the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics. He is also Department Chair and Professor of History at Same Houston State University.  He teaches American and European History and Economics.  His specialties also include Economic History, Intellectual History, Monetary Policy, and Fiscal Policy.  He has written articles, papers, and books–including  Econoclasts –in these subjects.  He is a board member of the Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder and a trustee of the Philadelphia Society.  He has received several awards including the Director’s Award from Intercollegiate Studies Institute and fellowship grants from Earhart Foundation, Krupp Foundation, Princeton, Texas A&M, and SHSU.  He holds a B. A. in History & Mathematics from Columbia University, an M. A. in History from Harvard University, and a Ph. D. in History, with graduate studies in Economics, from Harvard University.

Jack Kamrath is Co-Founder and Vice-President of AHEF.  A Texas state champion and nationally-ranked tennis player during his high school and college years, Kamrath is the Co-Founder and Principal of Tennis Planning Consultants (TPC) in Houston, Texas, since 1970. TPC is the first, oldest, and most prolific tennis facility design and consulting firm in the United States and world.  Mr. Kamrath is also the founder and owner of Kamrath Construction Company and has owned and managed various real estate operating companies.  He worked with Brown and Root in construction and human resources in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from 1966-1970. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.  He is a member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  In 2008, AHEF President Mr. Kamrath and AHEF received the Distinguished Patriot Award from the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for leadership in preserving America’s heritage and the teaching of good citizenship principles.

Essays: 1.   1776:  From Oppression to Freedom 2.   FUPR:  The Formula for the American Experiment 2.   In Support of Our Pledge of Allegiance 3.   A Summation of America’s Greatest Ever Threat to Its Survival and Perpetuation 4.   A Brief Overview:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution  (editor)

Dr. Michael Owens is Director of Education of AHEF. He has served as a Presenter/Trainer of AHEF teacher training workshops. Owens has taken on a number of administration leadership roles in Texas public education throughout his career–including Superintendent in Dripping Springs ISD, Assistant Superintendent in Friendswood ISD, and Associate Executive Director of Instruction Services for Region IV Education Service Center. He has also served as Director of Exemplary Programs for the Texas Education Agency, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for College Station ISD, and Director of Elementary and Secondary Education for College Station ISD. Owens has led many professional development worships for the Texas School Boards Association, Texas Assessment, Texas Education Agency, and others. He has specialization in educational technology systems and educational assessments, and has Texas teaching experience. He currently serves as Texas Technology Engineering Literacy (TEL) test administrator for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for part of Texas. He holds a B.S. and a M.Ed. from Stephen F. Austin State University and a Ed.D. from the University of North Texas.  He retired in 2021.

Angela E. Kamrath is President and Editorial Director of AHEF.  She is the author of the critically-acclaimed  The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief . She is editor and co-contributor of AHEF’s widely-distributed teacher resources,  America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty ,  America’s Heritage: An Experiment in Self-Government , and  The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide . In addition, she is editor and contributor for  The Founding Blog  and AHEF websites. Kamrath has taught, tutored, and consulted in writing and research at the University of Houston, Belhaven College, and Houston Christian University.  She also served as a Secondary English Teacher in Texas and as a Communications Assistant for St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She served as a Research Assistant intern in the Office of National Service during the George H. W. Bush administration.  She holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.A. in Journalism from Regent University, and a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston.  She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Steve Balch is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Balch is the Principal Founder and former President of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). He served as a Professor of Government at City University of New York from 1974-1987.  Dr. Balch has co-authored several NAS studies on education curriculum evolution and problems including  The Dissolution of General Education:  1914-1993 ,  The Dissolution of the Curriculum 1914-1996 , and  The Vanishing West .  He is the author of  Economic and Political Change After Crisis:  Prospects for Government, Liberty and Rule of Law  and numerous articles relating to issues in academia.  Dr. Balch has also founded and/or led many education organizations including the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University, Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, Association for the Study of Free Institutions, American Academy for Liberal Education, Philadelphia Society, Historical Society, and Association of Literary Scholars.  He has also served on the National Advisory Board of the U. S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), Educational Excellence Network, and New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.  Dr. Balch was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2007, and the Jeanne Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award by the Bradley Foundation and American Conservative Union Foundation in 2009.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from City University of New York and a M. A. and Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley.

Dr. Rob Koons is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Koons is a Professor of Philosophy and Co-Founder of The Western Civilization and American Institutions Program at The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches ancient, medieval, contemporary Christian, and political philosophy as well as philosophy of religion.  He has authored/co-authored countless articles and several books including  Realism Regained ,  The Atlas of Reality, Fundamentals of Metaphysics,  and  Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science .  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and is a member of the American Philosophical Association, Society of Christian Philosophers, and American Catholic Philosophical Association.  He holds a B. A. in Philosophy from Michigan State University, an M. A. in Philosophy and Theology from Oxford University, and a Ph. D. in Philosophy from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Mark David Hall is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Hall is a Professor of Political Science in the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy at First Liberty Institute.  He is also a Distinguished Scholar of Christianity & Public Life at George Fox University, Associate Faculty in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. His teaching interests include American Political Theory, Religion and Politics, Constitutional Law, and Great Books.  Dr. Hall is a nationally recognized expert on religious freedom and has written or edited a dozen books on religion and politics in America including  Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land:  How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans ,  Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth ,  Great Christian Jurists in American History ,  America’s Wars: A Just War Perspective ,  Faith and the Founders of the American Republic ,  The Sacred Rights of Conscience ,  The Founders on God and Government , and  The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson .  He writes for the online publications Law & Liberty and Intercollegiate Studies Review and has appeared regularly on a number of radio shows, including Jerry Newcomb’s Truth in Action, Tim Wildman’s Today’s Issues, the Janet Mefferd Show, and the Michael Medved Show.  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and the Freedom Project Award by the John Templeton Foundation in 1999 and 2000.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from Wheaton College and a Ph. D. in Government from the University of Virginia.

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Nature of God in the Old Testament

Updated 24 November 2023

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Category Religion

Based on the belief that God existed, as described in the Old Testament of the Bible, it will be important to consider analyzing how different authors of the Old Testament portrayed the nature of God. The nature of God could be illustrated using different incidences that took place in the Old Testament as well as through the analysis of the scripts written by different authors of the Old Testament. Even though there are some instances when the attributes and nature of God could be directly established from the written books of the Bible, it is also important to note that it will be important to critically analyze the written books of the Old Testament in order to come up with a common attribute that almost all of the authors had on God. This paper will describe the nature of God based on the viewpoint of the Old Testament books such as Genesis, Deuteronomy, Amos, Isaiah, Exodus, Leviticus, and Lamentations.

