3 Attributes of God: Omnipotent - Omniscient - Omnipresent

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Westminster shorter cathechism 

God has many attributes. We understand that they can be grouped under these three best known ones that we learn in the catechism and that begin with the Latin word “omni” which means all. Feuerbach would say that these three attributes are human projections, or anthropomorphisms. However, we think that they are more likely the origin and entity where each of these realities resides in its maximum potency and we, being human, know and accept that we will never completely dominate any of these realities.

In contrast with other living beings, we recognize that we have some power over the Creation, but we also know that this power is limited; the omnipotence resides in God alone because he is the Creator and we the created beings. With the advancement of science and technology, we understand more and more. However, we still bear in mind, like Socrates did, that before the immensity of things to know we humbly recognize just how little we do know; the full knowledge resides in God, only he is omniscient.

Time and space are the coordinates of our earthly life; we occupy a single space during a concrete time. However, we recognize that in God is the origin of time and space, and because he is eternal, he is omnipresent. Unlimited in HIS power, not confined by time or space for whom there is no mystery, and thus God is.

Negative theology

I only know that I know nothing, and the fact of knowing this puts me in a position of advantage over those who think they know something. (Socrates)

We are inherently incapacitated to define God, that is, to say what he is and how he came to be, because to define somehow means to know, to encompass, to assimilate, to comprehend, to enclose, as if we could put God inside of us, inside of our mind, like we do with the things and people we know.

In this respect, the Spaniards have a very interesting expression, “te conozco como se te hubiese parido”, I know you as if I had given birth to you. When we want to express how well we know someone, we turn to the figure who knows us the best – our mother. Now, it is not possible to know God very well or well enough. This is how negative theology became confused with the belief of agnosticism, the application of Socratic humility to God as is applied to wisdom in general.

The idea of negative theology was already practiced by the Jewish people, who in recognizing the ineffable immensity of the mystery of God, even avoided pronouncing his name. Along this same line, Saint Matthew the evangelist substituted the expression “the Kingdom of God” used by other evangelists for “the Kingdom of Heaven”.

Even after the apostolic age, negative theology, that is, the idea that it is easier to say what God is not than what God is, remained a constant throughout theological reflections: 

Gregory of Nyssa (335-394), Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Sixth Century), Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Duns Scotus (1266-1308), Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), and reached its peak in Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) who was called “docta ignorantia”, the learned ignorant. And, still in our time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and Harvey Cox (1929).

Negative theology is a response to the precept of representing God in images (Exodus 20:4), which runs the risk of quickly transforming them into idols. It is also an escape toward the anthropomorphic tendency of projecting our desires and ideals onto God. Very dear to this theology is the idea of human suffering, already dealt with in the Bible in the book of Job, the problem of evil and the silence of God. Negative theology presents God in his capacity to save without exerting any violence on men’s freedom and reason.

We can know a sufficient minimum about God

Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” John 12:44-45

We know that we cannot know God fully, to encase, to put his mystery within us. We also know that there is and will always be more of what we don’t know about God than of what we do know. However, we do not want to have the attitude of all or nothing towards God like the agnostics: since I cannot know all then I’m not interested in the subject and I don’t want to know anything.

“We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand” (Psalm 95:7). It is true that the sheep do not know the shepherd fully, but they can know enough and, more importantly, can distinguish the Good Shepherd from the hired hand (John 10:1-21). Because of this, and because we thirst for God like some Greeks during the time of our Lord, we too want to see Jesus (John 12:21) and like the disciples of John the Baptist, we want to know where he lives. 

And Jesus is interested in making himself known to us and tells us to come and see (John 1:36-39). The creature may come to understand the Creator somewhat, like a child understands his mother enough to have life and life in abundance (John 10:10), and for the Creator to be glorified in us, his creatures.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

On one hand, we know from John that God is love. Now then, we cannot love what we do not know, nor can we know what we don’t love. Things, however, can be known without us loving them; but precisely because knowledge implies dominion over the known, we can only know people and make ourselves known to them if we love them.

In this sense, faith is much more than a consent or a yielding of reason: it is to let our heart govern over reason, understanding love, of course, as a need and not as a feeling. We need God’s love, but for this to happen we need to love him as well. In speaking of the vital union between the vine and the branches, Jesus concludes, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

It is possible to gain a sufficient knowledge of God to establish a relationship with him, and this task has been made much easier after he was revealed in his Son. Jesus of Nazareth is God made man, through whom this relationship has been made easier. In fact, he came to us so that we could go to him; in Jesus, God is less mysterious, in Jesus and through Jesus we can know God enough to love him and to be loved by him. 

