What God Is
What can we say about something infinite?
Main teaching: De fide
The big question
If God is infinite, how can finite minds say anything true about him? And when we call God “good” or “wise”, do we mean the same thing as when we call a person good or wise? If we do, God seems to shrink to our size. If we don’t, our words seem to say nothing at all.
What the Church teaches
There is one, true and living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth. He is almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect, will and every perfection. He is one, singular, entirely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, really and essentially distinct from the world (Vatican I, Dei Filius ch. 1; DH 3001; also Lateran IV, DH 800).
How sure is this? De fide. See CCC 200–221.
We speak of God truly, but by analogy. Between Creator and creature no likeness can be expressed without an even greater unlikeness (Lateran IV, 1215; DH 806; CCC 43).
How sure is this? De fide in substance. The Council stated it in condemning an error about the Trinity, and the Catechism adopts it as the rule for all our language about God.
Where it comes from
Scripture. When Moses asks God’s name, God answers, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). The Fathers and Aquinas saw in this name a pointer to what God is: he simply is, without beginning or limit. Israel’s central prayer begins, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
Scripture teaches that God does not change: “For I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6); with him “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). He is eternal: “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). He is not a body: “God is spirit” (John 4:24). And he surpasses everything we can think: he “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16).
The early Church. St Augustine said that if you have understood, what you have understood is not God (Sermon 117.5). Pseudo-Dionysius (about 500) taught that we speak of God in three ways, which Aquinas adopted: by affirming what is good in creatures, by denying their limits, and by saying that God has every perfection in a way beyond all creatures.
How theologians explain it
Being itself. Everything in the world has existence: it receives it, and could lack it. Aquinas argues that God does not have existence; he is existence. In him, what he is and that he is are the same. He is “subsistent being itself” (ipsum esse subsistens, Summa I, q. 3, a. 4). This is why God is not one being among others, not even the biggest one. He is the source of the being of everything else.
The three ways of speaking about God.
- Affirmation: whatever is good in creatures comes from God, so he has it: goodness, wisdom, life.
- Negation: whatever is limited in creatures, God does not have: he is not made of parts, not in time, not changing.
- Eminence: what we affirm, God has in a way that infinitely surpasses how creatures have it.
Analogy. When we say a person is wise and God is wise, the word is not used in exactly the same sense (that would make God a larger human), nor in a completely unrelated sense (that would make it meaningless). It is used by analogy: really, but in proportion to each. Our words are true of God, but their full meaning in him always exceeds what we grasp (Summa I, q. 13, a. 5).
God’s attributes. Each of these is a way of saying what God is, not a separate part of him:
| Attribute | What it means | What it rules out |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | God has no parts, not even a distinction between his nature and his existence | God as a compound or a collection of qualities |
| Perfect | God lacks nothing | God as growing or needing anything |
| Infinite | God’s being has no limit | God as one large but finite thing |
| Present everywhere | God is present to all things as the cause keeping them in being | God as located in one place, or absent anywhere |
| Unchangeable | God cannot become more or less than he is | God as changing his mind or developing |
| Eternal | God possesses his whole life at once, without past or future | God as merely very old, or endless in time |
| One | There can be only one infinite being | Many gods |
Simplicity. Because God has no parts, his attributes are not really distinct from each other or from him. God does not have goodness, wisdom and justice as we do; he is his goodness, his wisdom and his justice. We use many words because our minds cannot take in God’s infinite perfection in one idea.
Eternity. Boethius (died about 524) defined eternity as “the complete and perfect possession, all at once, of unending life”. Eternity is not a very long time. It is a different way of existing, outside time altogether.
Philosophy bridge
This lesson rests on two ideas from the philosophy course’s metaphysics. The first is the distinction between essence and existence: what something is, and the fact that it is. In creatures these differ; in God they are one. The second is analogy, the way one word can be used in related but different senses.
What the Church does not claim
- Not that God is cold or indifferent. That God does not change does not mean he is static or uncaring. He is “love” (1 John 4:8), unchanging because his love is already perfect, not because he lacks it.
- Not that Scripture’s human language about God is literal. When Scripture speaks of God’s arm, his anger, or his “repenting”, it uses human images for real truths: God’s power, his opposition to sin, the change in his dealings with us as we change.
- Not that God is male or female. Scripture calls God Father, and also uses motherly images. God is neither man nor woman; he is pure spirit (CCC 239, 370).
- Not that we know nothing about God. Our knowledge of God is limited and indirect, but it is true.
Check your understanding
- List four attributes of God defined by Vatican I.
Show answer
Any four of: one, almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite, simple, unchangeable, spiritual, distinct from the world.
- What does Aquinas mean by calling God “subsistent being itself”?
Show answer
That God does not receive existence from anything; his essence is to exist. Every creature has existence; God is existence. That is why he is the source of the being of everything else, not one being among others.
- Explain why “God is wise” is said neither in exactly the same sense as “Anna is wise” nor in a completely different sense.
Show answer
If it were exactly the same, God would be a larger version of a human being. If it were completely different, the word would tell us nothing. It is said by analogy: God really is wise, but in a way that infinitely exceeds human wisdom.
- What is the difference between eternity and a very long time?
Show answer
A very long time is still a succession of moments with a past and a future. Eternity is possessing one’s whole life all at once, with no succession, outside time altogether.
- If God does not change, how can Scripture say God was angry, or relented?
Show answer
These are human images. God’s “anger” expresses his unchanging opposition to sin, and his “relenting” expresses how our relationship to him changes when we repent. What changes is us, not God.