One of the most important nature of God that is described in both the book of Isaiah and Deuteronomy is that God is a Rock. This can be illustrated using the fact that He was able to provide His believers with the necessary support when they were in the time of need. To support this statement, it will be important to quote the book of Isaiah 44: 8 which states that “Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long time ago? You are witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” Furthermore, it can be determined that Moses referred to God as the Rock when he was showing how kind and just the God is to all His children. “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). Referring to God as the Rock is meant to demonstrate unprecedented protection and support that He provides to those who believe in Him.

The Old Testament portrays God as the true God who has been existing before He created the world. In that case, it is therefore important for everyone in the whole universe to believe and trust in Him. This characteristic of God was demonstrated in the Book of Exodus when Moses was to pass the message from God to the people of Israel. “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers – God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation” (Exodus 3:13-15).

The characteristic of God of being wrathful has also been vividly described in different Books of the Old Testament. Even though it has been determined that the wrathfulness of God is one of the solemn topics for discussion, it is also important to take into consideration that this characteristic of God cannot be avoided. It is therefore, important for the human beings to know that most of the things they are doing are contrary to the righteousness. In order to avoid the wrathfulness of God, it is important for all of the human beings to live according to His expectations. The perception that we, as the human beings, have to be responsible for the faults, together with the specific sins has been considered as a nightmare to the human beings based on the fact that God is also in possession of wrathful traits as demonstrated in the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy. Therefore, it has been demonstrated that there are two circumstances when God was swearing to make promises (Genesis 22:16) and ready to pronounce judgment on the people who disobey Him (Deuteronomy 1:34).

The Book of Amos has described the nature of God as One who is universal, observant of all of the nations in the world and was aware of the sins committed by the human beings and therefore He has the ability of adequately apply His justice (Amos 1:3-2:3). Additionally, nurturing care of the God is also clearly demonstrated in the Book of Amos based on the fact that He was able to bring the Israelites out of Egypt as well as taking the Philistines and Syrians out of their respective places to the promised land (Amos 9:7). Furthermore, Amos was able to forestall Gentiles being called by the name of the Lord as demonstrated in the Book of Amos Chapter 9 verse 12. Even though it has been determined that God has an exceptional relationship with His special people, it is still important to take into contemplations that we are not the only group of people he considers. This inspiring trait regarding the consistent nature of God should be able to arouse our hearts in order to be devoted to His, as demonstrated by Amos.

Characterization of God as a violent destroyer is considered as one of the most provoking images of God as demonstrated in the Book of Lamentations. According to the Book of Lamentations Chapter 2 versus 1 through 9, God is described by His actions against the city. This is focused on the destruction of different physical features of the city such as the residences of Jacob and throttlehold of daughter Judah, palaces, and the wall of daughter Zion, gates and bars of the cult. Even though there is a minimal concern with the human impact following the destructions, God is pronounced as increasing mourning and lamentation. Lamentations (2:6-8) intensify the destructive nature of the actions of God, with much specifications and concerns being raised based on the manner through which He was able to destroy the cult. Furthermore, God is also demonstrated as one with dedicated love and mercy. This characterization of God is elaborated in Chapter 1 of the Book of Lamentations and fully expressed in Chapter 3 when the man moves from the genre of dirge and grievance to wisdom like sections which praise the qualities of God (Lamentations 3:21-39).

The nature of God of being holy is demonstrated in the Book of Leviticus. In that case, God expects the human beings to become holy. That can be derived from the fact that he was expecting the Israelites to practice holiness in all their undertaking because He is a holy God (Leviticus 11:44-45). The holiness of God is one of His most significant nature since it helps in demonstrating that God is separate and different from all other things that He created. Furthermore, the Book of Leviticus also demonstrates the divine presence of God. In that case, it will be important to perform every act of worship “to the Lord who resides with His people in the tabernacle of meeting” (Leviticus 1:2). Based on the fact that God is present in all of the Holy places, it was important to prevent the entry of everyone in such places, expect the high priest annually during the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:17). Even though the presence of God is often unseen, He can manifest His glory during special events such as the ordination of the priests (Leviticus 9:23-24).

The Old Testament Books (Genesis, Deuteronomy, Amos, Isaiah, Exodus, Leviticus, and Lamentations) demonstrate different characterizations of God which can be used in determining His true nature. From the analysis established from the assigned Books of the Old Testament, it is important to note that the real characterization of God can be derived directly from what He instructed different people to do, what He individually did and what the authors are thinking about God. Even though there are some characteristics of God that portrays Him as a loving, caring and protecting Supreme Being, it was still demonstrated that there were situations when God was able to become destructive, as elaborated in the Book of Lamentations. Therefore, the nature of God can be perfectly understood based on the unfolding events.

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Essay on Nature a Precious Gift From God

Students are often asked to write an essay on Nature a Precious Gift From God in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Nature a Precious Gift From God

Introduction.

Nature is a precious gift from God. It is filled with beautiful landscapes, fascinating animals, and diverse plants.

Beauty of Nature

The beauty of nature is breathtaking. From majestic mountains to serene seas, it’s a visual treat.

Life and Nature

Nature supports life. It provides us with food, water, and shelter. It’s our duty to protect it.

Nature is a divine gift that needs our care. Let’s cherish and protect it for future generations.

250 Words Essay on Nature a Precious Gift From God

Nature, a magnificent manifestation of divine creativity, encapsulates an array of awe-inspiring phenomena. It is a precious gift from God that nourishes, sustains, and enchants us. This essay explores the profound value of nature and our responsibility towards it.

The Splendor of Nature

Nature is a grand tapestry of interwoven elements, each with its unique beauty and purpose. The towering mountains, the vast oceans, the serene forests, and the vibrant wildlife – all are divine masterpieces that inspire awe and reverence. They are not merely physical entities, but spiritual sanctuaries that offer solace and wisdom.

Nature: The Life-Giver

Nature is the life-giver, the sustainer. It provides us with resources vital for survival: air, water, food, and shelter. It is an intricate system where every element is connected, ensuring the continuity of life. This interdependence underscores the importance of preserving every aspect of nature.

