On October 1, 2023, a decorated veteran and experienced pilot crashed his plane during a nighttime, low visibility takeoff. The crash proved fatal to the pilot and the three passengers on board the small aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board conducted an investigation and determined that the pilot’s failure to activate the runway edge lights was likely the leading cause of the crash.[1] Without those guiding lights, the plane had veered off course before ever taking off, setting a trajectory that ended in disaster. Runway edge lights are vital to successful takeoff in an aircraft of any size. Veering off the runway or lifting off from it at the wrong angle in low visibility situations can be catastrophic. And so it is with knowing God according to his word.
1. National Transportation Safety Board, Aviation Investigation Final Report: ERA23FA478 (Washington, DC: National Transportation Safety Board, adopted March 13, 2025).
The greatest end and goal of the life of any rational creature, angel or human, is the knowledge of God. As disciples, we rightly desire to press on to know the Lord more fully as we contemplate his truth by the use of sanctified reason in response to his revelation. We want our thoughts about God and our affections for God to lift us up from the mundane and merely visible stuff of life to soar in worship as we delight in the knowledge of God, and we want to help others soar to similar heights as we speak faithfully about God.
The purpose of this essay is to introduce the doctrine of God by laying out a series of statements—axioms—that function like runway edge lights for the doctrine of God. If we hope to soar to great heights in our worshipful contemplation of the one true and living God, it is vital that we not veer off the runway before we ever get off the ground. These ten axioms serve to point Christian reflection on the existence and attributes of God in a biblically faithful direction, helping to ensure safe and maximally joyful flight.
Take Your Sandals Off Your Feet
Before considering the ten axioms, a brief word is in order about the very task of studying God in his existence, attributes, and triune relations. Because God is not like anything in the created world, our study of God is not like any other discipline of study. When Moses saw a flame burning in a bush, his interest was piqued by the fact that the flame was not consuming the bush. He said to himself, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned” (Exod. 3:3). Curiosity aroused, Moses approached. He had questions; he wanted answers. He hoped to get those answers by investigating the matter more closely. In short, Moses was pursuing a course of study. But Moses didn’t know that the flame was a visible manifestation of the one true and living God. As he drew near to study, God called out to him from the midst of the bush: “Do not come near. The place you are standing is holy ground” (Exod. 3:5). Moses wanted to study, to understand. God stopped him in his tracks.
At the very outset of this encounter, Moses needed to grasp the fact that the subject matter he was seeking to study on that day is altogether different from any other subject matter of any other course of study. Moses was approaching God! In any other course of study, the student seeks to master a body of knowledge and put that knowledge to use as a means to some greater end. Not so with the study of God. To know God is not to master him but to be mastered by him. To know God is not to put him to use for the purpose of our choosing but to be put to use by him for the purpose of his choosing. The knowledge of God is not a means to some other, more useful end. The knowledge of God is an end in itself; the greatest goal and highest good that a creature can obtain is to know God.
After stopping Moses where he stood—“Do not come near”—God told Moses to take his sandals off his feet because he was standing on holy ground. This highlights another important truth in the study of God. In the study of God, a worshipful disposition of the heart must precede and regulate the rational activity of the mind. Moses desired to study God. In the words and deeds which followed, God intended to reveal his name, his existence, and his attributes to Moses. But first, Moses must be laid low in reverence, worship, and holy fear.
Dear reader, as you embark on a more careful study of the doctrine of God, heed the lessons God taught Moses at the burning bush. Remember who you’re studying—the Maker of heaven and earth—and approach accordingly. Take your sandals off your feet; the place you are standing is holy ground.
Ten Axioms to Guide You in the Doctrine of God
An axiom is a truth that functions as a first principle. It is something to be assumed rather than proven. By referring to the following truths as axioms, I do not mean to suggest that they cannot be proven by reason and Scripture. In fact, I offer biblical and rational proof for each of them in the remainder of this essay, but these are truths which, once learned, ought to be assumed as you move farther up and farther in, guiding your contemplation, prayer, praise, and speech. It is possible to prove that the runway edge lights are in the right place and therefore trustworthy as guides. But when it’s time to take off from the runway, the pilot does not rehearse the proofs for the integrity of the lights laid before him. Rather, he assumes the lights are in the right place so that he can be actively guided by them during takeoff.
