The Doctrine of God (2)

D. The Incommunicable Attributes of God

1. Independence

• God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation glorify him and bring him joy.
  
• God is absolutely independent and self-sufficient.

2. Unchangeableness

• God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations.
• Psalm 102:25-27
• Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but youe endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change the like raiment, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end.
• God existed before the heavens and earth were made, and he will exist long after they have been destroyed.
• The Bible teaches that God is both infinite and personal. He is infinite in that he is not subject to any of the limitations of humanity, or of creation in general. He is far greater than everything he has made, far greater than anything else that exists. But he is also personal in that he interacts with us as a person, and we can relate to him as persons.

3. Eternity

• God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time.

4. Omnipresence

• God does not have size or spatial dimensions, and is present at every point of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places.
• Psalm 139:7-10
• Wither shall I go from your Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven , you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
• God can be present to punish, to sustain, or to bless.
• God is present in different ways in different places.
• Herman Bavinck, in The Doctrine of God, writes
• "When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your house where no enemy ay see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room; even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you meditate: he is more inward than your heart. Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there he is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will from him? Flee unto him."

5. Unity

• God is not divided into parts, yet we see different attributes of God emphasized at different times.
• He is the same God always, and everything he says or does is fully consistent with all his attributes.
• It is God himself in hiw whole being who is supremely important, and it is God himself in his whole being whom we are to seek to know and to love.