Humanity’s Responsibility

As beneficiaries of this divine gift, humans bear a significant responsibility. We must respect nature’s sanctity, understanding that our survival hinges on its well-being. Our actions should reflect a commitment to conserve and protect nature, ensuring its beauty and bounty for future generations.

Nature, a precious gift from God, is a testament to divine artistry and benevolence. It is a source of life, wisdom, and spiritual enrichment. As stewards of this gift, we must uphold its sanctity, promoting conservation and sustainable practices. By doing so, we honor God’s creation, ensuring its preservation for posterity.

500 Words Essay on Nature a Precious Gift From God

Nature, in its essence, is the divine manifestation of God’s creativity. It is a precious gift from the Almighty, providing solace and inspiration while serving as a constant reminder of our intrinsic connection to the world around us. The beauty and diversity of nature, from the smallest microorganism to the vast expanses of the universe, are a testament to the infinite creativity and power of God.

The Beauty and Diversity of Nature

The splendor of nature is boundless. Every sunrise paints a unique tableau of colors across the sky, while each sunset leaves an indelible imprint of tranquility. The rustling of leaves, the chirping of birds, the roar of a waterfall, and the silence of the night, all contribute to the symphony of nature. These natural phenomena are not mere happenstances but are the divine craftsmanship of God, intended to inspire awe and reverence.

Moreover, the diversity of nature is staggering. From the variety of flora and fauna to the multitude of ecosystems, nature is a grand display of God’s creativity. Each species, with its unique traits and roles, contributes to the balance and harmony of nature. This intricate web of life is a clear demonstration of God’s wisdom and foresight.

Nature as a Source of Inspiration and Solace

Nature has always been a source of inspiration and solace for humans. The tranquility of nature provides an escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life, allowing us to reconnect with our inner selves and find peace. Many great thinkers, artists, and writers have drawn inspiration from nature, using it as a metaphor to express profound thoughts and emotions. This highlights the spiritual and emotional significance of nature in our lives.

Furthermore, nature teaches us important life lessons. The changing seasons remind us of the cycle of life and death, the resilience of a tree in a storm symbolizes strength in adversity, and the blooming of a flower after a harsh winter signifies hope and renewal. These lessons are God’s way of guiding us through the complexities of life.

The Responsibility Towards Nature

As recipients of this precious gift, we have a moral responsibility to protect and preserve nature. The rampant exploitation of natural resources, pollution, and climate change are threatening the balance of nature. It is imperative that we adopt sustainable practices and promote conservation. By doing so, we are not only ensuring our survival but also showing our gratitude and respect for God’s gift.

Nature, indeed, is a precious gift from God. It is a source of beauty, inspiration, solace, and wisdom. Its diversity and complexity are a testament to God’s creativity and power. As beneficiaries of this divine gift, we must cherish, protect, and respect nature. For in preserving nature, we are preserving the divine manifestation of God’s creativity and ensuring its continued inspiration for future generations.

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God Squad: Nature's cycles and the blessed days of spring

Happy springtime! The celebration of new life is the most ancient cause of religious celebration. The dry and barren months of winter provoke a natural despair just as the birth of new flocks and crops provokes the birth of joy.

What was added to the cycle of nature by Judaism and Christianity was the non-cyclical one-time historical events that transform and complement the natural rebirth of spring. For Judaism, we can see this in the Passover seder meal (April 22), where the symbols of springtime, parsley and lamb shank, sit next to the symbols of the Exodus from Egypt, unleavened matzah bread and bitter herbs. We can see the same combination of history and nature in the rituals and customs of Easter, which is Sunday, March 31.

The resurrection of Jesus is the historical event that formed Christianity in hope and joy, and it is paired with the celebration of springtime hope and joy. The cross and the Eucharist are the markers of sacred history and the Easter eggs and Easter bunnies mark the advent of spring.

The significance of the Jewish and Christian combination of history and nature is that history is linear and nature is cyclical. Every year springtime is the same but every year we are one more year away from the Exodus or the Passion of Christ. That linear move enables history to become real while also acknowledging the popular and ancient customs of celebrating springtime.

The other spiritually important consequence of the Passover/Easter combination of history and nature is the miraculous and deeply personal understanding of the historical events themselves.

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Part of the Passover ritual is the recitation of the biblical verse, “You shall tell this story (of the Exodus) to your child in years to come, ‘All this is because of what the Lord did for me when I left Egypt.’ ” (Exodus 13:8). Obviously, this is not true. Only the generation of Moses left Egypt around 3,200 years ago, and yet every generation is commanded to see themselves as having actually participated in the Exodus. The heart of faith is figuring out how to insert yourself into the story of faith.

Easter also transforms the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus from a one-time single event in the first century into an event that is quite literally consumed by Christians in the Eucharist meal. Even Christian denominations that do not normally take communion on Sundays will take communion on Easter Sunday. In this way the atonement of sins through the suffering and death of Jesus is transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ gift through God becomes a shared gift for every Christian who believes in the atoning death of the son of God.

So, whether it is entering the Exodus or entering the body of Christ, both Judaism and Christianity found strikingly similar ways to honor the repetition of nature and the singularity of sacred history in the same holiday.

The main point of view of every faith is that nature is spiritually important, but it is not spiritually sufficient. Nature is not enough for us. Only God is enough for us.

SEND QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad at [email protected] or Rabbi Marc Gellman, Temple Beth Torah, 35 Bagatelle Rd., Melville, NY 11747.

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The Sunday Essay Yesterday at 5.00am

The sunday essay: queer sikhs on the cusp of tomorrow.

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Some thoughts on my queer and Sikh identities, and how they mesh and collide.

The Sunday Essay  is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

S undays were exciting, as they promised crispy bread pakora and chai over Punjabi chatter. If I was lucky, there would be jelabi, an orange spiral of sweet goodness prepped in the hot, crowded kitchen. I’d gulp it down in a single bite, sitting under the paintings of martyrs being scalped and buried alive. 

Afterwards, I’d run into the kitchen with sticky hands and an empty plate. I could feel the heat on the hairs of my arms from the giant puddle of oil in the wok; hear the sound of metal clanging against heads of garlic; see the kind face of a man pouring more water into the refill zone and turbans shining under the fluorescent lighting. The langar hall promised a warm meal for all. 