Of the ten axioms that follow, all are revealed in Scripture. The first eight are also revealed in nature so that sound reason from the existence of created things will yield the conclusion that these things are true. That is not to say that anyone ever did arrive at all these conclusions, as they are stated here, by the evidence of natural revelation alone and the exercise of reason alone. Among the very best of the pagan philosophers, who came closest to getting things right from reason and observation (Plato and Aristotle, for example), there are serious flaws in their understanding of the supreme essence (God) that contradict the clear teaching of Scripture. It seems that only Christians have arrived at the right conclusions about God from nature. There are two reasons for this. First, Christians have access to and believe the word of God written in Scripture. The truths revealed about God in nature are also revealed, and more clearly so, in Scripture. A Christian is thus protected from errors in the exercise of his own reason by the plain statements of Scripture. Second, and more importantly, Christians have been born again by the Spirit of God. In his fallen condition, the mind of man is darkened, and the exercise of his reason is morally and intellectually askew. Paul says that, although the knowledge of God in a limited sense is available to all people in all places at all times, people nevertheless worship the creature rather than the Creator because their foolish hearts are darkened (see Rom. 1:18–25). Furthermore, the apostle says people who have not been born again “are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph. 4:18). The Christian, however, has a regenerate heart and mind. He is no longer dead in trespasses and sins but has been made alive. He is able to exercise redeemed reason in his assessment of nature as God’s revelation even while aided by the clear testimony of Scripture in the task of knowing God. We turn now to the guiding lights, ten axioms of theology proper.
Axiom 1: The one true and living God is the creator of all things out of nothing.
Scripture, and Scripture alone, is the very word of God written, entirely true and trustworthy, the very revelation of God himself to man. And the very first thing Scripture says is that God is the creator of everything. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Christians have rightly understood that this opening line of the Bible is making a profound claim. Everything that exists that is not God owes its existence to God. Everything. Things visible (the material world) and things invisible (the spiritual world) are made by God (see Col. 1:16). This is the doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), and it functions as a regulating principle for all true contemplation, worship, and discourse concerning the one true and living God.
The doctrine of creation establishes our understanding of both the utter uniqueness of God and the limited likeness that creatures have to God. God is utterly unique because he alone is uncreated creator of all. But creatures bear a certain likeness to God because the effect always bears some resemblance to the cause, even though in this case, the cause infinitely exceeds the splendor of the effect. These principles will be teased out a bit more in the axioms to follow.
For now, consider how foundational the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is for right thinking about God in the rest of Scripture. Hezekiah did not fear the Assyrians, nor was he moved by their boast about destroying the gods of the other nations. He knew that the God of Israel is not like the other gods because he alone made heaven and earth. Hezekiah prayed, “O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth” (2 Kgs. 19:15). Furthermore, evangelism is motivated by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Why should the adherents of one faith tradition (Christianity) tell the adherents of another faith that they should become Christians? The Psalmist answers: The LORD “is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens” (Ps. 96:4–5). Finally, John describes a vision of an innumerable host of worshippers in heaven, both human and angel, declaring the supreme excellency and worth of the true and living God. Hear their refrain: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11).
To miss this first axiom, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, is to miss the runway altogether. It is to undermine the very reason God is worthy of worship and worthy of knowing in the first place. Believe, therefore, and never forget, the one true and living God is the Creator of all things out of nothing. Praise to the maker of heaven and earth!
Axiom 2: The one true and living God is the supreme essence, infinite in all perfection.
