So what is it that makes God who He is? Usually we go directly to the "big 4 O's": God is omniscient, omnisapient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Omniscience refers to God's knowledge of everything. He knows the past, the present and the future. But the scope is more than that. God knows eternity past. God knows eternity future. Being omniscient, God knows the thoughts of everyone on planet earth. He knows everything of every sentient being; human or spirit; man or angel or demon. God knows which star will go supernova at what exact moment as well as which sperm will impregnate which egg to create the next person carrying His image. God knows ALL. Nothing escapes His knowing. There is nothing that surprises Him.
God's omnisapience is an attribute that we rarely hear of or learn. Omnisapience refers to God's wisdom of all things. Wisdom is knowledge plus the full understanding of that thing or idea and how it relates with and to other things and ideas. Knowledge is good, but wisdom provides the structure in which to use that knowledge.
God's omnipotence refers to His being able to do anything anywhere anytime. As He created all in 6 days by the shear power of His Word, as noted in Genesis chapter 1, (He could have done it in ONE), God also has the power to completely destroy it and start fresh as He said He will do in Revelation 21. God has the power to take the dead, even the cremated, reconstitute that body, reunite it with its soul & spirit then clothe it with an eternal, everlasting body that will either enjoy God's presence for eternity in Heaven or suffer eternal damnation in never-quenching fire, completely alone, and in complete torment in the Hell that was originally created for Lucifer (Satan ) and his followers.
The omnipresence of God means that He is everywhere, all of the time. Omnipresence does not mean, as the pagans would believe, that He is "in" everything (ancient beliefs of tree-god, sea-god, river-god, etc). His omnipresence, following some logic, makes sense in light of the other 2 Omnis. All 4 attributes work with and within each other. In order to be omniscient, God would have to be omnipresent and to be omnipresent He would need to be omnipotent. But since God is "god-sized," there's more.
Those attributes are "incommunicable." In other words, God does not (and chooses not) to commute or communicate them to anyone or anything else. Another attribute of God is His aseity or complete self sufficiency. God is also Sovereign, ruling over all, and all of creation is subject to Him; which makes perfect sense based on the 3 Omnis. Other incommunicable attributes would be God's Holiness, His eternality (God always was and always will be), His essentiality (God is essential to existence, nothing can exist without Him). Not even the most powerful angels have these attributes. Why? Because they are created beings, just like man.
Because He is "immutable," we can always rely on God. It's good knowing that God cannot change. He is not capricious. He is 100% stable. We can't say that about anything else in all creation. The immutability of God is good.
And speaking of good, only God is "good." None of us can ever be "good." Even Jesus affirmed that fact in Mark 10:18. Yet we throw that word around quite flippantly. I even do it with my children and grandchildren as they have been a "good girl" or "good boy" on numerous occasions; but definitely not all of the time!
Then there are the attributes of love, mercy, grace, justice, wrath, forgiveness, righteousness (not the full list). These are attributes that God has chosen to be "communicable." By creating man in God's image, He has breathed into man (or communicated) these attributes. We understand love, grace, mercy, justice. They are in our genes if you will. We know how to be wrathful or forgiving. We want righteousness. Considering that man is God's highest creation (read Psalm 8), God has purposefully chosen to bestow on us these attributes. The only problem is that we don't know how to fully use them. As mortal and fallible creatures, we may know love, grace, mercy, justice, wrath, forgiveness, and righteousness, but we don't "do" them in accordance with the perfection and holiness of God.
In an earlier post, I reflected on how we humans do have purpose in our lives when we understand that we are created in the image of God. We have purpose partially because of these attributes. Ask the atheist or the evolutionist where we got these attributes. They didn't come from some primordial ooze. What does ANY animal know about honor, mercy & justice to name a few? Animals act out of instinct; God given maybe, but instinct none the less. Those attributes were placed there by a perfect, self-sufficient, all powerful, all loving God.
We have just scratched the surface of beginning to comprehend and apprehend God. For mortal man it will be an eternal process. That's why God is God and we are not.