My nani (maternal grandmother in Punjabi), with her round sunglasses and white shawls, hoisted me onto her knees to tell me stories of Sikhi and the origins of langar. Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first Sikh guru of ten, was given 21 rupees to start a business. He met weary and tired religious travellers on his way to the city. He offered to give them money, but they said receiving money from a well-off man felt degrading. So Guru Nanak brought food and cooked it, sitting on the floor with the religious folks and exchanging stories. This created the tradition of langar, where we all sit together on the floor to symbolise our equality in God’s eyes. 

So we sit on blue mats, our feet equally cold in the heatless room. My father spends more time in the langar hall than in the prayer room. This is where he chats with the men he met in small Onehunga flats when they were starving migrants. Everyone is welcome to langar; for this purpose, the langar hall and kitchen are always separate from the worship room. There is no need to thank a God you do not believe in to accept our kindness. 

T he most significant act of devotion as a Sikh is to take care of the world around us, because we believe we are simultaneously part of God as well as God’s creation. Through cooking meals, donating money, volunteering and teaching children or elderly people, Sikhs are worshipping God. This act is called seva. 

At age 12, I followed my nani’s loose pastel scarf into the gurdwara (Sikh temple) when I noticed a group of elderly women, heads covered in devotion with bright scarves, reciting the Punjabi alphabet. Their voices sounded tender yet powerful, an elder again becoming a child. Nani explained that she was the only educated girl out of her six sisters. Despite nani’s desire to attend university, she felt unsafe being the only woman to attend the local campus. 

At home, I would ask my father how my dadi (paternal grandmother) would reply to his letters, back when it was a dollar for every minute he called home. She would ask a village girl to read it out loud to her, sipping chai in her pale and sunny home, the words a blur of jumbled letters. How strange for my religion to create a new text for lower caste people and women, only to leave generations of women uneducated in the name of culture. I imagined my nani as a girl, curled up in her grandmother’s bed with a stomach full of fresh milk, bedtime stories of Sikh liberation and a light turned off to promise a better world tomorrow.

Our eternal Guru is Guru Granth Sahib, the central holy scripture written in Gurmukhi. The room where I visit the Guru has white fabric drawn across the floor. At the back of the room, I watched people bow down to the Guru one by one, their heads covered in turbans or scarves an act of worship. The Guru sees them as equal, but my local Sikh temple committee has decided it is crucial to segregate which floor men and women sit on. Often the faces of the committees are men, while women are silently ushered towards the kitchen.

An elder’s hand is often coarse and heavy from the weight of their familial pressure to reject schooling in exchange for cooking. All their bright scarves are devoted to a Guru they could not see. I pray for them, as they are a part of me; their joy at reading is mine. Often middle-aged mothers born from a lineage of illiterate women operate the classrooms that teach literacy within the temple.

Through people’s acts of seva, I learnt how to read Gurmukhi. We often discussed religious stories, and I became fascinated with the concept of gender in Sikhi. God does not have a gender, as they (God) existed before the manmade idea of gender. God is formless, transcendent. We dance with them, we are them, we are a part of their creation, and if we align ourselves right with the prayers and avoidance of maya (illusions of the world like drugs, beauty standards, wealth and competition with one another) we could join them in the centre of the universe. 

In Sikhi, the word for God is ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ( pronounced wa-he-gu-roo) , translating to “ teacher of the air”. As we speak, we transmit knowledge; within this knowledge, God is present, guiding our hands gently. What is more genderfluid than the air itself? 

O n the other hand, my Sikh identity is at odds with my queerness. Sometimes, at parties, my shoe kicking into the dirt of West Auckland backyards, I’d make comments about God, and they would be met with dismissive laughter. Religion is a bit of a joke in queer communities, and after centuries of being at odds with one another, who can blame them? Religion and queerness mimic the patterns of an overdomineering mother, wishing to craft her child out of the clay from the lakeside, and a child with fast feet. Neither realise that they cannot exist without each other; in their moulding and destruction of one another, they create one another. 

Over the coffee table covered with Punjabi newsletters and biscuits, my nani laughed about a story of two women marrying. I often think of being a child, listening to my nana’s (maternal grandfather in Punjabi) prayer as the sun dips away. The gentle pull of his hands as he moves over the prayer book. The birds easing to sleep; the sweet scent of mothballs from my grandmother’s shawl. Queerness is a religion: a devotion to discovering oneself. Maybe it’s selfish to want more than one religion, to want a God and a girl to understand it too.

Since I was a child, sprinting through the hallways wearing a bandana and jeans instead of a salwar kameez with a dupatta, I knew I was different. My bisexuality often manifests as isolation from the right way of performing femininity. Men and women occupy different spaces in the temple, sitting opposite one another for cultural rather than religious reasons. In protest, I often followed my nana  to the men’s section; a long-haired girl wearing a loosely wrapped scarf with her boyish jumpers. 

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When I am in front of the guru, I remind myself that he knows who I am, as he has created me as much as I have created him. Gurnanak ( another way of saying Guru Nanak Dev Ji) often becomes an imaginary friend whenever I hear homophobic remarks in the gurdwara. I imagine his disbelief that we are still thinking about gender as a set of rules to follow – doesn’t this count as an illusion of the world? 

I often think of the twelve-year-old version of Gurnanak who refused to wear a religious string that only upper-caste boys were permitted to wear, his steely calmness when he explained, as a child, that he is not brought closer to God by pretending he is better than God’s other creations. 

While the challenges of Punjabi homophobia and transphobia exist, I have to remember that Sikhi is a religion created out of a warzone. I am resilient, both as a queer individual and as a Sikh. We transform the world, carving spaces of equality. In my home, there is always food for all, and gender is just an illusion we mess around with.

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The Faithfulness of God

Other essays.

The faithfulness of God means God is unchanging in his nature, true to his Word, has promised salvation to his people, and will keep his promises forever. He is worthy of eternal trust no matter how unlikely his promises seem. Nothing in heaven or on earth can prevent God from accomplishing all that he has promised his people through Jesus Christ. This reliability of God should be a great source of comfort and strength for God’s people as they repeatedly fail and go through trials and suffering.

This essay surveys four major Old Testament terms and one New Testament term that highlight different aspects of God’s faithfulness to his people. It then goes on to point out the major object lessons and images that God uses to emphasize his commitment to his people. The final section encourages the believer in three areas of application that stem directly from a proper view of God’s faithfulness.

Key Words that Highlight God’s Faithfulness

Old testament.

At least four Old Testament Hebrew terms highlight God’s faithfulness: ʼemet (faithfulness), ʼemuna (steadiness, reliability), ḥesed (loyalty), and zacar (remember). Each of these terms speak to different aspects of the concept of faithfulness.

