Does This Matter?
Do God’s attributes matter to Christians today? Most of us take them for granted and seldom think about them specifically. Does anybody seriously discuss why God’s invisibility is important? Theologians may argue over things like impassibility and eternity, but most people do not. They assume that God is eternal and that he cares about us, but they do not puzzle over whether he himself suffers. The divine attributes appear to be abstractions and are therefore best left to specialists who are free to argue about them in theological faculties and academic journals, without any impact on everyday life.
This attitude may be widespread, but it is irresponsible and dangerous. God’s attributes may be hard to fathom, but they matter greatly for our relationship to him. We live in a culture where anything “spiritual,” transcendent, or metaphysical is at best marginalized, if not denied altogether. Ours is a material world, where every thought and action can be measured in finite terms and even programmed, thanks to the marvels of modern technology. We are of the impression that the only happiness we can find is one we create for ourselves, not by looking beyond our universe but by stretching it to the limit and exploiting its potential. The assumption is that if we do that, we shall resolve the problems that continue to plague human life and advance toward paradise.
In such a vision, there is no logical place for God, and the religious view of life is excluded either explicitly or simply by being ignored and relegated to private opinion. No Christian can accept such an outlook. For us, the finite world is the creation of an infinite and eternal God who exists above and beyond it. He has made us as we are, he governs us by his almighty power, and one day he will bring it all to an end. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, still finite in a created sense but no longer bound by the limitations of time or subject to the ravages of sinful human beings (Rev. 21:1–8). This transformation will come about not by some internal development of the existing material order, nor by human ingenuity, but by the direct intervention of the God who transcends it. The attributes of God bear witness to that transcendence, and it is because we believe in him that we can consider the world as it truly is. We are material creatures designed to live in the present finite order, but we have a relationship with the God who has made it and who gives us the ability to rise above it in our own spiritual life and experience.