What is God Like?

Although it is impossible to comprehend God entirely, we do know certain things about Him and His nature, based on Scripture, Tradition and our own relationship with Him, if we have put forth the effort to develop such a relationship.  Here are a few of the basics:

• God is Eternal:  He has always been here and will always exist, before and after recorded time.  God created time itself, so God exists outside of our concepts of time.  This may be impossible for us to understand, but it underscores his greatness and our own limitations.

• God is All-Knowing:  As the creator of the universe, God is the author of everything and is the ultimate expert!  His knowledge is infinite.  Also, he is everywhere at all times since His very spirit permeates all of creation in both the physical and spiritual worlds.  Therefore there is nothing that we can hide from God.  He sees all of our deeds, good and bad, and knows our thoughts.  This may seem frightening, but it is a reality of the love that He has for us.  As our creator, He knows us better than we know ourselves.

• God is Just:  Life in our broken, physical world is often unfair and unjust.  This causes a lot of anger and unbelief toward God, but the reality is that God is just, and that in the end every deed and each person will be subject to His perfect justice.  Our problem is that we want everything right away.  God is patient; He has eternity to work with.

• God is Love:  This sounds very abstract and poetic, but it is true in a very real and literal sense.  God is not just loving, but He is love itself.  God loves all of His creation, but the crown jewel is the human race.  God loves each of us more than we could ever comprehend.  But it is more than just this – God Himself is love, which is the basis of the Trinity.  Before anything else existed, God existed, love existed. 

But love is always relational, there needs to be at least two “persons” involved in a loving relationship.  At its most basic level, there must be one who loves and one who is the object of the love.  A relationship is formed when both love each other.  This is the basis for the first and second persons of the Trinity (“Father” and “Son”).  The relationship between the two is so strong in love that the two are united into one, and the love itself is so real that it exists as its own “person”.  We refer to this love as “the Holy Spirit”.  It binds the Father and Son together as one, but also proceeds forth and draws creation back to God in love. 

The concept of a Trinity is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend, but we can understand some aspects of it.  This is important if we want to know God, for God is Trinity, three distinct persons, but one God.