At the end of the Genesis account of creation, God declared all he had made to be “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Corruption of sin notwithstanding, our observation of the world around us confirms the goodness of created things. Both Scripture and our observation further confirm that some things are more good and some less good. The fact that different things can be described as good in varying degrees indicates that there is some ultimate standard of all goodness by which the relative goodness of different things is measured and by which different things are, in fact, good to one degree or another. The standard is not some good thing but goodness itself—supreme goodness. A good man is good because he participates in absolute goodness, and so with a good angel, a good dog, etc. The supreme goodness, which alone is true and perfect goodness itself, is God (see Mark 10:18). God is the goodness by which other things are good, but there is nothing by which God is made good. He is the source and ultimate ground of all goodness, and so he is supreme goodness.[2]
2. Thomas Aquinas makes this argument in the Summa Theologiae, I., Q.2, A.3 in his discussion of the five ways of knowing that God exists from the natural order. But nothing about Thomas’s treatment of this point is unique to him or his system. This way of arguing was standard in his own day and continued to be so among those who came after, even among the vast majority of Protestant theologians.
This same rationale applies to all creaturely perfections. Power, wisdom, understanding, and love are all perfections found in creatures in limited ways, but God is the power by which all things are powerful, the wisdom by which all things are wise, the understanding by which all things have understanding, and the love by which all things are loving. God is, therefore, supreme power, wisdom, understanding, and love. The perfections of creatures are bounded, but the perfection of God is boundless.
Scripture is replete with testimony to this end. When God reveals himself to Abraham, he refers to himself as “God Almighty” (Gen. 17:1) because his power is supreme, infinite. For creatures great and small, many things are too difficult. But for God, “Nothing is too difficult” (Jer. 32:17, NASB). While creatures are compelled to be wise, and are in fact wise, we also always lack wisdom at the same time and have the potential to be fools. But God’s wisdom is infinite, his understanding unsearchable (see Isa. 40:28, cf. Prov. 3:19). Creatures are loving, but we also fail to love, and even in our best moments, we love incompletely. Not so with God. His love is infinitely greater than any creaturely love and even greater than a creature’s ability to comprehend. We love because of his love. God is love, absolutely and supremely (1 John 4:7–8).
This pattern of recognizing the limited perfection of creatures and affirming that such perfection is true of God in an infinitely blessed way is called the way of eminence (via eminentiae) by some of the best theologians of the Christian tradition.[3] Eminence refers to that which is foremost or supreme, such as a king or emperor being dubbed “his eminence.” The so-called “omni” attributes of God, such as omnipotence (God is all powerful) and omniscience (God is all knowing) represent common ways that Christians have spoken of God by way of eminence. Indeed, all of the perfections of creatures that are eminently boundless in God can be predicated of God with the qualifier “omni.” By way of eminence, we confess that God is the supreme essence. As Anselm of Canterbury so famously said, God is that being than which none greater can be conceived.[4] Hallelujah to the eminently supreme God!
3. For a fuller definition of this term, especially as it is used by Reformed theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, 2nd ed., s.v. “via eminentiae” (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017).
4. Anselm, Proslogion, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 87.
Axiom 3: The one true and living God has no creaturely imperfection.
Not only do creatures have certain perfections that are eminently boundless in God, but creatures are also characterized by imperfections. By imperfection I mean the potential for a created thing to be something that it is not in actuality. Consider a concrete example: as an embodied person, my presence in any space means that I am not present in some other space. I have the potential to be present in a different space than the one I am actually in presently. Being an embodied creature, I will always have this imperfection: the potential to be in some space where I am not. Now, to apply the principle more broadly, whenever something potential becomes actual, change has occurred. Anywhere there is potential that is not actual, change is possible. So, another way to speak of creaturely imperfection is to say that creatures can and do change. All creatures, because they are finite, have many imperfections—potential that is not actualized.
This is not true with God. Just as we affirm that all creaturely perfections are supremely eminent in God as the source and ground of all perfection (via eminentiae), so we deny that any imperfection is true of God. We do this in our speech by way of negating any and all imperfections when we speak about God. This is the via negativa, or the way of negation.[5] For example, my physical embodiment means I am only locally present in one place at a time. But God does not have a body, so I say he is immaterial (meaning non-physical) or pure spirit (a term that simply means he is immaterial). God also is not spatially limited because, as pure spirit, the category of space simply does not apply. Therefore, I say that God is immense, a word that means sizeless or spaceless. God’s immensity means he is wholly present to all space without being contained in any space. Furthermore, because there is no potential in God to be anything other than what he is eternally, it follows that God does not change; indeed, he cannot change. Thus, Christians confess that God is immutable, a word that means unchangeable.
