The Sermon I Didn't Preach

From Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God—

• Eternal
• Incomprehensible
• Invisible
• Unchangeable
• Infinite
• Almighty
• Completely wise, just and good
• And the overflowing source of all good.

Ten attributes for God. Five which take a human, limited term and negate it—comprehensible becomes incomprehensible. Finite becomes infinite. And five are human terms that are then maximized. Mighty becomes almighty. Good becomes completely good.

Certainly a few of you know where this statement is found.

I’m not overly fond of it myself. Not that I don’t accept it, of course, but personally I just wouldn’t put it that way. For me, at least, as each one of those terms is listed off—eternal, incomprehensible—God seems to become just a little bit more remote. Invisible, unchangeable—and this God becomes harder to relate to. Infinite, almighty, completely just—this God is getting more and more abstract, more detached and vaguer by the second.

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