02. The Nature of God

The Nature of God

Chapter I The entrance of sin into the universe of a holy and sin-hating God is a mystery that no man can fathom. He has not seen fit to reveal to man how sin could get into the domain of such a God, and it is folly for man to speculate. There is sure to come a time, in the Ages to come, when the wisdom and purpose of God in relation to the coming in of sin will be fully understood, but meantime we must wait. On one thing, however, there is no need for a revelation: sin is here. Both the internal consciousness and the external evidence of its tragic and universal presence in the human race, prove the fact of sin beyond the power of every human desire and all human philosophy to overthrow. The central and awful fact of all history is that the whole race from the beginning has been, and still is, in the grip of sin, and that this slavery dates, for each individual, from birth.

Another thing is beyond denial: sin must be dealt with. No moral intelligence, sinner though he may be, can get away from the ever-present consciousness of that unquenchable demand, lying back in the nature of things, that something must be done with sin. And one more thing is beyond question: God must deal with sin. For the universe belongs to Him who created it, not to His creatures. The responsibility is therefore His to handle everything that enters His universe, and certainly such a tragic and destructive thing as sin. But how will God deal with sin? It is here, and it must be dealt with; and if God must deal with it, how will He do it?

It is impossible even to speculate on what God will do with sin, unless we can form some sort of conception of His nature and character. For it must be what He is in Himself that will necessarily determine what action He will take toward sin. The first thing to do is therefore to learn for ourselves, if we can, at least in sufficiently complete outline to make conclusions possible, what reason may expect God to be in essence and character, if perchance, from that starting point, we may be able to think our way out to what reason would demand that He should do with sin. And so our first need is to find, at least in outline, that which reason would expect the nature of God to be. The complete and final understanding of the nature of God is of course utterly beyond the present capacity of such finite beings as we find ourselves to be, especially when the limitations imposed by sin must be reckoned with. Indeed, shall we not through all eternity be increasing our knowledge of the nature and character of God? For if God is such a Being as reason must conceive He should be, He will be the sum total of all moral truth, eternal goodness, and infinite wisdom, and how shall finite incapacity compass such infinite things? To assume, however, that on this account we cannot come to know at least a first truth about God, His nature, and His character, which will be whole, not fragmentary, and sufficiently consistent, logical and comprehensive to satisfy every necessary demand of both heart and mind, is to assume a God of whom honest rational thinking cannot conceive. For at least an outline of the fundamental facts of His nature must be such that man can grasp and understand it, especially since such a God as reason demands would not fail to get to us, in some way, the knowledge necessary to give us all the light we need to guide us to the truth about Himself, that thus He might light our way out of our misery in sin.