5. See Muller, Dictionary, s.v. “via negativa.”
Scripture is clear in its affirmation of God’s freedom from the imperfections of embodiment (his immateriality), spatial constraint (his immensity), and change (his immutability). Jesus tells the woman at the well that God is spirit, and true worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Furthermore, the apostle Paul erupts in praise for God “whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16), a clear testimony to God’s immateriality. Consider the prayer of King Solomon when he dedicates the newly constructed temple in Jerusalem to the LORD. He prays, “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built” (1 Kgs. 8:27). Here, Solomon extols the immensity of God who cannot be locally measured or constrained because size is a category that cannot meaningfully apply to God. Through the prophet Malachi, the LORD says, “I, the LORD, do not change” (Mal. 3:6). The psalmist, to increase the saints’ confidence in God who alone can heal their affliction, speaks in terms of the changing nature of creation in comparison with the unchanging God: “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end” (Ps. 102:25–27).
There are many other imperfections that Scripture and believers throughout history have rightly negated of God. When we negate the imperfection of temporality, we confess that God is eternal. When we negate the imperfection of being composed of different parts, we confess that God is simple. When we negate the possibility that God could die, we confess that God is immortal. The list could go on, but each of the perfections in this list is known to us by way of negation. Christians delight to speak about God the way Scripture does, and Scripture frequently leads us down the via negativa by which we negate all imperfection of God, lifting up our hearts in worship by contemplating the ways that God is not like us in our limitations. Worthy is the limitless God!
Axiom 4: The one true and living God is truly knowable but not exhaustively knowable.
When Christians speak about God as infinite in all perfection, and negate all imperfection, they are ultimately affirming that they cannot fully comprehend the nature and character of the one true and living God. What does it mean to be infinite in love, wisdom, knowledge, and power? What does it mean to be immutable, immaterial, immense? Just what is it like to be the one true God, to live the divine life? The honest answer is that I have no idea, nor can I! “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?” the LORD asks through Isaiah. He answers his own question: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isa. 46:5, 9).
The fact that God is infinite in all perfection and lacking in all imperfection (which is another way of saying he lacks nothing) means that he cannot fully be understood as he is in himself. Creatures cannot know God the way that God knows himself because that which is finite does not have the capacity for the infinite. In other words, God is incomprehensible.
When Christians say that God is incomprehensible, they are not saying that God is not knowable. This would directly contradict Scripture. Knowing God is synonymous with being saved and having eternal life in Scripture (see John 17:3). And pressing on to know him is the great goal and end of the Christian life. “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD,” says Hosea (Hos. 6:3). God is truly knowable according to his revelation of himself.
Nevertheless, a creature’s knowledge of God is at the level of the creature, not at the level of the infinite God. Only God can know himself perfectly because only God has infinite understanding. Thus, God is incomprehensible. This is from the Latin word comprendere, which means to take entirely in hand, as though to contain something in one’s grasp. Containing the fullness of the knowledge of God in the finite understanding of a creature is impossible. God cannot be comprehended. But God can be apprehended. That is, we can know what is revealed according to our creaturely capacity.
Whenever we find ourselves standing at the precipice of God’s incomprehensibility, contemplating his glory and failing fully to understand what it all means, the temptation is to get frustrated and feel like our efforts at knowing God are in vain. Worse still, we can be tempted to give up our belief in those truths about God that are beyond our grasp. Giving in to the first temptation results in rebellion because God tells us to seek to know him and to boast only in our knowledge of him (see Jer. 9:23–24). Giving in to the second temptation results in idolatry because a god who can be fully comprehended by a finite creature is a finite god. And such a god is no God at all! Rather than give up our pursuit of knowing God or abandon the infinite glory of God in our belief about him, let us rather press on to know him all the more diligently and, with great joy, take our sandals off our feet when we find we cannot understand him fully. With the apostle Paul, may we burst into praise at the wonder of God’s incomprehensibility: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Rom. 11:33)! Ascribe glory to him who dwells in light inaccessible!
