Five Foundational Truths Christians have about God:

1. God has spoken to man, and the Bible is His word.
2. God is Lord and King over all things.
3. God is Savior, active in sovereign love through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our rescuer.
4. God is Triune (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).
5. Godliness refers to the act of responding to God’s revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service.

The Ways God has Revealed Himself to Us (Psalm 19; Romans 1, 2:14-15; John 1; Hebrews 1)

General Revelation – conveys the conviction that God exists and that he is transcendent, immanent, self-sufficient, eternal, powerful, good, and a hater of evil.

Types of General Revelation
      Internal – innate sense of deity and the moral conscience.
      External – nature and the course of providential history.

General Revelation does not impart information necessary for salvation, serves only to condemn and to establish guilt before God (Rom 1:20).

Special Revelation (or Redemptive Revelation) – conveys how God has chosen to reveal Himself through supernatural means.

Types of Special Revelation
The Living Word – The incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ, also          in Christophanies within the OT (Gen 18:1-33; Zech 3:1-5; Josh 5:13-1
The Written Word – The Sacred Scriptures (The Holy Bible).

Special Revelation does impart the information necessary for salvation (Romans 10:17).

Why is a Biblical View of God Important?

1. To Protect us against perverted views of God (Platonism, Enlightened Idealism, Modern Evolutionary Theory, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc).
2. Salvation is impossible without a proper knowledge of God (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 15:1-4; Heb 11:6).
3. To illustrate that the Biblical view of God is a rational view of God.

Characteristics of God

The Incomprehensibility of God (Deut 29:29).

1. Incomprehensibility – That no one can know God exhaustively. Human finitude always limits our understanding of God.
2. Errors to be avoided.
   A. The first error is Skepticism says that since God is incomprehensible, He must be utterly unknowable, and anything we say about God is gibberish. But Christianity affirms the rationality of God alongside the incomprehensibility of God.B. The second error is a form of pantheism that falsely assumes we have captured or contained God. 

The Immutability of God (Psalm 102:26-27; Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19; Hebrews 1:10-12; James 1:17)

1. Immutability – the fact that God is unchangeable in His being, attributes, purposes, and promises. God will always act in accordance with His divine Attributes.
2. Reasons for the Immutability of God
   A. He is outside of time. Change requires chronological order.
   B. God is perfect. Change implies going from better to worst.
   C. God is omniscient. Because God is omniscient, He cannot learn something new that He did not already know. So, when the Bible speaks of God changing His mind, it must be understood that the circumstance or situation has changed, not God.

God’s Relationship to Time and Space

1. How He relates to Time.
   A. God is eternal. That is to say that he has no beginning or end or succession of events in His own Being. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the now and forever. Because He is eternal, God has a radically different view of time than us (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). 

   B. God is unlimited by time. God sees and knows all events of history—past, present, and future—with equal vividness. As the one who created and rules over time, God uses time for his own purposes.

       2. How He relates to Space
           A. God is Omnipresent. He is unlimited by space. He cannot be limited to the                   space he created (Genesis 1:1). God does not have size or spatial dimensions. He                 fills every part of Space (Jeremiah 23:23-24; Psalm 139:7-10) His presence is a                       means of blessing (Psalms 16:11), a means of punishment (Amos 9:1-4), and a                       means to hold all things together (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3).

Truths regarding God’s Relationship to Time and Space

1. Though God is not limited by space or time, he has sovereignly chosen to create the world with time and space.
2. Time and space are not unimportant to the eternal omnipresent Lord like gods of other religions (Pantheist religions).
3. History is the product of God’s eternally wise planning, creative purpose, providential preservation, and common grace.
4. Therefore as Christians, eternity is not some abstract concept, rather it is a characteristic of the living God who is present at all times and all places, creating and sustaining and accomplishing all his purposes. 

God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience

1. Omnipotence-All powerful. God is omnipotent, He is able to do all that He wills to do (Mark 14:36; Luke 1:37). With God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26) and His power is infinite (Ephesians 3:20). God Cannot do anything that is contrary to his nature, he cannot lie (Titus 1:2), cannot be tempted (James 1:13), and he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13).
2. Omniscience – All Knowing. God is Omniscient, He knows everything (1 John 3:20). He knows all things past, present, and future. Nothing is hidden from His eye (Hebrews 4:13). He knows not only what has and will happen, but also what could have happen had circumstances been different (Matthew 11:21). His knowledge is eternal, and immutable. Nothing surprises Him. From all eternity he has perfectly known what He would do with His creation.

The Atributes of God

1. God’s Communicable Attributes (How God ministers, and the attributes He has shared with us)

• Wisdom (Romans 16:27)
• Compassion (Lamentations 3:22–23)
• Holiness (Psalm 99:9)
• Graciousness (Psalm 116:5)
• Patience (2 Peter 3:15)
• Peace (Hebrews 13:20)
• Kindness (Psalm 100:5)
• Gentleness (2 Corinthians 10:1)
• Joy (John 17:13)
• Forgiveness (Exodus 34:7)
• Justice (Deuteronomy 10:18)
• Faithfulness (1 Corinthians 10:13)
• Truthfulness (Exodus 34:6)
• Love (1 John 4:8)
• Goodness (Psalm 100:5)
• Righteousness (Psalm 92:15)
• Mercy (Psalm 86:15)

2. God’s Incommunicable Attributes (Attributes that belong to God alone and cannot be experienced by anyone else)

• Omnipotence (Jeremiah 32:17)
• Omniscience (Psalm 139:1–6)
• Omnipresence (Psalm 139:7–10)
• Immutability (Psalm 102:27)
• Sovereignty (1 Chronicles 29:11–12)
• Eternality (Psalm 90:2)
• Greatness (Psalm 135:5)
• Self-existence (Isaiah 41:4)