The word theology comes from two roots: Theos (God) and Logos (word or study).

Theology Proper is the branch of systematic theology devoted exclusively to the study of God himself — his existence, his attributes, his character, and the Trinity. It should be distinguished from Christology and Pneumatology.

Getting a proper view of God matters enormously, for at least four reasons:

1. Most of our spiritual problems can be traced back to an improper view of God.
2. A proper view of God is necessary if we are to relate to him as he actually is, rather than to a god of our own making.
3. It equips us to resist Satan’s lies and his accusations about God.
4. It allows us to speak accurately to our world. We are God’s representatives, so we need to represent him correctly.

Improper Views

• Deism
• Polytheism
• Dualism
• Pantheism
• Atheism
• Finite Godism

Existence

The question of God’s existence falls primarily under the field of Apologetics.

Attributes

The terms we use to describe God’s attributes often do not appear in Scripture itself. They are labels we supply in order to summarize what Scripture reveals about him. Such a list can never be exhaustive, because God is infinite.

Some of God’s attributes are unique to him; others we share with him in some measure. And no attribute of God cancels out another.

Omniscient

From the roots Omni (all) and Scientia (knowledge).

God knows everything — both what is actual and what is possible. His knowledge reaches across past, present, and future, and he knows all of it with certainty rather than mere probability.

Knowing something is not the same as causing it. This is the error of Calvinism.

1 John 3:20

20. that if our conscience condemns us, that God is greater than our conscience and knows all things.

Psalm 147:5

5. Our Lord is great and has awesome power; there is no limit to his wisdom.

Isaiah 40:28

28. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is an eternal God, the creator of the whole earth. He does not get tired or weary; there is no limit to his wisdom.

Omnipresent

From the roots Omni (all) and present (to exist in a place).

God transcends every limit of space. He is present everywhere at once.

Psalm 139:7-8

7. Where can I go to escape your spirit? Where can I flee to escape your presence? 8. If I were to ascend to heaven, you would be there. If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be.

Jeremiah 23:23-24

23. Do you people think that I am some local deity and not the transcendent God?” the LORD asks. 24. “Do you really think anyone can hide himself where I cannot see him?” the LORD asks. “Do you not know that I am everywhere?” the LORD asks.

God has never been confined to a sanctuary or to any special place. We can meet him and speak with him anywhere. It also means that we can encounter God outside a sanctuary and that God can act outside a sanctuary — so prayer for events on the other side of the world is effective. God is always accessible to us.

Omnipotent

From the roots Omni (all) and potens (to be able).

God is all-powerful; he can do anything he wants to do. His power is limited only by his nature.

Genesis 18:14

14. Is anything impossible for the LORD? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.

Matthew 19:26

26. Jesus looked at them and replied, “This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible.”

Miracles are no more difficult for God than ordinary, natural events.

Sovereign

From the Latin root superanus, meaning “chief,” “principal,” or “above.”

God owns all of creation and rules over all of it. Everything that exists depends on him, and nothing happens unless he permits it. Because he owns everything, he holds the legitimate right to rule it.

Psalm 24:1

1. The LORD owns the earth and all it contains, the world and all who live in it.

Colossians 1:16, 17

16. For all things in heaven and on earth were created by him — all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers — all things were created through him and for him. 17. He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him.

This attribute is deeply encouraging for the believer:

1. Satan is under God’s control and must answer to him (Cf. Job 2:4-8).
2. When we are committed to God’s purposes, he will work regardless of our mistakes (Cf. Rom 8:28).
   1. When we act under God’s authority, we have no reason to be afraid in ministry.
   2. We can look for God’s hand and his purposes in suffering and misfortune.
   3. Our hope rests on God’s purposes prevailing. We are on the winning side.
3. We and everything we own belong to God.
   1. This makes generosity easier and more impactful.
   2. This makes material loss easier to bear.

This does raise hard questions we have to answer, such as The Problem of Evil.

Keep in mind the distinction between God’s permissive will and his moral will:

• Permissive will — everything that has ever happened, including what God did not want.
• Moral will — what God ultimately wants to happen (or directly causes).

Loving

God treats his creation with mercy, love, and grace.

Psalm 86:5

5. Certainly O Lord, you are kind and forgiving, and show great faithfulness to all who cry out to you.

Luke 6:36

36. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

If God were sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent but not loving, we would have every reason to be afraid. Because he is loving, the believer can be confident that God can be trusted.

• We can trust God in our suffering.
• There is never a reason to be afraid of God.
• His will can always be trusted.
• He is the one we have always longed for.

Righteous

God’s moral character is the very definition of goodness.

James 1:13

13. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Deuteronomy 32:4

4. As for the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He is a reliable God who is never unjust, he is fair and upright.

God’s righteousness shows us that we could never work our way to him. If we want to be transformed by God, we must look at his character.

Righteousness is not merely the absence of evil; it is the active pursuit of good:

1 Thessalonians 3:11-12

11. Now may God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12. And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we do for you,

James 4:17

17. So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.

In response to God’s righteousness, people like to raise the Euthyphro dilemma.

Immutable

God does not change with respect to his attributes or his promises. This does not mean that he never does anything different, or that his emotions never change.

1 Samuel 15:29

29. The Preeminent One of Israel does not go back on his word or change his mind, for he is not a human being who changes his mind.”

Hebrews 13:8

8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!

At times it can look as though God changes his mind.

1 Samuel 9:16, 15:10-11

¹⁶ “At this time tomorrow I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin. You must consecrate him as a leader over my people Israel. He will save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked with favor on my people. Their cry has reached me!” ¹⁰ Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: ¹¹ “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do.” Samuel became angry and he cried out to the LORD all that night.