Axiom 5: The one true and living God reveals himself in true but limited human speech.
Just as God is incomprehensible with respect to our knowledge of him, so is he undefinable with respect to our speech about him. All true human speech about God, even God’s own true speech about himself in the human words of Scripture, is analogical speech. The word analogy refers to a comparison between two things in which there is both similarity and dissimilarity. When we say that all speech about God is analogical, we are saying that true words and statements about God communicate some understanding of God to our minds. Nevertheless, our understanding of the truth spoken does not correspond exactly to that truth in God. Allow me to illustrate. When I say that God is wise, I have a correct and valid notion of what wisdom is. My understanding of wisdom and the actual wisdom of God bear a sufficient correspondence that it is true and meaningful for me to say that God is wise. However, because I know that God is infinite and incomprehensible, I know that my understanding of God’s wisdom falls short of the reality of God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom is like my understanding of wisdom but also not like my understanding of wisdom.[6]
6. For a more complete discussion of analogical language, see my earlier COA article, “God the Father: Namesake of All Fatherhood,” Christ Over All, June 25, 2025.
Those who fail to remember this axiom may wind up in a position of idolatry. If I think that my speech about God fully signifies the truth about God without remainder then I have, perhaps unwittingly, denied the incomprehensibility of God and thereby conceived of God as finite. This would be a kind of functional idolatry. On the other hand, if I think that my speech about God does not bear any resemblance to the truth, then I undermine the truthfulness of divine revelation and the hope of knowing God at all. The axiom that our speech about God is both true and limited (analogical) safeguards God’s glorious infinity and the truth of his revelation. Rejoice that the revealed things belong to us and our children forever!
Axiom 6: The one true and living God reveals himself by many attributes, but those attributes do not name many things in God.
All created, finite things are composed of parts. This is obvious in the case of material things. But even in the case of an immaterial creature, such as an angel, there is composition. An angel once did not exist and then began to exist when it was created. The potential for the angel to exist was already present to the mind of God as the essence of that angel. Thus, the angel is a composition of essence (potential) and existence (actuality). Whether we are talking about material parts or immaterial parts, the parts must be unified in order for the whole (a substance) to exist. Thus, anything composed of parts must be caused. However, if God is not caused by anyone or anything, it follows that he must not be composed of parts at all, material or immaterial. In other words, God is absolutely simple.
There is not a direct Bible verse that tells us, “God is absolutely simple.” Nevertheless, the simplicity of God necessarily follows from our first axiom, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. You see, if God is composed of parts, then it follows that the parts are not God since God is the whole. So, parts of God cannot be God. Furthermore, if God is composed of parts, it follows that he cannot have made the parts since the opposite would be true. God’s existence would be dependent upon the parts. The result of this hypothetical framework is that the parts of God are not God, and they are not made by God. This amounts to a denial of creation ex nihilo because that doctrine teaches that everything that is not God is made by God. According to the clear biblical teaching of creation ex nihilo, there can be no such thing as something not made by God that is not God, but this is exactly what the parts of God would have to be.
Reformed theologian Francis Turretin (1623–1687) rightly defines a divine attribute as an “essential property” by which God makes himself known to us and which is “attributed to him according to the measure of our conception in order to explain his nature.”[7] Turretin, like almost all Christian theologians who write or speak about the doctrine of God, went on to identify many attributes by which God reveals himself to mankind. Because God reveals himself in so many attributes, it would be easy for us to think of God as being composed of the various attributes, as though his nature is the sum total of the attributes. On this way of thinking, each divine attribute would name some really different thing in God’s nature, which would mean that God is composed of parts. This is obviously false, for reasons already explained.
7. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., Vol. 1: First Through Tenth Topics (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992), 187.
How then, should we think of the many attributes of God? Remember that all language about God is analogical. So, the things we say about God do not match up with the full reality in God without remainder. One of the ways this gets worked out is with the doctrine of the divine attributes. My intellect is dependent upon categorizing and dividing ideas and truth claims, in part because all that is available to my senses is, in fact, divisible into parts. I cannot even comprehend what it is to be absolutely simple. Therefore, in order to make himself known truly, though in limited ways, God reveals himself to us according to a variety of attributes. Thinking and speaking of God in terms of his power, knowledge, wisdom, holiness, love, and beauty is far richer and more meaningful for me than just saying, “God is God.” I can contemplate what love means and, by way of eminence, worship God as infinite love. I can contemplate power and the other attributes in the same way. But we do well to remember God reveals himself in various attributes “according to the measure of our conception.” This is an accommodation to our creaturely finitude. Therefore, lest I think of God as composed of parts and thereby deny his absolute independence and the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, I do well to recognize that each of the attributes ascribed to the divine essence names identically the same thing, God himself. Marvel at his indivisible simplicity!
Axiom 7: The one true and living God reveals himself by attributes that name him absolutely and relatively.
The Bible tells us many things about God that can be described in terms of attributes. This next axiom compels us to recognize that all the attributes are not ascribed to God in the same way. Some of the attributes revealed in Scripture are what might be called absolute attributes. An absolute attribute is something attributed to God that would be true of him whether he had ever created the world or not. Such attributes name the divine essence. All of the negative attributes, like immutability, immateriality, and immensity are absolute, as are many other attributes, such as holiness, power, and wisdom. God would be immutable, immaterial, immense, simple, holy, almighty, and all-wise whether the world ever began to exist or not. Since God is the creator of the world and in no way dependent on the world, it follows that Scripture teaches us to attribute properties to him, which are not dependent on the world to be true.
Another kind of attribute is a relative attribute. A relative attribute is something Scripture attributes to God that does not name the divine essence directly like an absolute attribute does. Rather, a relative attribute names the relation between God and creatures. Relative attributes only make sense because something exists that is not God, namely the world. An example of a relative attribute is wrath. If wrath is an absolute attribute, then God’s essence is anger, and this is something immutably true of him eternally. This would raise the question, apart from sinners in the world, with whom could God be angry? Eventually, this line of reasoning leads to the absurd conclusion that God is angry with himself, and he just is his own anger. By recognizing wrath as a relative attribute, however, I’m able to guard myself against such absurd thoughts. Rather, I recognize that God is, in himself, holy, which means that he is devoted to himself and his own glory. Therefore, in relation to the world, God will always do what is right. We call this justice. Furthermore, in relation to rebellious sinners, he will always be the judge and first cause of the suffering that befalls the wicked on account of their sin. We call this the wrath of God. In addition to justice and wrath, other relative attributes include mercy and grace.
It would be a mistake to think that the relative attributes are less true. Rather, they predicate truth about God in a different way. Absolute attributes name God in himself, and as such, they name identically the same thing, the whole divine essence. Relative attributes don’t name the divine essence, but a relation between the creature and God. One might wonder whether God can change in his relative attributes. The answer is no. God cannot change at all. Of course, it is true that I can be lost and without hope in the world before becoming a Christian, at which time I become an adopted son of God. My relationship to God changes profoundly. But this does not indicate a change in God. Rather, it indicates a change in me, which results in a change in the relationship between me and God. But both me and the relationship between God and me are created realities. All the change is in creation. God remains the same.
Keeping the distinction between absolute and relative divine attributes is vital to maintaining the distinction between the Creator and the creature, which the doctrine of creation ex nihilo demands and which preserves all true worship of the true God. Fear and trust in him to whom you relate as creature to the creator, as rebel to the judge, as a saint to the savior!
Axiom 8: The one true and living God reveals himself by attributes that are incommunicable and communicable.
