Categorization of the Attributes of God for the Glory of God

What makes someone trustworthy? I want you to take a few moments now and think about a few attributes that belong to a trustworthy person. Here’s a short list of some ways that I find someone to be trustworthy: Wise, patient, kind, righteous, honest, and good, empathetic. How do we know that a person has this character qualities? We don’t randomly leave our wallet next to a stranger and ask him or her, “Hey, can you watch this for me?” Or maybe you do, I don’t know. No, what we witness are actions. And sometime when actions are met with words, we believe the words after witnessing the verasity of the claims.

Understanding God is a similar endeavor. In order for us to understand Him, one of the means to do so is categorizing God’s attributes. In scripture God speaks to us about who He is, and shows us that He is that way. So in essence, categorizing God is a way to love Him, because when we do that we realize How much He loves us.

Categorizing God’s Attributes To know God

In a previous article here, we spoke of how God uses anagolical language, or “baby talk”, to speak to us. Through analogy, we can apprehend what God is like. Categorizing God’s attributes means taking the language He uses about Himself and organizing it in ways that help us understand and trust Him. This is of crucial important. When God says that He is good, what does that mean? People think it’s good to get drunk, so does that mean that it’s ok to get drunk because God is on our own subjective wavelength? No. In fact, God says that those who are drunkards will never enter in the kingdom of Heaven. We will not observe three helpful ways we categorize his attributes.

Apophatic and Cataphatic

Apophatic and Cataphatic are terms that speak of God in ways of either positive or negative theology. First, Apophatic, deriving from the Greek word apophasis which means “to speak away from”, describes God in ways that He is not. For example, God is not finite, therefore he is infinite. Cataphatic, coming from the greek word kataphasis we means “speaking toward”, places emphasis on what God is. God is love, or God is good.

This is a helpful way that Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, Gregory of Nazinius, and others have used. Apophatic language humbles us, reminding us that we cannot dare look into the unapproachable light that is God. Cataphatic language, however, helps us to know this God who dwells in the heavens as He comes down to His people, relating Himself to us so that we may know Him in ways that ravishes our hearts.

Absolute and Relative

What was God like before the universe was created? And if He decides to end His creation alltogether? What would He be? That’s the puprose of Absolute versus Relative attributes. Absolute are his essential qualities that He has in his essence without relation to His creation. God has life in Himself. Before the creation, God is. This attribute is called “aseity”. This is apophatic, absolute terminology to describe something God is in Himself regardless of us, His creation. . The opposite is the case when we can describe God in relation to His creation.

Practical Implications from This Method

I have found this distinction helpful when considering God’s wrath and God’s love. In Scripture, wrath is always portrayed as God’s response to sin in His creation. For this reason, it is best understood as a relative attribute, not an absolute one. Nowhere does the Bible describe God as wrath “in Himself.” By contrast, Scripture does declare that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), which reveals an absolute attribute of His very nature. Thus, God’s wrath flows from His absolute attributes—such as His holiness, righteousness, and love—as He responds justly to sin.

This distinction protects us from a distorted view of God as inherently angry, vengeful, or unstable, like a father quick to lash out in rage. That is not the God of Scripture. God is eternally delighted in His own being and works; His wrath is only ever exercised in response to real evil, and even then, it is tempered with patience and longsuffering (Romans 2:4). Therefore, when we reflect on God’s attributes, we should remember that His wrath is not essential to who He is, but an expression of His holiness and love against sin. Meditating carefully on how God describes Himself in His Word helps us see His justice and mercy rightly, without reducing Him to a caricature of anger.

“The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Absolute), maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (Relative from absolute). Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin (relative) of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” (Ex 34:6-7)

Essential and Personal

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, essential and personal. This language is used to describe how Goes relates with God. First who He is in His essence, and then how he relates to His Persons. God is trinitarian by nature, and each person has distinct and separate roles in the Godhead while simultaneously maintaining the Essence of who He is essentially. When we think of salvation, do we think about both of these categorizations and correlate them to how they influence us personally? More on this in later posts about the Trinity and Salvation.

This may seem as though it is superflous and vain exercise. but I promise the more you meditate on God and His attributes, the more beautiful He becomes, the more we can be like David when He likens God to a fortress, and says these words to us:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.