Many people wonder why Christians believe in God. This article is my response to that question.
CHRISTIANITY
Christians believe that the triune Christian God is the only God that exists. This God is one essence in three persons. His nature is spiritual (John 4:24) and without physical elements. The only time God is said to have parts of a body, the author uses the personification tool. God has no parts. He is transcendent, meaning He may move between the spiritual and physical worlds (Jer. 23:24). ‘He’ is the pronoun used for God because that’s what God says in the Bible.
The great presupposition of Christianity is that there is one God. Christians believe that God is a personal being and that humans can and are required to communicate with Him. They also believe that He is knowable but incomprehensible.
The Bible is considered God’s revelation to man, and it is infallible and inerrant in its original manuscript. Because of this, Christians believe that everything written in the Bible is true. The Christian thinks everything the LORD wants us to know is revealed in the Bible.
The Christian accepts the truth of God’s existence by faith, not blind faith, but one supported by the Word of God (James 1:5, 6) and, secondarily, by the evidence in the natural world [Rom. 1:20].[i]
Christians believe that there is only one God who is self-existent (John 5:26), eternal (Deut. 33:27; Ps. 48:14; 2 Pet. 1:11), immortal (1 Tim. 6:16), indivisible (1 Tim. 1:17), autonomous (Rom. 8:1; Eph. 2:10), spiritual (2 Cor. 3:17), transcendent (Jer. 23:24), the Almighty (Rev.1:8), incomprehensible (Rom. 11:33), loving (2 Cor. 13:14), immense, holy (1 Pet. 1:16), wise, glorious (John 1:14; 2 Cor. 4:6; Heb. 1:3), the creator (Gen. 1:1; John 1:3; Col. 1:16), the first cause, of one essence in three persons (Matt. 28:19), etc.
As Louis Berkhof has written, “a genetic-synthetic definition cannot be given of God, since God is not one of several species of gods, which can be subsumed under a single genus.”[ii]
The Bible describes God by His attributes, but does not explain Him. However, it always describes God as the Living God with personal relationships with his creatures. Berkhof also wrote concerning God, “only an analytical-descriptive definition is possible.”[iii] God is described as a personal God. His attributes, which appear in the Bible, define him. Unlike man, God is not made up of different parts. He is all one—a perfect being. God is His attributes. He has revealed himself to us through the Bible.
God’s attributes are incommunicable and communicable. Some are considered exclusive to Him, such as self-existence and immutability, which are incommunicable, and some are not, such as goodness and mercy, which are communicable. And Christians study man as the creature created by God, not vice versa.
Two kinds of attributes define God: communicable and incommunicable.
God is not defined by his attributes; instead, His being is revealed to us by his attributes. His attributes “may be defined as the perfections which are predicated of the Divine Being in Scripture, or are visibly exercised by Him in His works of creation, providence, and redemption.”[iv]
His communicable attributes are personal and may be possessed by human beings as a copy of the original to a finite extent. Note that the human version is a copy, not the original, and finite, not infinite. Remember that the original is a tri-personality, whereas humans may only have a single personality. Human beings have the communicable attributes of God only to an imperfect extent.
Some examples of communicable assets are love, justice, grace, mercy, goodness,
God’s incommunicable attributes are those that concern His being. They are attributes that only He has, and He has them perfectly. These incommunicable attributes define God.
Some examples of incommunicable attributesare eternity, tri-personality, immutability, self-existence, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, sovereignty, and unity.
NON-CHRISTIAN THINKING
The Deists, who included many of the founders of the United States of America, believed in a transcendent and immanent God; however, His transcendence reduced His immanence. On the other hand, Friedrich Schleiermacher, the late 18th and early 19th-century theologian, preacher, and philologist, held that God was continuous with the world. He argued that God had no personality, though in his later years, he did recognize that people could have communion with God.
Toward the end of the 19th century, theologians commonly viewed God as finite and not absolute, in harmony with human experience. In comparison, it was common for the theists of the time, those who believed there was a God, to regard God as an absolute personal being of infinite perfection. The idea that God should be finite and unable to communicate with His subjects personally was unthinkable.
Today, many modern liberal theologians regard God as a human concept personified by the name ‘God.’ Humankind has created god in its image. There are many human-made gods. None, however, is the one true God.
However, many gods are worshiped by people who may or may not call themselves Christians. These gods usually represent idols. An idol is an appearance, a concept, an object, a symbol, or a likeness that is worshiped as a god. Humans fashion many gods for themselves, but the Bible forbids this (Ex. 20:3, 4). Humans worship gods (or idols) such as self, money, power, celebrity, recognition, possessions, sexual prowess, fame, appearance, security, hobbies, approval, relationships, politics, sports, self, success, wealth, food, intellect, health, comfort, entertainment, and many more.