In addition to the distinction between absolute and relative attributes, there is another distinction in the types of attributes that Christians should keep in mind when pursuing a right understanding of the doctrine of God. Some of the attributes of God revealed in Scripture are incommunicable. An incommunicable attribute is something that is true about God that is not true about creatures at all, even analogically, like omniscience, omnipotence, or omnipresence. Acknowledging that incommunicable attributes are true of God is a way of representing the clear and abundant Scriptural teaching that God is not like creatures in profoundly important ways. “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,” says the LORD (Isa. 46:9). Ultimately, this distinction is grounded in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. God is not like creatures precisely because he is not a creature, but the creator of heaven and earth (Gen. 1:1)! All incommunicable attributes are negative in their form because, by way of negation (via negativa), we negate creaturely imperfection in God.
On the other hand, some attributes are communicable. A communicable attribute is something that is true about God and is also true about creatures, especially mankind, analogically. The word analogically is very important here (see Axiom 6). The communicable attributes are not true of God and creatures in the same way. They are true of God according to his infinitely glorious and simple nature but true of creatures according to our finite and composite natures. God is holy, and creatures can be holy. But God’s holiness is described in Scripture as “holy, holy, holy,” a truth so profoundly glorious that the prophet cannot bear it against the guilt of his sin. “Woe is me, for I am lost,” cries Isaiah in response (Isa. 6:5). Not even the sinless angels can bear to look upon the thrice holy God, as they cover their faces with their wings while they declare his holiness (Isa. 6:2–3). Nevertheless, in spite of how it pales in comparison to the incomprehensible holiness of God, Christians are called to be holy because the LORD is holy (1 Pet. 1:15–16, cf. Lev. 11:44). The way of eminence (via eminentiae) is one of the key methods Christians deploy to maintain both the similarity and the profound dissimilarity between the same attribute as it is ascribed to God and as it is ascribed to a creature. Where incommunicable attributes are grounded in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo by emphasizing the difference between God and creatures, communicable attributes are also grounded in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo by emphasizing that the effect of God’s creating power—creation—bears some resemblance to its cause—God the Creator. Take pleasure in the ways that you are like God, even as you remember how you are not like him!
Axiom 9: The one true and living God is the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These axioms have focused on the doctrine of God’s existence and attributes. That is, they have focused on the unity of the one God. Nevertheless, Christians believe, on the authority of God’s revelation, that the one true and living God exists eternally in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is necessary for us to think about God’s oneness (his one essence) in distinction from his threeness (the three persons in eternal relation). Nevertheless, it is important that we never lose sight of the fact that the one God is the triune God, and the triune God is the one God. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus addressed the challenge of speaking about God’s unity and his threeness distinctly: “No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one.”[8]
8. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 40.41.
It is well beyond the scope of this essay to give even an introductory account of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, though I have done so elsewhere.[9] For the purposes of this article, it is enough to say that Scripture names all three persons of the Trinity as the one true God (e.g., John 5:18; 10:29; Phil. 2:6; John 1:1–2; Acts 5:3–4; 1 Cor. 3:16) and distinguishes them by their relations to one another (e.g., John 5:27; 14:26; 15:26; Matt. 3:16–17; Isa. 48:16). There is only one true and living God. The Father is the one true God, the Son is the one true God, and the Holy Spirit is the one true God. The Father is not the Son but the Father of the Son. The Son is not the Father but the Son of the Father. The Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son but the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Scripture teaches these things, and thus Scripture teaches the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. According to our Lord Jesus Christ, the name of the one God into which all Christians are baptized is “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
9. See Kyle Claunch, “Why Are We Trinitarian, and Why Does It Matter?” Southern Seminary Magazine (Fall 2024), 31–35.
This axiom is vital to the Christian doctrine of God because it gets to the heart of what is truly distinct about the Christian doctrine of God. Non-Christian Jews and Muslims both affirm that there is only one true God, and they would affirm many of the basic truths of the first eight axioms. But when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity is unique. Christianity claims, with the unambiguous testimony of holy Scripture, that the one God is three persons in eternal relation. Therefore, to worship a so-called god who is not three persons is to worship a different god than the one revealed in Scripture; it is to worship an idol rather than the true God. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen![10]
10. This is the text of one of the most ancient and widely used hymns of the Christian faith, called “The Gloria Patri” from the Latin words of the first line, “Glory be to the Father.” It has its roots as early as the second century.
