The Nature of God

2:6.1In the phys­i­cal uni­verse we may see the di­vine beauty, in the in­tel­lec­tual world we may dis­cern eter­nal truth, but the good­ness of God is found only in the spir­i­tual world of per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. In its true essence, re­li­gion is a faith-trust in the good­ness of God. God could be great and ab­so­lute, some­how even in­tel­li­gent and per­sonal, in phi­los­o­phy, but in re­li­gion God must also be moral; he must be good. Man might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This good­ness of God is a part of the per­son­al­ity of God, and its full rev­e­la­tion ap­pears only in the per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of the be­liev­ing sons of God.

2:6.2Re­li­gion im­plies that the super­world of spirit na­ture is cog­nizant of, and re­spon­sive to, the fun­da­men­tal needs of the hu­man world. Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion may be­come eth­i­cal, but only re­vealed re­li­gion be­comes truly and spir­i­tu­ally moral. The olden con­cept that God is a De­ity dom­i­nated by kingly moral­ity was up­stepped by Je­sus to that af­fec­tion­ately touch­ing level of in­ti­mate fam­ily moral­ity of the par­ent-child re­la­tion­ship, than which there is none more ten­der and beau­ti­ful in mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence.

2:6.3The “rich­ness of the good­ness of God leads erring man to re­pen­tance.” “Ev­ery good gift and ev­ery per­fect gift comes down from the Fa­ther of lights.” “God is good; he is the eter­nal refuge of the souls of men.” “The Lord God is mer­ci­ful and gra­cious. He is long-suf­fer­ing and abun­dant in good­ness and truth.” “Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who trusts him.” “The Lord is gra­cious and full of com­pas­sion. He is the God of sal­va­tion.” “He heals the bro­ken­hearted and binds up the wounds of the soul. He is man’s all-pow­er­ful bene­fac­tor.”

2:6.4The con­cept of God as a king-judge, al­though it fos­tered a high moral stan­dard and cre­ated a law-re­spect­ing peo­ple as a group, left the in­di­vid­ual be­liever in a sad po­si­tion of in­se­cu­rity re­spect­ing his sta­tus in time and in eter­nity. The later He­brew proph­ets pro­claimed God to be a Fa­ther to Is­rael; Je­sus re­vealed God as the Fa­ther of each hu­man be­ing. The en­tire mor­tal con­cept of God is tran­scen­dently il­lu­mi­nated by the life of Je­sus. Self­less­ness is in­her­ent in pa­ren­tal love. God loves not like a fa­ther, but as a fa­ther. He is the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of ev­ery uni­verse per­son­al­ity.

2:6.5Righ­teous­ness im­plies that God is the source of the moral law of the uni­verse. Truth ex­hibits God as a re­vealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves af­fec­tion, seeks un­der­stand­ing fel­low­ship such as ex­ists be­tween par­ent and child. Righ­teous­ness may be the di­vine thought, but love is a fa­ther’s at­ti­tude. The er­ro­neous sup­po­si­tion that the righ­teous­ness of God was ir­rec­on­cil­able with the self­less love of the heav­enly Fa­ther, pre­sup­posed ab­sence of unity in the na­ture of De­ity and led di­rectly to the elab­o­ra­tion of the atone­ment doc­trine, which is a philo­sophic as­sault upon both the unity and the free-will­ness of God.

2:6.6The af­fec­tion­ate heav­enly Fa­ther, whose spirit in­dwells his chil­dren on earth, is not a di­vided per­son­al­ity—one of jus­tice and one of mercy—nei­ther does it re­quire a me­di­a­tor to se­cure the Fa­ther’s fa­vor or for­give­ness. Di­vine righ­teous­ness is not dom­i­nated by strict re­tribu­tive jus­tice; God as a fa­ther tran­scends God as a judge.

2:6.7God is never wrath­ful, venge­ful, or an­gry. It is true that wis­dom does of­ten re­strain his love, while jus­tice con­di­tions his re­jected mercy. His love of righ­teous­ness can­not help be­ing ex­hib­ited as equal ha­tred for sin. The Fa­ther is not an in­con­sis­tent per­son­al­ity; the di­vine unity is per­fect. In the Par­a­dise Trin­ity there is ab­so­lute unity de­spite the eter­nal iden­ti­ties of the co-or­di­nates of God.

2:6.8God loves the sin­ner and hates the sin: such a state­ment is true phil­o­soph­i­cally, but God is a tran­scen­dent per­son­al­ity, and per­sons can only love and hate other per­sons. Sin is not a per­son. God loves the sin­ner be­cause he is a per­son­al­ity re­al­ity (po­ten­tially eter­nal), while to­wards sin God strikes no per­sonal at­ti­tude, for sin is not a spir­i­tual re­al­ity; it is not per­sonal; there­fore does only the jus­tice of God take cog­nizance of its ex­is­tence. The love of God saves the sin­ner; the law of God de­stroys the sin. This at­ti­tude of the di­vine na­ture would ap­par­ently change if the sin­ner fi­nally iden­ti­fied him­self wholly with sin just as the same mor­tal mind may also fully iden­tify it­self with the in­dwelling spirit Ad­juster. Such a sin-iden­ti­fied mor­tal would then be­come wholly un­spir­i­tual in na­ture (and there­fore per­son­ally un­real) and would ex­pe­ri­ence even­tual ex­tinc­tion of be­ing. Un­re­al­ity, even in­com­plete­ness of crea­ture na­ture, can­not ex­ist for­ever in a pro­gress­ingly real and in­creas­ingly spir­i­tual uni­verse.

2:6.9Fac­ing the world of per­son­al­ity, God is dis­cov­ered to be a lov­ing per­son; fac­ing the spir­i­tual world, he is a per­sonal love; in re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence he is both. Love iden­ti­fies the vo­li­tional will of God. The good­ness of God rests at the bot­tom of the di­vine free-will­ness—the uni­ver­sal ten­dency to love, show mercy, man­i­fest pa­tience, and min­is­ter for­give­ness.