This is why Jesus told us, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:14). The Bible tells us that there is one God and one Savior, and we are to believe in God and the Savior as they are described in the Bible (Luke 2:11; Acts 13:3; 1 Tim. 2:3-5).
WHY CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THERE IS ONE GOD
Christians believe in one God. They also believe that all humans, except Jesus Christ in his human form (1 John 3:5), are of a depraved nature, being that he or she will sin and are guilty of original sin (1 Kgs. 8:46; Eccl. 8:20). They cannot relieve themselves of the punishment for sin of their own devices (Matt. 19:25, 26; Eph. 2:8). There must be one God that provides for that.
God has provided that the second person of the Trinity go live in the human nature to be the Surety for the Elect, and God has created a plan to save those chosen by God, the Elect.
Christians believe in God because only God can give humans what is necessary for their forgiveness of sins, which all humans, except Jesus, will commit (Eph. 2:8, 9). They think that they are “saved” by God. Because God’s plan of salvation extends from the very beginning to the end, we can say that we are genuinely saved. We were saved, are saved, and will be saved. Therefore, we can confidently say that we have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved.
The Elect, those whom God, the Father, chose in the beginning before time began, would be given to the second person of the Trinity as Surety (John 1:14; Rom. 8:28-30), to save them from their sins as the Messiah according to God’s plan of salvation. God developed this plan in the Beginning and concludes it at the end of time when Jesus returns. The plan of salvation includes things such as the elect, predestination, regeneration, conversion, repentance, belief in Christ, sanctification, the virgin birth, the death of Christ on the cross, Christ’s Resurrection, His Ascension to heaven, the General Resurrection, the condemnation of the wicked, the salvation of the elect, and the Glorification—basically, the gospel message of the Bible.
However, there are worldly reasons that Christians rely upon for their belief in God, too. D. James Kennedy wrote that Christians look at the size and mass of the Earth as perfect for human habitation. They look at the tilt of the Earth, which allows for seasons, the only body in space with that tilt. The moon is unique in that it causes the tides on Earth, and without it, there could be no human habitation of the Earth. The atmosphere of the Earth prevents humans from being crushed to death by cosmic debris. Lightning in Earth’s atmosphere strikes the Earth many times daily, creating all the nitrogen plants need to live. The ozone layer protects us from killer rays from outer space. And God does many more things to provide a place for humans to live safely.[v]
In short, the revealed Word of God, the heavens, and the earth provide all the reasons Christians need to believe that there is one true, triune God.
GOD
Chapters 2-3 of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms explains what Christians should believe about God.[vi] We need not explain anything about God, but we will.
Christians worship one triune God (Matt. 28:13; Col. 2:9). There is no other God (Ex. 20:3). God in three persons means that God is one essence shared by the three persons (suggested by Gen. 1:26; Is. 6:8), each of whom has 100% of God’s essence. Each person does not have 1/3 of the essence, but each has 100% of God’s essence. Their knowledge of everything is identical. We must understand this is so, even though we cannot comprehend it. All other gods worshiped by individuals and religions are false. The revealed Word of God, found in the original manuscript of the Bible, makes this clear. The Hebrew word, Elohim, is found in the Bible’s Old Testament. It is plural, meaning God is of one essence but three persons.
The Doctrine of God typically serves as the beginning of all works of Systematic Theology. It assumes “that theology is the systematized knowledge of God, of whom, through whom, and unto whom are all things.”[vii]
The theologian Louis Berkhof has written the following:
For us the existence of God is the great presupposition of theology. There is no sense in speaking of the knowledge of God, unless it may be assumed that God exists. The presupposition of Christian theology is of a very definite type. The assumption is not merely that there is something, some idea or ideal, some power or purposeful tendency, to which the name of God may be applied, but that there is a self-existence, self-conscious, personal Being, which is the origin of all things, and which transcends the entire creation, but is at the same time immanent in every part of it. The question may be raised, whether this is a reasonable assumption, and this question may be answered in the affirmative. This does not mean, however, that the existence of God is capable of a logical demonstration that leaves no room whatever for doubt; but it doesn’t mean that, while the truth of God’s existence is accepted by faith, this faith is based on reliable information.[viii]
God exists. He was not created. He has always existed and is entirely and perfectly autonomous. He created everything and has also revealed Himself through His written word. There is only one triune God, the God of Christianity (Exodus 20:3). Every other god is false and human-created (Ps. 97:9).
[i] Berkhof, Louis, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2021), p. 5.
[iv] Berkhof, p. 39.
[v] D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe (Word Publishing, 1980), pp. 41-43.
[vi] The Orthodox Presbyterian church, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Presbyterian Church in America, 2005, 2007). Chpts. 2, 3.
[viii] Berkhof, p. 5.