Axiom 10: The one true and living God is the God who saves.
This essay has given axioms intended to keep Christians on a safe and faithful path in their pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the one true God. The knowledge of God is indeed the highest end and goal of the life of any rational creature, angel or human. But human beings are not morally neutral rational agents who simply need to have the right axioms in place to think rightly about God. Rather, human beings are rebels against the will of the one true God. In Adam, all are accounted as guilty and have inherited the corruption of evil desires and hell-bent minds (see Rom. 5:17–20 and Eph. 2:1–3). In our own willful acting, we live out the desires of the flesh and of the mind, breaking the law of God at every turn and worshiping idols. We are alienated from the one true and living God by our sin, and no amount of careful thinking can restore us to him. On the contrary, sinful human beings needed the one true and living God himself to rescue us from the prison of our own sin and guilt, a prison we could not escape by our own power. Praise be to God! He did just what we needed him to do. The one true and living God, the triune God, did for us what we could not do for ourselves. The apostle Paul says to the Galatians,
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal. 4:4–7)
It is only because of this mercy of God that any human being can have the hope of knowing God. And because God the Father has sent God the Son for redemption and God the Holy Spirit to apply that redemption and give us new life, we are not left in the prison of our sin and our idolatry. When we did not know God, Paul says, we were enslaved in our very natures to that which is not god (Gal. 4:8). In other words, we were all idolaters. But if, by God’s grace, we have been saved, then we are set free from that idolatry to live in the freedom and joy of knowing the one true and living God (Gal. 4:9). And to know him is eternal life (John 17:3). Worship the God who saves!
Conclusion
As we behold God in all of his fullness, the only proper response is worship and awe. The one true and living God is the creator of everything that exists that is not God. The invisible realm of angels and the visible world of material reality came into being by the almighty power of God through his Word and by his Spirit. This God is eminently supreme in all perfection, an immeasurable ocean of power, wisdom, understanding, love, and beauty. He is absolutely free from the limitation of any imperfection: immaterial, immense, immutable, eternal, simple. In free and gracious condescension, he reveals himself to rational creatures while transcending the understanding of creatures, as the infinite necessarily transcends the finite. He teaches us in his word to ascribe many glorious truths to him, attributes that describe God in a variety of ways to accommodate our weakness. And yet, the various attributes which name God do not name a real variety in God but the whole, indivisible divine essence. All that is in God is God.
The one true and living God teaches us to describe him as he is in himself (absolute attributes) and also according to the relation that creatures have to him (relative attributes). He teaches us to describe him in all the ways that he is not like us (incommunicable attributes) and in those ways in which he is similar to us analogically (communicable attributes). What a wonder that the creator of heaven and earth, who is altogether different from us as the creator is different from the creature, is also similar to us as the effect (creation) is present in the cause (creator) in some way. This one true and living God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons in one indivisible essence, equal in power and glory. And dear Christian reader, this one true and living, triune God of infinite and incomprehensible glory has drawn near to you as your redeemer. You were a rebel, but God saved you. You were lost under the weight of his just condemnation, condemned to everlasting hell, but he rescued you by giving the Son and the Holy Spirit for your salvation. Take your sandals off your feet, the place you are standing is holy ground, as it were. And lift your hands and your voice in praise. Worship the one true and living God!
As Christians, we are compelled to press on to know the LORD (Hos. 6:3). From the starting point of a simple faith that rests in the truth of what God says concerning himself, it ought to be our burning desire to soar to ever ascending heights as our faith seeks understanding in the knowledge of the one true and living God. But attempting to soar in this way is dangerous if we get off track before ever leaving the ground. Let these ten axioms, therefore, be as guiding lights to you as your faith seeks understanding and you press on to know the one true and living God.
