Who is God and what is He like?

My concept of God has gone through quite a “metamorphosis” over the first 44 years of my life.

Prior to giving my hear to Christ in 1981, my ideas of God ranged from a composite of incredible Catholic Priests who loved me in my early years, to a total departure from the faith and embrace of an impersonal and infinite power (“The Force” in Star Wars), to “epiphanies” achieved through experimenting in drugs and alcohol.

Ask 100 people about God, and you will most likely get 100 different answers.

In order to establish common ground in defining who God is and what He is like, let’s walk through a very basic exercise, starting with the dictionary.

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary has for its primary definition of God: “the one Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the universe.”

Let’s look next at “Classical Religious Philosophy”, which gives us these options:

1. Atheism: There is no God. There is no supreme being. There is no higher power. Atheists, however, are still believers; they have chosen to believe that no one is higher than them. [Darwinism]

2. Agnosticism: Maybe there is a God. Maybe there isn’t.

3. Deism: A supreme being exists, but he doesn’t interact with the world. God created the world and set life in motion. Then he let go and has not been heard from since. [this is the basis of Intelligent Design]

4. Pantheism: God is universal energy but is not supreme intelligence. He is cosmic energy, but He doesn’t judge, love, plan or empower. He’s powerful, but He is not intelligent. God cannot think. [one example would be “the Force” in Star Wars]

5. Theism: God is an intelligent person. He’s a living, loving, thinking, planning Master who created and still creates. He created a creature called a human being, who in a limited way is endowed with the divine potential to be a creative thinker. You and I can think! We can choose. We can love. We are free to make decisions. We even have the metal power to imagine God’s existence. We are persons. We have the innate ability to have faith. Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Protestants are theists[1]

Christianity is based on a personal relationship with a theistic God. What then, distinguishes the God of Christianity from other forms of theistic religions?

In his book, So What’s The Difference?, Fritz Ridenour writes: “Biblical Christianity is like a huge tent or canopy that covers a myriad of churches, denominations and groups, all of which have beliefs or interpretations of Scripture they prefer to emphasize. But what draws all these groups together are basic Biblical Doctrines that center around this plain and simple teaching:

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures … He was buried … He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)”[2]

Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate in the flesh. That He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and died a sacrificial death on the Cross to fully pay the price for man’s sin. By physically rising from the dead, He has established His Divinity.

By comparison:

1. Judaism: Some Jews may accept Jesus as a good teacher or even a prophet, but they reject Him as Messiah, because He claimed to be divine and He failed to deliver Israel from oppression. Christians respond that Jesus is God as well as man, and He died to redeem men from all sin.[3]

2. Islam: Muslims believe that Jesus was only a man, a prophet below Mohammed in importance, who did not die for man’s sins; Christians say Christ is the Son of God, the sinless Redeemer who died and rose again for sinful man.[4]

3. Hinduism: Hindus do not believe in a personal, loving God, but in Brahma, a formless, abstract, eternal being without attributes, who was the beginning of all things. They believe that Jesus is not God but just one of many incarnations, or avatars, of Vishnu. Christians believe that God is an eternal, personal, spiritual Being in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is God as well as sinless man and He died for our redemption.[5]

4. Buddhism: Buddhists deny the existence of a personal God or say that God’s existence is irrelevant; Christians say that God is personal, omniscient and omnipotent; Buddhists identify Christ as a good teacher but less important than Buddha; Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God who died for mankind’s sin.[6]

5. Jehovah’s Witness: JWs find it difficult to worship a “three-headed God.” They call Jesus a “mighty god,” but not the Almighty God – Jehovah; they say Jesus was raised from the grave, “not a human creature but a spirit.” Christians believe that God is three coequal, coeternal Persons who exist as one divine Being. Christ is divine, the second person of the Trinity, and equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ rose bodily from the grave, was touched by His disciples and ate before them.[7]

6. Mormonism: Joseph Smith (founder of Mormon Religion) taught that “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.” Apostle James Talmadge said, “We believe in a God who is … a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow … the church proclaims the eternal truth: ‘as man is, God once was; as God is, man may be.’” Talmadge also said the doctrine of the Trinity was a jumble of “inconsistencies and contradictions.” Joseph Smith taught that Jesus Christ, God the Father and the Holy Ghost were “three distinct personages and three Gods.” Biblical Christians believe God is a Spirit and Creator of the universe. The Biblical God says, “I am God and there is no other” (Isaiah 46:9), and “Before Me no God was formed, nor will there be one after Me” (Isaiah 43:10). The word “trinity” means “three-in-oneness” and summarizes Scripture’s teaching that “God is three Persons, yet one God”.[8]

At this juncture, I would be remiss if I did not answer the often asked question, “Are Catholics Christians? The short answer is – absolutely!

I suggest that you read chapter two of Ridenour’s book to answer questions regarding papal and historical authority as well as Salvation and the Sacraments. As one raised in the Catholic Church and ever-thankful for getting on the right path to know Jesus Christ, I will leave it at that.

So, what is God like, from a Christian perspective?

The Bible describes the character of God. Here are 15 of these attributes, expounded upon by Jack Hayford in his book, Grounds For Living[9]:

1. Self-existent, beyond time and space, yet ever available and present to us.

2. Eternal, timeless, enduring – “forever” kind of person who has always been and shall always be

3. Paternal, “daddy”

4. Immutable, changeless, steadfast, absolute and utterly reliable

5. Omnipresent

6. Omnipotent

7. The “original” Creator-God, above all

8. Ruler of the angelic hosts

9. Owner and Master – the God of all life, potential and destiny

10. Righteous, ultimately equitable, just, mighty yet merciful, holy yet patient, powerful yet humble judge

11. Healer

12. Leader who goes before His People when they engage in hostility

13. Faithful Provider for all human need

14. “Shepherd”: leading, protecting, feeding, upholding – entirely able to lead us to our fullest, highest and best

15. Peacemaker

16. Love

While this list is not “conclusive,” it does help us to radically expand in our minds eye what God is really like.