Christianity is a didactic faith. It is taught. Jesus Christ is portrayed as a teacher (Rabbi) as many as forty-five times in the four Gospel records in the New Testament, but never as a ‘preacher’, although he preached to people and to crowds even often about God and his Kingdom. In Christian Theology, the primary area for learning is what the Holy Bible teaches about God. ‘Theology’ and ‘Theology proper’ basically concern teaching and learning  about Who  God is, his essence, nature, attributes, his revelation to us, etc.

Let it be said: no human word or language is enough to articulate a definition of the Being of God. Hundreds and thousands of theological scholars all over the world attempted defining God and speaking for God’s existence. Saint Anselm, who was an Archbishop of Canterbury in England in the 11th Century. This great Theologian and Christian leader wrote this argument about God’s existence:  “God is that Being than whom none greater than be conceived.  Now, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived, existed only in the intellect, it would not be the absolute greatest, for we could add to its existence in reality. It follows, then that the Being than whom nothing greater can be conceived, i.e., God, necessarily has real existence.” This is an ontological argument.

The Bible starts with the very truth of God’s existence. There is no attempt in the Bible for the proof of his existence. It is assumed. The first verse in the Bible (i. e Genesis 1:1) “In the beginning God created the heavens and the world.” From the perspective of God’s essence and nature, it must be first mentioned that God is the only self-existing Being. This concept of the aseity of God pervades throughout all Christian teaching.

God is Spirit. He is not any material substance. He is no corporeal entity. Jesus said, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24). God is spoken about in anthropomorphic terms, such as, having eyes, hands, ears and the like. But this is only for enabling us, people for having some understanding about God’s activities. Because he is incorporeal and as such, invisible to us, idolatry or image-worship is forbidden.

The Bible has records of God’s vision to people. But since God is also infinite all those appearances and visions of God were merely his outward representations. And none of them ever were in the totality of God’s self. We learn from the Bible that only Jesus Christ was the full manifestation of God. “No one has ever seen God, the One and only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). The appearances of God known as ‘theophanies’ are God’s manifestations or appearances to chosen ones so that they can understand about God in a given context with a specific purpose.

Another main point is that God is an eternally living being. He was in eternity past, and he will also be there in eternity future.

God is a person. The Bible testifies to the fact that God has all the attributes that make a person ‘person’. God has self-consciousness; He is self-determined, and He has will, emotion, and intellect. He possesses all the qualities that a person has.

God has attributes that belong to him alone. No other being has these. These are God’s incommunicable attributes, i.e., God has not shared them even with man, the crown of Creation. These attributes can be listed as:

God is omnipotent. He is all-powerful. God has the power and ability to do anything that no other being can do.  About those who ignore God, Paul said, “For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20).

God is omnipresent: God is simultaneously present everywhere at the same time. The entire Biblical teaching includes this cardinal attribute of God Almighty. As a corollary to these two attributes, the omniscience of God is one such quality that is his alone. Of this prophet Isaiah wrote: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable” (40:28). Apostle Paul wrote, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out.” (Romans 11:33).

God’s incommunicable attributes also include his sovereignty and his immutability. God is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of his creation. He is all in all. He is also the owner. God, being what he is, also possesses the essential nature of his immutability. In the created order everything changes. But only God and his character and his existence remain unchanged. The immutability of God is the reason behind all his sustained blessings upon us. Of his name, God told Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’ (Exodus 3:14). God’s pervading superiority in all that is there in perfection, power, wisdom, honour and glory, so on and on must make us submit to him with all our adoration, devotion, love, strength, reverence, fear and all that is in us for our good.

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The writer is a Christian Theology teacher and a Church leader