Ideas about the Divine

• God is believed to be omnipotent (all powerful) and omniscient (all knowing)
• God is believed to be personal and impersonal: God can have a relationship with us and is separate from us
• God is believed to be immanent and transcendent: God is both within the world and outside of it
• God transcends all laws of contradiction
• Many Christians believe that God is simple, which means that God is not a combination of his attributes but instead one, indivisible, eternal being
• Divine simplicity was a central idea in the thought of the 13th century theologian St Thomas Aquinas
• Christian Perspectives - Trinity

  • God is represented in three beings
  • The Father - the creator and supreme authority
  • The Son - God incarnate, Jesus Christ. emphasises personal nature of God
  • Holy Spirit - present in Christians, helping them to live a Christian life and draw others to Christianity