M59 Q&A
What characteristics does God have?
God exists absolutely.
All things are limited by basic needs for existence and survival that
they cannot provide for themselves, but God is not bound by such needs. As the
creator of all things, He must exist. Because there is no difference between
what He is and that He is, He exists absolutely. Thus, God said, “I AM WHO I
AM” (Ex 3:14).
God is limitless.
The universe includes space, time, and all things. As the creator of
the universe, God must exist before and beyond it. Therefore, He exists outside
of space and time and is unlimited (Isa 40:28).
God is one.
God has sovereign power; hence, there cannot be more than one God (Deut
32:39).
God is spirit (Jn 4:24).
All matter is subject to change. God is constant and therefore immaterial.
God is transcendent and immanent: He is “above all, and through all,
and in all” (Eph 4:6).
God exists independently from His creation, the universe. Yet, God
sustains all creation; all life exists because of Him. Thus, God is omnipresent,
filling heaven and earth, and dwelling among us (Jer
23:23, 24; 2 Cor 6:16).
God is wise.
God reveals His wisdom in His creation. As Creator, God has complete
knowledge of all things (Ps 147:5).
God is good.
As giver and sustainer of life, God is infinitely good (Ps 145:7-9).
Being wholly good, He cannot tolerate evil; He is holy (Lev 11:44), just (Isa
45:21), and true (Jn 17:17). He is also loving (1 Jn 4:8) and merciful (Ex 34:6). His perfect goodness is
manifested in Jesus Christ, through whom He fulfills His requirement for
justice and demonstrates His boundless love.
Why does a good God allow suffering?
Goodness is not equivalent to
kindness, for “[i]f goodness meant only kindness, a
God who tolerated pain in his creatures when he could abolish it would not be
an all-good God.”1 Because His nature is perfectly good and just,
however, God cannot tolerate sin. Having sinned and turned away from God, we
are subject to His divine wrath. And if our souls are alienated from God, our bodies,
too, are alienated and no longer under His protection. God gave humankind
authority over nature (Gen 1:28), but when humanity rejected God’s authority,
we rejected the authority He gives to us: “If you rebel against the king, his
ministers will no longer serve you.”2 Therefore, we suffer both
physical evil from the natural world (disease, famine, earthquakes) as well as
moral evil from the sins we commit (hatred, envy, deceit).
Why, then, do the righteous
suffer? We cannot always equate suffering with wrongdoing, as Job’s friends
were too quick to do. When Jesus’ disciples asked why the man He healed was
born blind, He replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the
works of God should be revealed in him” (Jn 9:3).
Suffering ultimately reveals to us God’s sovereign power. Through suffering, our
faith in God grows as we come to realize our limitations and learn to turn,
instead, to Him. Thus, God allows suffering for our own good so that, in the
end, “the genuineness of [our] faith, being much more precious than gold that
perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory
at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:7).
1.
Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 140.
2.
Ibid.,
135.