The word ʼemet occurs 127 times and is most frequently translated “faithfulness.” A core idea in this word is truth. God is true to himself and to his words. This word is used in the context of the relationships that God chooses to have with his people.

In Genesis 12 God calls Abram to himself and gives him incredible promises about acquiring land, having innumerable descendants, and blessing the world. One of the principal promises (having a son) was hard to fathom due to Abram’s advanced age and the delay in fulfillment. After twenty-five years, God finally grants his promise to the name-modified Abraham (Gen 21). God was faithful.

After Isaac is born and becomes a full-grown man, the promises are now threatened by his marital status. Abraham sends his servant Eleazar to search for a wife for Isaac. Upon finding Rebekah, Eleazar declares, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master” (Gen 24:27).

Jacob, the son of Isaac, prays to the “God of his father Abraham, and God of his father Isaac” and acknowledges his unworthiness and God’s faithfulness toward him as he had grown from having only a walking stick when he went to Laban into a wealthy man as he left him (Gen 32:10ff). Thus, God’s faithfulness passed from Abraham to Isaac and then to Jacob.

God reveals to Moses that he is faithful generation after generation (Exod 34:6). He would continue to show faithfulness to the descendants of Jacob by eventually bringing them out of Egypt into the land he promised Abraham.

When God promises David that he would build his house and give him an everlasting ruler, David declares (2Sam 7:28) that God’s words are true (reliable/faithful).

Nehemiah recounts God’s faithfulness to Israel during the Exodus, in the wilderness, throughout the conquest, in the time of the Judges, through captivity, and all the way to the return to the land despite their unfaithfulness during each period (Neh 9:33). Despite Israel’s perpetual lack of faithfulness, loyalty, and knowledge (Hos 4:1; cf. Zech 7:9), God will accomplish such a salvation in his people that Jerusalem will one day be called “the Faithful City” (Zech 8:3).

ʼemuna occurs 49 times and has the concept of steadiness or reliability at its core. The first occurrence of this word is a great illustration of the main idea communicated by this word. In Exodus 17 the Israelites are battling the Amalekites. When Moses held up his hands the Israelites would prevail, but as soon as they started lowering, the Amalekites would start winning. The solution was to have Moses sit on a stone while Aaron and Hur each held up one of his hands. As a result, “his hands remained steady [faithful] till sunset” (Exod 17:12).

God’s ʼemuna reaches to the skies (Ps 36:5). God is faithful from morning to night (Ps 92:2), and when he comes to judge the earth, it will be in righteousness and faithfulness (Ps 96:13). This connection of righteousness and faithfulness occurs multiple times (cf. Deut 32:4; 1Sam 26:23; Pss 40:11; 119:75, 138; 143:1; Isa 11:5) and emphasizes that part of being truly righteous (measuring up to a standard) means that you do so consistently. Even while enduring just punishment for breaking the covenant, God’s people recognize that his faithfulness is great and continues morning by morning (Lam 3:23). One day God will so transform his people that they will go from being a prostituting wife to a people permanently and faithfully committed to the perfect Groom (Hos 2:20).

The word ḥesed occurs 255 times and is frequently translated as “kindness/lovingkindness” or “mercy.” Even though it is not translated with a form of the word “faithful,” it is often used with some variety of the words for “faithful.” The word is often in the context of highlighting God’s faithfulness to his people because of his covenantal commitment to them. As a result, some modern versions translate this word as “loyalty/covenant loyalty.”

The greatest illustration of this type of faithful loyalty is the story of Ruth. Even though Naomi compelled her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab and let her return to Bethlehem as a destitute and bitter woman, Ruth refused. In the same way she had shown loyalty to her deceased husband (Ruth 1:8), she vowed to cling to her mother-in-law until death (“Where you go I will go. . . . Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die. . . . May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Ruth 1:16–17). God rewards Ruth—and Naomi because of Ruth—by showing her his “kindness” in leading her to Boaz (Ruth 2:20). Ruth responds by giving her “kindness” to Boaz in marriage (Ruth 3:10). This kind of loving loyalty is ultimately rewarded in making Ruth part of the genealogy of Christ (Boaz fathered Obed; Obed fathered Jesse; Jesse fathered David, see Ruth 4:21–22).

When God gives his laws to the people of Israel as they are about to ratify the covenant with him, he declares that he shows covenant loyalty to a thousand generations of those who are truly his (Exod 20:6; cf. Deut 7:9). Psalm 136 celebrates God’s loyalty to his people as he brought them out of the land of Egypt, sustained them in the wilderness, brought them into the promised land, and remembered them in their low points as a nation.

Although there are occurrences of ḥesed where the specific covenant in view requires certain conditions be met, other examples of unconditional loyalty occur frequently. When God gives David the promise of an everlasting king, he states (probably in reference to Solomon) that if the king sins, this would not negate God’s loyalty to him as happened to Saul (2Sam 7:15). David declares in Psalm 23:6 that God’s loyalty would “follow” (this word is used of military pursuit) him all the days of his life.

Nehemiah recognized that even though Israel had refused to listen to God and constantly rebelled against him, he was still abounding in loyalty toward them (Neh 9:17). David asks for forgiveness after his adultery with Bathsheba based on God’s loyal love (Ps 51:3). This loyalty that forgives the undeserving is what causes Jonah to flee from God’s command to warn Nineveh (Jon 4:2). Micah, however, celebrated this loyalty that will be shown in the restoration of God’s people and the forgiveness of their sin: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be faithful to Jacob, and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago” (Mic 7:18–20).

Zacar occurs about 235 times and is usually translated with some form of the verb “remember.” Although the word is often used of people trying to bring back to mind some idea or event, it can also refer to the action that accompanies actively thinking on something. When it is used of God, it does not suggest that he has somehow forgotten something or needs to be reminded of something. It highlights that God is going to act on whatever he is “remembering.” This word is connected to God’s faithfulness in those texts where God remembers his covenant or his people and the promises he gave to them.

The first occurrence of this word is in Genesis 8:1 when God remembers Noah and the animals in the ark after he has destroyed the earth with the flood. The bleak picture given at the end of chapter 7 is met with this dramatic “but God remembered” moment. This could have been the end of humanity, but God is faithful to his Word and ensures that they survive. After Noah and crew disembark, God establishes the rainbow as the sign of his promise never to destroy the earth with a flood again. He states that when he sees the rainbow, he will “remember the everlasting covenant” he made with his creation (Gen 9:16).