Saul is the one who changes here. God gave Saul his chance, and Saul followed him for a time; once Saul stopped following God, God needed a new king to take his place.

Exodus 32:9-14

⁹ Then the LORD said to Moses: “I have seen this people. Look what a stiff-necked people they are! ¹⁰ So now, leave me alone so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, and I will make from you a great nation.” ¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘For evil he led them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent of this evil against your people. ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and told them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken about I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.’” ¹⁴ Then the LORD relented over the evil that he had said he would do to his people.

In this passage Moses intercedes for the people and God changes his course of action — not his character.

When there are proper grounds for it, God will change his actions or his emotions.

Amos intercedes for Israel:

Amos 7:1-6

¹ The sovereign LORD showed me this: I saw him making locusts just as the crops planted late were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ) ² When they had completely consumed the earth’s vegetation, I said, “Sovereign LORD, forgive Israel! How can Jacob survive? He is too weak!” ³ The LORD decided not to do this. “It will not happen,” the LORD said. ⁴ The sovereign LORD showed me this: I saw the sovereign LORD summoning a shower of fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields. ⁵ I said, “Sovereign LORD, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is too weak!” ⁶ The LORD decided not to do this. The sovereign LORD said, “This will not happen either.”

God withholds judgment after the people of Nineveh repent:

Jonah 3:10

¹⁰ When God saw their actions — they turned from their evil way of living! — God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.

God always knows in advance what he will do; his omniscience requires it.

God’s immutability is the basis for existence, science, logic, and rational thought.

Some people claim that progressive revelation is evidence of God growing. That is false. Progressive revelation is God disclosing more and more of his plan.

God’s immutability is a genuine encouragement to us!

Romans 11:29

²⁹ For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

God will never change his promises. We can rely on him to keep them. Nothing good about God will ever change.

Truthful

God is truthful; he cannot lie. He is faithful and reliable.

Numbers 23:19

¹⁹ God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen?

John 17:17

¹⁷ Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth.

What God reveals to us defines objective truth.

God is faithful and will keep his promises; he is a promise keeper. He will not lie to us. He will not tell us everything — we could not handle infinite knowledge — but he will not keep us in the dark about what we actually need to know.

This means we must distinguish between God’s unconditional promises (Rom 8:1) and his conditional promises (Rom 8:28).

Infinite

God has no beginning and no end; he is eternal. He is free from every limitation, and he possesses each of his attributes to its maximum degree.

Romans 16:26

²⁶ but now is disclosed, and through the prophetic scriptures has been made known to all the nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith —

This verse calls God eternal outright.

Genesis 12:1

¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.

Here in Genesis we see God working outside a temple and outside Israel, calling Abraham to go.

Romans 11:33

³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways!

We cannot comprehend infinity. We will spend all of eternity learning about God and growing in depth and intimacy with him.

Ephesians 2:7

⁷ to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God has an infinite supply of grace, and he has given it to us through Christ.

God’s infinity matters. To pay for an infinite amount of sin, God has to be infinite.

It also means that God is infinitely with us. The Holy Spirit is as fully with me as he was with Christ; we do not receive only a portion of the Spirit. God loves us to an infinite degree.

And it means our relationship with God can always keep growing, on into eternity. There will always be more to learn about him. Heaven will not be boring.

Self-Existent

The ground of God’s existence is himself. He is the uncaused causer, a truth implied by his name Yahweh. Yahweh means “He is,” “I am who I am,” or “He brings into existence whatever exists.”

Exodus 3:13-14

¹³ Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ — what should I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I AM that I AM.” And he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Revelation 1:8

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God — the one who is, and who was, and who is still to come — the All-Powerful!

God cannot be manipulated by his creation, because he is not dependent on it. This undermines the core beliefs and practices of occult worship and magic.

The essence of sin is ignoring our need to depend on God.

Isaiah 14:14

¹⁴ I will climb up to the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High!”

Human agency does not mean God needs to use us; he wants to use us. Our ministry is a mercy from him.

Just

God cannot ignore evil. He must repay evil and good fairly.

Nahum 1:3

³ The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will certainly not allow the wicked to go unpunished. He marches out in the whirlwind and the raging storm; dark storm clouds billow like dust under his feet.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7

⁶ For it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷ and to you who are being afflicted to give rest together with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.

Do not ask God for what you deserve. Your sin forfeits any right to favorable justice. Every reward we receive from God comes to us as grace.

John 1:16

¹⁶ For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another.

1 Corinthians 4:7b

⁷ What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not?

This crushes the notion of karma, or of doing anything for God in order to get something from him.

All of our bitterness is wrong, because God has dealt with us under grace (Eph 4:32; Col 3:13).

It is also improper to speak of justice and rights within a personal relationship. Applying strict legalistic notions of justice, rights, and scorekeeping to a personal relationship replaces love, grace, and mutual care with transactional conflict. Relationships thrive on generosity rather than a rigid ledger of who is “right” or “owed.”

God also carries out his justice on his own perfect timetable (2 Peter 3:9).

Happy

God exists in a happy and blessed state. This does not exclude his other emotions.

1 Timothy 1:11

¹¹ This accords with the glorious gospel of the blessed God that was entrusted to me.

Zephaniah 3:17

¹⁷ The LORD your God is in your midst; he is a warrior who can deliver. He takes great delight in you; he renews you by his love; he shouts for joy over you.”

This corrects the view of God as morbid or unfeeling.

To represent God to the world, Christians should be happy.