Who God is

I love reading theology, especially systematic theology. I know I'm sick, but I just can't help myself. One of the more fascinating part of theology deals with the naming of God. I enjoy trying to comprehend the various attributes of God and how they interact with one another. One problem that plagues much of modern theology is the overemphasis of one of God's attributes over all the others. Typically, modern, especially liberal, theologians focus solely on the love of God. It is true that God is love, but He is not love exclusively. If He were, then His other attributes would suffer injury. Think about it this way. If God is so "loving" that He lets everyone into Heaven (universalism), then what is that love actually? Love becomes indifference. It is the justice of God that makes His mercy and love so real and beautiful. In God's justice, we see what we deserve. Consequently, God's love is much greater and more wonderful in the light of His justice. I bring this up because I have been reading Thomas Oden's Systematic Theology. His comments on this material seem especially fitting.

"Classic Christian teachers warned against emphasizing one attribute [of God] at the expense of another. Just as a good person will manifest good but varied behavior in situations where different responses are called for (and in doing so does not become 'different persons'), so God is an infinitely good One with varied qualities that are unified in the divine character . . . In God, to be is to be incomparably strong. To be God is to be unfailingly merciful. God's way of being is loving. God is all wisdom, all spirit, all light, all intelligence, and wholly just. God is merciful, just, and holy. God is the Way, Truth, and Life, without ceasing to be simply God . . . God is not at one moment unmercifully strong and at another moment unwisely omnipotent. God is always mercifully strong and wisely omnipotent, and omnipotently wise and strongly merciful. Nor is God at one time just, at another time loving, and at another time all-knowing. God's whole being, inclusive of all attributes, is present in each of the discrete attributes that faith recognizes and celebrates. God is fully and simultaneously all these attributes and more than any language could attribute. This notion is interwoven with faith's affirmation of God's simplicity. God is not divided up into our petty conceptions of God's attributes. In all attributes, God is, and remains, simply and completely God."