One of the main motivations that drove God to deliver his people out of slavery to the Egyptians was remembering “his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Exod 2:24; 6:5). After the golden calf incident when God is threatening to destroy Israel, Moses pleads with God to “remember . . . Abraham, Isaac and Israel” to whom he had promised innumerable descendants and a land (Exod 32:13).

Psalms 105 and 106 recall numerous occasions in Israel’s history when God remembered his covenant promises made to Abraham and his descendants as they came out of Egypt, traveled through the wilderness, came into the promised land, and eventually were taken into captivity (Pss 105:8, 42; 106:45). Since God knew that the nation of Israel would perpetually rebel against him, he established a new, everlasting covenant with his people because he remembered the covenant he had made with them in their “youth” (Ezek 16:60).

New Testament

The main Greek word used for God’s faithfulness in the New Testament is pistos . It occurs 67 times in 63 verses. Pistos is used to describe people (often stewards or servants), statements, and God. Jesus referred to faithful (often indicating someone who is dependable) and unfaithful servants when he taught through parables in order to encourage genuine faith and perseverance among those who heard his teachings (Matt 24:45ff; 25:21ff; Luke 12:42; 16:10ff).

Several passages use pistos to refer to servants of Christ who persevere in the ministry as dependable servants (1Cor 4:2, 17; Eph 6:21; Col 4:7, 9; 1Tim 1:12; 2Tim 2:2; 1Pet 5:12). The positional standing of all believers is highlighted by using pistos to identify them (Acts 10:45; 16:1; 2Cor 6:15; Gal 3:9; Eph 1:1; Col 1:2; 1Tim 4:10; 5:16; 6:2).

Pistos is also used to describe statements that are reliable because of their truthfulness (1Tim 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; 2Tim 2:11; Titus 1:9; 3:8; Rev 21:5; 22:6). In the same way that people who stay true to their job or ministry are dependable and trustworthy, so God is a person upon whom his people can depend (like Sarah in Genesis who believed she would have the promised child because God is faithful, see Heb 11:11).

God’s faithfulness is most clearly revealed through Jesus Christ, whose character of ultimate reliability personifies what it means to be faithful—even to the point of “faithful” becoming one of his names or titles. He is the faithful witness (Rev 1:5), the faithful one (Rev 2:13), the faithful and true witness (Rev 3:14), and the one called Faithful and True (Rev 19:11).

Because of the reliability of the work of Christ for his people, all the promises of God to his children find their “yes” in him (2Cor 1:20). God’s faithfulness can help a believer overcome temptation (1Cor 1:9) and suffering (1Pet 4:19). When God’s people are unfaithful, he remains faithful. No matter what people do, God’s faithfulness is unchangeable for he cannot deny himself (i.e., who he is, 2Tim 2:13).

Key Images that Highlight God’s Faithfulness

The Old Testament uses poignant illustrations found in everyday life to highlight God’s faithfulness toward his people.

The Natural Order of the Universe

After God destroyed the earth with the flood and Noah and crew exited the ark, he promised that he would never do this again (Gen 8:21). The perpetual evidence (in addition to the rainbow) that he would keep this promise is found in the relentless, unceasing recurrence of summer and winter, cold and heat, and day and night (Gen 8:22). This illustration is used again as proof not only of God’s sustaining of the physical world but ultimately of his faithfulness to the New Covenant.

Jeremiah 31:35 states that God has appointed the sun to shine during the daytime and the moon and stars by night. He has also appointed the sea to perpetually produce waves. The constancy of these natural phenomena are visible reminders of God’s unbreakable promises in salvation (Jer 31:36). Jeremiah 33:20–26 uses this same covenant with day and night as the guarantee of the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. For the believer, the blazing of the sun, the glowing of the moon, the crashing of the waves, and the changing of the seasons should all serve as reminders of God’s faithfulness to his people through Christ.

The Immensity of Creation

The vastness of the creation points to the vastness of God’s faithfulness to his people in salvation. Psalm 36:5 states that God’s faithfulness reaches to the skies; in other words, it goes on and on into infinity. In speaking of God’s faithfulness to his covenant, Psalm 103:11 states that God’s faithfulness is comparable in greatness to the distance of the heavens from the earth. This extends to the magnitude of his forgiveness in this covenant; it is as far as the east is from the west (infinite; Ps 103:13). The immensity of the universe becomes a tangible guarantee that God will keep his salvation promises.

Jeremiah 31:37 declares that only if humans can measure the heavens or explore the foundations of the earth will he break his salvation promises of the New Covenant. Whenever a Christian looks up into the night sky or peers through a telescope at some distant planet, he or she can be reminded and assured of God’s faithfulness in salvation.

The Parent/Child Relationship

Psalm 103 details multiple ways in which the Lord shows his faithfulness (covenant loyalty) toward his people. One of the images used to illustrate God’s faithfulness is found in Psalm 103:13. The verse states that God has compassion on his people (those who fear him) in the same way a father has compassion on his children. Parents naturally have feelings of love, attachment, care, and commitment toward each of their children. This general disposition does not change regardless of how many times the child disobeys or disappoints.

Jesus alludes to this positive disposition when he teaches that even “evil” parents give good gifts (bread and fish) to their children when they ask (Matt 7:9–11). This relationship is not based on merit, and it cannot be broken. In this relationship the parent is the one in the position to provide for, protect, nurture, and guide the child. In the same way God’s faithfulness to his people includes this tender, unbreakable, and compassionate care for them.

Isaiah 49:15–16 adds a powerful comparison and even contrast to this parent/child image. Verse 14 describes how some among God’s people were claiming that God had abandoned and “forgotten” them (i.e., they allege God has done the opposite of remembering [ zacar ], and therefore, is unfaithful to the covenant). In verse 15 God mentions a mother’s relationship with her nursing child. It is unlikely that she would forget to care for her newborn (the mother’s body reminds her to nurse her child and the child’s cries remind her of her child’s needs). The degree of attachment and care that a mother feels for a nursing child is one of the most powerful portraits of intimacy, tenderness, and connectedness possible for a human being. God states that even if a mother would somehow manage to forget her child, he never will forget his people. He has inscribed them into the palm of his hand (Isa 49:16). God’s faithfulness to his people surpasses the strongest commitment possible between any human beings.

