What Is God Like?

Theologians have tried to describe God in many ways.

He is the substance of all human virtues. He is all-wise and all-knowing. He can do anything and everything we cannot do, and He is everything good that we would like to be. So we say that He is omnipotent (all-powerful) or omniscient (all-knowing) or omnipresent (present everywhere).

On the other hand, we can describe God by contrasting Him with our human limitations. For example, we are mortal, but God is immortal. We are fallible, but God is infallible.

God is a Spirit: Eternal and ever-living. He has no beginning or end. He is a Person who is totally self-aware–“I am”–totally moral–“I ought”–and totally self-assertive–“I will.” He is the essence of love, and He is loving. He is also a righteous judge–totally fair and just.

God is the Father of all creation, the Creator of all. He is all powerful and sustains the universe. He exists outside of the universe (theologians call this transcendence), yet He is present throughout the universe (theologians say He is immanent) and is its ruler. He exists in nature, but He is not nature, nor is He bound by the laws of nature as the pantheists assert. He is the source of all life and everything that is. (For biblical references on the character and nature of God, see Deuteronomy 7:6-8, Psalm 147:5, Isaiah 43:3, 66:1, Jeremiah 32:17, John 4:24, Hebrews 1:3, and I John 4:9.)

The best description of God is the name that He gave for Himself to the early Israelites, Yahweh. Yahweh is usually translated Jehovah or LORD. Scholars believe that this is the hiphil tense of the Hebrew verb “to be” and literally means “He who (causes everything) else to be.”