God Is Not Made of Parts

On Mount Sinai, Moses asked God for something bold: “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). The answer did not come as a display of lights, but as a declaration. God passed before him and proclaimed His own name, revealing who He is: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod 34:6). This is how the whole Bible speaks of God: not through a cold definition, but by revealing His character. Theology calls this set of perfections the attributes of God. Knowing them, then, is not a distant academic exercise, but learning who the One we trust really is.

An attribute is not a characteristic that God possesses separately, the way someone keeps an object in a drawer. It is God Himself, known under a particular aspect. That is why Scripture chooses its words carefully: it does not merely say that God has love, but that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Theologians call this truth divine simplicity, not because God is simple in the sense of being limited or shallow, but because He is not made up of parts added together, like slices of a cake. When God loves, it is His whole being that loves; when He judges, it is His whole being that judges. None of His perfections competes with another, because all of them belong, at the same time and in full, to the one and same God.

Some of these perfections belong exclusively to God and cannot be shared by any creature, not even the highest of angelic beings. When Moses asked God's name before the burning bush, the answer was short and definitive: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14). God did not receive His existence from anyone. He simply is, of Himself, while everything else, including us, depends on Him even for our next breath. This same God has no beginning and no end: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps 90:2). He also does not change: “I the LORD do not change” (Mal 3:6). This means God does not grow wiser or more powerful with the passing of time, because He already is, in full, everything He has always been. It is precisely because He does not change that His promises remain firm even when we stumble.

The same God who does not change is also not subject to limits. He has all power, and nothing is too great for His hands (Jer 32:17). He knows all things at once, without needing to learn gradually, and He is present in His fullness in every part of the universe, never with only a part of Himself. David summed up this reality in a prayer that has echoed through the centuries: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Ps 139:7–8). For those who flee from God, this is unsettling news. For the child of God, however, it is one of the greatest comforts: there is no place in the world, no night so dark, where He is not already present, attentive, and in control.

If these attributes reveal the distance between God and us, others also reveal aspects of His character that, in a limited and imperfect way, can be reflected by the creature made in His image. Among these, holiness holds a place of special prominence. When the prophet Isaiah had a vision of the Lord, the heavenly beings did not cry out righteous, righteous, righteous, nor love, love, love, but: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts” (Isa 6:3). From holiness flows justice, that is, the perfectly upright way in which God deals with each of His creatures. He never acts on a whim, nor in a way contrary to what is right. The psalmist sums it up: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne” (Ps 89:14).

And yet this same holy and just God is also love. This is not a love that shows up only now and then, but something that belongs to His very nature: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Many people sense a tension here: how can the God who is angered by sin be the same God who forgives the sinner? The answer is found at the cross. There, God's just wrath against sin and His love for the sinner did not cancel each other out, but met. Jesus took upon Himself the judgment we deserved, and justice was fully satisfied without mercy being set aside. The mercies of the Lord, proclaimed in the midst of the deep anguish of the author of Lamentations, “never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lam 3:22–23).

Behind all these perfections stands one that upholds our confidence in all the others: the faithfulness of God. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num 23:19). Faced with a God like this — who does not change, who has all power, who is holy and, at the same time, full of grace, and who never fails to fulfill what He promises — the right response is not to try to comprehend Him completely, something we will never manage, but to worship Him for what He has already revealed.

The next time you pray, try beginning by praising God for who He is, before asking for anything. And when life feels shaken, choose one of these attributes — His faithfulness, His presence, or His mercy that is renewed every morning — and rest in it. Knowing God's character is not reducing Him to a list of attributes; it is learning, more and more, in whom we are trusting.