Husband/Wife

The husband/wife relationship is used in both the Old and the New Testament to illustrate various aspects of God’s relationship with his people. The concept of faithfulness is implied in most contexts, but it is explicitly detailed in the symbolic marriage of the prophet Hosea. God commands him to marry a woman who would prove to be unfaithful in the worst possible way (she is called a “woman of prostitution” in Hos 1:2).

God explains that his people have committed excessive spiritual prostitution (the Hebrew construction is emphatic here) by following after other gods and living immorally. In most human marriages adultery results in divorce. One would imagine that if a wife were to become a prostitute her husband would never give her a chance of restoring the marriage. God’s faithfulness to his unfaithful people unfathomably leads him not only to stay faithfully committed to them but also to so transform them so that they become permanently faithful to him: “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD” (Hos 2:19-20). Paul specifies that this redemptive cleansing of the bride is accomplished by the sacrificial, substitutionary work of Christ (Eph 5:25–27).

God’s Faithfulness Motivates Christian Faithfulness

The faithfulness of God to his people should be the primary motivator for our faithfulness to him. Hebrews 10:23 exhorts believers to hold unwaveringly to the hope of the effective priestly work of Christ on their behalf because the one who promised is faithful. This faithfulness manifests itself in the Christian practice of spurring each other to love and good deeds and habitually gathering with other believers for worship (Heb 10:24–25).

Inevitably believers will prove to be unfaithful as they seek to live-out the gospel. Thankfully we are encouraged that even if we are unfaithful, God remains faithful because he cannot deny himself (2Tim 2:13). Because of God’s faithfulness to us in Christ, we confess our sins (1Jn 1:9). No matter how often we may fail and sin, God is unchanging in his response to the repentant confessor.

Ultimately God’s faithfulness motivates our faithful living as we longingly anticipate the return of Christ. One day the Faithful One will appear in the clouds and accomplish the final sanctification and purification of his people (1Th 5:24).

Further Reading

Blogs/Devotionals

• John Piper, “ Sustained by the Faithfulness of God ”
• Brandon D. Smith, “ We Are Gomer ”
• Ligonier, “ The Faithfulness of God ”
• Jason Helopoulos, “ Rehearsing His Faithfulness ”
• Ligonier, “ Faithful Through the Ages ”
• Ligonier, “ Our Faithful God ”
• John Piper, “ God’s Covenant With David ”

Dictionary Entries

• “Faith, Faithfulness” – Stephen. S. Taylor in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology
• “Faith” – Leon Morris in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters
• “God” – Donald Guthrie and Ralph P. Martin in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters
• “Faithful, Faithfulness” – C. W. Hodge in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
• “Faith, Faithfulness” R. E. Nixon, in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible
• Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.,  God’s Unfaithful Wife
• O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants
• Christopher J. H. Wright, The Old Testament in Seven Sentences

Book Sections

• Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine , 195–97.
• Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology , 291–92.
• Mary Willson, “ A Faithful God and His Unfaithful People ”

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• 20 March 2024
• Correction 21 March 2024

Mathematician who tamed randomness wins Abel Prize

• Davide Castelvecchi

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Michel Talagrand studies stochastic processes, mathematical models of phenomena that are governed by randomness. Credit: Peter Bagde/Typos1/Abel Prize 2024

A mathematician who developed formulas to make random processes more predictable and helped to solve an iconic model of complex phenomena has won the 2024 Abel Prize, one of the field’s most coveted awards. Michel Talagrand received the prize for his “contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, with outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics”, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo announced on 20 March.

Assaf Naor, a mathematician at Princeton University in New Jersey, says it is difficult to overestimate the impact of Talagrand’s work. “There are papers posted maybe on a daily basis where the punchline is ‘now we use Talagrand’s inequalities’,” he says.

Talagrand’s reaction on hearing the news was incredulity. “There was a total blank in my mind for at least four seconds,” he says. “If I had been told an alien ship had landed in front of the White House, I would not have been more surprised.”

The Abel Prize was modelled after the Nobel Prizes — which do not include mathematics — and was first awarded in 2003. The recipient wins a sum of 7.5 million Norwegian kroner (US$700,000).

‘Like a piece of art’

Talagrand specializes in the theory of probability and stochastic processes, which are mathematical models of phenomena governed by randomness. A typical example is a river’s water level, which is highly variable and is affected by many independent factors, including rain, wind and temperature, Talagrand says. His proudest achievement was his inequalities 1 , a set of formulas that poses limits to the swings in stochastic processes. His formulas express how the contributions of many factors often cancel each other out — making the overall result less variable, not more.

“It’s like a piece of art,” says Abel-committee chair Helge Holden, a mathematician at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. “The magic here is to find a good estimate, not just a rough estimate.”

Abel Prize: pioneer of ‘smooth’ physics wins top maths award

Thanks to Talagrand’s techniques, “many things that seem complicated and random turn out to be not so random”, says Naor. His estimates are extremely powerful, for example for studying problems such as optimizing the route of a delivery truck. Finding a perfect solution would require an exorbitant amount of computation, so computer scientists can instead calculate the lengths of a limited number of random candidate routes and then take the average — and Talagrand’s inequalities ensure that the result is close to optimal.

Talagrand also completed the solution to a problem posed by theoretical physicist Giorgio Parisi — work that ultimately helped Parisi to earn a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021. In 1979, Parisi, now at the University of Rome, proposed a complete solution for the structure of a spin glass — an abstracted model of a material in which the magnetization of each atom tends to flip up or down depending on those of its neighbours.

Parisi’s arguments were rooted in his powerful intuition in physics, and followed steps that “mathematicians would consider as sorcery”, Talagrand says, such as taking n copies of a system — with n being a negative number. Many researchers doubted that Parisi’s proof could be made mathematically rigorous. But in the early 2000s, the problem was completely solved in two separate works, one by Talagrand 2 and an earlier one by Francesco Guerra 3 , a mathematical physicist who is also at the University of Rome.

Finding motivation

Talagrand’s journey to becoming a top researcher was unconventional. Born in Béziers, France, in 1952, he lost vision in his right eye at age five because of a genetic predisposition to detachment of the retina. Although while growing up in Lyon he was a voracious reader of popular science magazines, he struggled at school, particularly with the complex rules of French spelling. “I never really made peace with orthography,” he told an interviewer in 2019 .