We certainly don’t want Feuerbach to laugh at us, so we will not be anthropomorphic, that is, we will not project on God “what we want to be when we grow up”, our dreams, desires, fantasies and delusions of grandeur. Let us use the Word revealed in the Bible, and we will not state anything about God that has not been affirmed there, privileging that word that became flesh in Our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely in this way we will not err, because we hold to the inerrancy of the Bible.

The Kingdom of God is ALREADY present among us since Jesus came and initiated it. But we know that it is STILL NOT present in its fullness. The same can be said of our knowledge of God. We already know something, enough to establish a relationship, but still not everything. One day we will see him as he is. In the meantime, let us contemplate him like the young Francisco, the little shepherd of Fatima, who on referring to his cousin who had seen Our Lord “in that light from Our Lady which penetrated our hearts” and entranced by such beauty, exclaimed, “How wonderful is God!”

Omnipotent

O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your might; what god in heaven or on earth can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours! Deuteronomy 3:24

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Matthew 20:15

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all things visible and invisible… Catechism of the Catholic Church

With respect to himself, the omnipotence of God manifest itself in the fact that God is autonomous, free, not dependent on anything or anyone, and self-sufficient, not needing anything or anyone. For “just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). He has neither a beginning nor an end, because "he himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17).

In relation to us, the omnipotence of God manifests itself in the creation of the world, in the plan of salvation, in the incarnation of his Son, because for him, “nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37), and also in the sustenance and maintenance of the creation, where everything is ordered with perfection and intelligence.

God is the Lord and Master over all his creatures, and he has unrestricted absolute power and jurisdiction over them. This necessarily follows from the fact that he is God and that the creatures are dependent on him for existence and activity. In the exercise of this power, God is not accountable to anyone; he does not have to justify himself to anyone. “To want is to be able” says the proverb, and we want to believe that this is so; for God, in fact, to want is always to be able but for man, not always.

God is the Lord of all

Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all… and you rule over all…” 1 Chronicles 29:11-12

“Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” John 13:12-16

The dominion and the lordship of God over the world and over each one of us is a service of love. God is the magnanimous King who reigns with justice, slow to anger and rich in mercy. Christ exercised his lordship by washing the feet of his disciples, performing the service of a slave, to tell us that if his lordship manifests itself in service, so then all power must be manifested in this way. The power of God is not abusive, his nobility is not one of blue blood, and his authority is not authoritarian. His dictate is not dictatorship.

God is Love

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Isaiah 49:14-16

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

Since God does not need anything or anyone, his love is therefore purely unconditional. Since whoever does not love does not know God, then he cannot love God without loving his neighbour; the one in conflict with God is the one who chooses to be and to remain in conflict with his neighbour. 

Omniscient
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. Psalm 139:2-4

And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Hebrews 4:13 

This means that God knows all things in a way that is complete, absolute and definitive. His knowledge is infinite and is not subject to any limitation. He does not need to ask for information and he has no doubts. Since he is the Creator of all, nothing remains hidden from him; he knows all our thoughts and is an eyewitness to all our deeds. He knows who is guilty and who is innocent.

Therefore, for God there are no perfect crimes, or things that will never be known; there are no financial or professional secrets, no private lives; everything is public and known to the eyes of God. Nothing escapes him, because he is always attentive. The impunity, the lack of justice, is possible before men, but not before God. Contrary to what happens within us, his knowledge does not increase or decrease, he does not lose his memory and our crimes do not prescribe.

God’s knowledge of the future is as complete as his knowledge of the present and the past. What God knows will happen in the future, will happen unquestionably, because God knows not with possibility, but with certainty. God’s knowledge does not come from things nor does it depend on their behaviour nor because they exist or will exist, but because he, who existed before all things, ordered them to exist and to exist for a determined purpose. For example, God knew of the crucifixion of his Son and foretold it many hundreds of years before his Incarnation.

Is this synonymous to predetermination, that everything is predestined and predetermined by God? No, the fact that God knows what our choices will be does not make us any less free when we do make them. He knows what our choices are going to be, because nothing is unknown to him, but he does not interfere in our freedom to make them: they are entirely our responsibility.