His turning point came at age 15, when he received emergency treatment for another retinal detachment, this time in his left eye. He had to miss almost an entire year of school. The terrifying experience of nearly losing his sight — and his father’s efforts to keep his mind busy while his eyes were bandaged — gave Talagrand a renewed focus. He became a highly motivated student after his recovery, and began to excel in national maths competitions.

Just 5 women have won a top maths prize in the past 90 years

Still, Talagrand did not follow the typical path of gifted French students, which includes two years of preparatory school followed by a national admission competition for highly selective grandes écoles such as the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Instead, he studied at the University of Lyon, France, and then went on to work as a full-time researcher at the national research agency CNRS, first in Lyon and later in Paris, where he spent more than a decade in an entry-level job. Apart from a brief stint in Canada, followed by a trip to the United States where he met his wife, he worked at the CNRS until his retirement.

Talagrand loves to challenge other mathematicians to solve problems that he has come up with — offering cash to those who do — and he keeps a list of those problems on his website. Some have been solved, leading to publications in major maths journals . The prizes come with some conditions: “I will award the prizes below as long as I am not too senile to understand the proofs I receive. If I can’t understand them, I will not pay.”

Nature 627 , 714-715 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00839-6

Updates & Corrections

Correction 21 March 2024 : An earlier version of this article stated that Giorgio Parisi won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. He in fact won in 2021.

Talagrand, M. Publ. Math. IHES 81 , 73–205, (1995).

Article   Google Scholar  

Talagrand, M. Ann. Math. 163 , 221–263 (2006).

Guerra, F. Commun. Math. Phys. 233 , 1–12 (2003).

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Guest Essay

How to Breathe With the Trees

By Margaret Renkl

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.

Even on a computer screen, Ada Limón, who is serving her second term as poet laureate of the United States, projects such warmth and reassurance that you could almost swear she was sitting beside you, holding your hand. This kind of connection between strangers, human heart to human heart, is so rare as to be startling, especially these days.

April is National Poetry Month, and it strikes me that no one is better positioned than Ms. Limón to convince Americans to leave off their quarrels and worries, at least for a time, and surrender to the language of poetry. That’s as much because of her public presence as because of her public role as the country’s poet in chief. When Ada Limón tells you that poetry will make you feel better, you believe her.

In her nearly weekly travels as poet laureate, Ms. Limón has had a lot of practice delivering this message. “Every time I’m around a group of people, the word that keeps coming up is ‘overwhelmed,’” she said. “It’s so meaningful to lean on poetry right now because it does make you slow down. It does make you breathe.”

A poem is built of rests. Each line break, each stanza break and each caesura represents a pause, and in that pause there is room to take a breath. To ponder. To sit, for once in our lives, with mystery. If we can’t find a way to slow down on our own, to take a breath, poems can teach us how.

But Ms. Limón isn’t merely an ambassador for how poetry can heal us . She also makes a subtle but powerful case for how poetry can heal the earth itself. At this time of crisis, when worry governs our days, she wants us to look up from our screens and consider our own connection to the earth. To remember how to breathe by spending some time with the trees that breathe with us.

In the United States, about half of poets laureate spend their terms developing a signature project that fosters a greater appreciation of poetry. Ms. Limón has two: “ You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World ,” an anthology of nature poetry that will be released on Tuesday; and “ You Are Here: Poetry in the Parks ,” a series of poetry-centered picnic-table-style installations in seven national parks. Each will be inscribed with the words of a poet associated with that landscape and also with a writing prompt designed to nudge readers to try their own hands at making a poem. These initiatives will be formally introduced on Thursday at the Library of Congress in conjunction with the library’s inaugural Mary Oliver Memorial Event.

Whether sweeping and magnificent or nearly microscopic — a majestic national park vista, say, or an ant colony’s communal effort to save its own inadvertently uncovered eggs — the natural world has always been a catalyst for lyricism. “There’s a reason why people go to these incredible natural landscapes and think, ‘I have no words,’” Ms. Limón said. “And yet the poets, we love to see if we can figure out some words: ‘Let’s see if we can name that kind of wonder, that kind of awe.’”

The connection between the beauty of the world and the beauty of the language is more crucial now than it has ever been. In its intimacy, its revelation not just of nature but also of the perceiving self, nature poems offer one of the few paths we have to consider the risks to the natural world in a way that is free of partisan rancor.

Those risks are foremost in Ms. Limón’s mind. In considering what her signature project as poet laureate would be, the thought that came to her was both small and impossibly huge: “I just want us all to write poems and save the planet,” she writes in the introduction to “You Are Here.”

“We all have nature poems within us — every single one of us,” Ms. Limón said when I asked her about this statement. “I wanted to have a book that not only allowed us to think of many different ways that nature poems can exist and move in the world, but also give people permission to write their own nature poems and think about it in a different way.”

“You Are Here” is an anthology of nature poems by 50 of the most accomplished poets working today, including the PEN/Voelcker Award winner Rigoberto González, the former U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, the Pulitzer Prize winner Diane Seuss and the Kingsley Tufts Award winner Patricia Smith, among many others who have won national awards for their work. “I just asked for these original poems, like, ‘Will you make this poem that speaks back to the natural world, whatever that means to you?’” Ms. Limón said.

The poems she got in response represent a great diversity of poetic voices and forms, and also a diversity of natural landscapes. If your idea of nature poetry is, as Ms. Limón said only half-jokingly, “a young gentleman walking to a mountain and having an epiphany,” this anthology will put that notion to rest.

Whoever you are, you will find yourself and your own world in the expansiveness of this collection. Even in the specificity of each poet’s own inimitable experience, you will find your own voice and your own perceiving self, for the natural world includes us and enfolds us all. Nature can be found on a mountain, yes, but it can also be found on a city stoop. Or in a drainage ditch. Or in the sky above a prison yard. Wherever we are, that is where the natural world is, too. It is there. We just have to notice it.

Writing a poem might seem like the least practical way imaginable to address melting glaciers, bleaching coral, drought, pollution and the like, never mind the overarching catastrophes of climate change and mass extinction. What can language do to save us now? What can something so small as a poem possibly do to save us now?

The answer lies in poetry’s great intimacy, its invitation to breathe together. We read a poem, and we take a breath each time the poet takes a breath. We read a nature poem, and we take a breath with the trees. When the trees — and the birds and the clouds and the ants and even the bats and the rat snakes — become a part of us, too, maybe that’s when we will finally begin to care enough to save them.

Margaret Renkl , a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “ The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, ” “ Graceland, at Last ” and “ Late Migrations .”

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