Omnipresent

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. Psalm 139:7-10

God is not limited in any way by time and space. His presence is infinite in such a way that he is present simultaneously at all times and in all places, with all the fullness of his being. This is possible because God is not a material being, but spiritual. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Since God is Spirit, he is also invisible to our eyes and inaccessible to any of our senses. But to him, we are not invisible, we cannot hide anything from him.

God is Transcendent and Immanent

Am I a God nearby, says the Lord, and not a God far off? (…) Do I not fill heaven and earth? Jeremiah 23:23-24

“… he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being…” Acts 17:27-28

To declare that God is transcendent is to say that he is distinct and greater than all his creation, he lives and exists outside of the creation without needing it, because it was him who created it. To state that he is immanent is to say that he is together with his creation, participating and guiding it, and within it in its entirety and in each of its creatures, he is the center, the heart of all things. Nothing that happens is foreign to him.

God is Eternal

Eternity is the negation of time; it is the concept contrary to time and temporality. “Fugit tempus, carpe diem”, time is fleeting, it is in continuous motion, one time gives way to another; eternity however is static, a continuous and stopped carpe diem or seized day. This is one of the attributes that God has and which he shares with us (John 10, 28).

God is Infinite

Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you… 1 King 8:27

Man is finite and limited in his bodily and physical dimension, with well-defined parameters; God, on the other hand, is not defined by any parameters or by any limits, the concepts of infinity and omnipresence are identical in God.

God is Perfect

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Acts 17:24-25

The perfection of God is one of the consequences of his infinite being; everything that is limited and finite is imperfect or perfectible, since the expansion of the parameters implies the approximation to a higher degree of perfection. Consequently, something without limits is better and exceeds in perfection to something that is limited. What holds true for perfection, holds true for the rest of God’s moral attributes such as holiness, justice, mercy, truth, goodness, patience…

God is Immutable

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. Malachi 3:6

“...the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  James 1:17

The immutability of God has to do with the fact of being perfect; because of this, he is not in the process of growth, or any process of becoming better. He does not change with time, because he is always beyond the time and space that encompass his creatures. Indeed in the Bible, God introduces himself as “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14): God is self-referring. And since he has no one above him to swear by, he swears by himself (Genesis 22:16).

Mutability makes reference to a created entity, to incidents or circumstance or to will. Each creature, in one form or another, is subject to changes and has within himself the potential for change or being changed. God, however, is absolute and, in all aspects, is immutable both in his essence and his will; even the possibility of change is completely foreign to God.

Therefore God’s immutability is the consequence of his perfection; changes only take place in those who recognize themselves as imperfect and this only happens to the created beings who recognize themselves as imperfect before the perfection of their Creator. God also does not change his mind, because he is true, knows the truth of everything, and in everything he acts wisely and thus does not err. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever (Hebrews 13:8).

God is Faithful

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations… Deuteronomy 7:9

When God established the first covenant with Abraham, he ordered him to kill some animals and cut them in half, laying the halves side by side. The custom was that anyone who enters into this covenant should pass through the midst of the divided animals, symbolizing that “what happened to the animals would happen to me if I fail to keep my word”. 

Recognizing the unfaithful nature of man, his inability to keep his word, God passed through the middle, but did not let Abraham do the same. Therefore, if we are faithless, he remains faithful –for he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:13.

God is Provident

Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity… Psalm 68:5-6

“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:11-13

God is Father and provident, rich in mercy to all who call upon him, to whom nothing is alien, for he knows when we sit and when we stand. He takes care of us as his children, for we are his people, the sheep of his flock. The type of Father he is, we will never be lacking in anything, therefore, just as children absolutely trust in their parents, so we must be like these children, for only they may enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

A child has this radical trust in his parents and knows that although they will not give him everything he asks for, they will never deprive him of anything that he truly needs. So he asks, asks, and asks, but knows that not all of his requests will be met. Those that are not answered, the negative answers, he receives them thinking that his parents know what is best for him. It is in this spirit that we should receive God's silence and when our requests are not answered; not by being disinterested in God, but with the faith that God knows better than we do what we need in the short, medium and long term.

A child who does not worry about tomorrow, lives carefree but busy; he delegates any concern to his Father, and so we must do the same. For it is not in our power to increase one day of our lives, and however much we may be concerned with what we wear, we shall not dress better than the flowers in the field, and these, God dresses them (Matthew 6:25-34).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC