![]() In that regards, the holiness of God is incommunicable. Primarily, God’s holiness refers to His greatness and His transcendence, and to the fact that He is above and beyond anything in the universe. The term holy, as it is used in the Bible to describe God, refers to both His nature and His character. God’s communicable attributes are those attributes that we have to possess and manifest. The communicable attributes of God are wisdom, knowledge, power, holiness, righteousness, justice, jealousy, wrath, goodness, love, and mercy. Therefore, these communicable attributes will often have the “omni” (all) prefix attached to them. Where we have attributes similar to God’s, He is always qualitatively different and greater. However, because human beings are created in God’s image, they do share other attributes with God. ![]() That is why most of the attributes of God carry the negative prefix and is why we call them incommunicable attributes-attributes that cannot be shared with us. Our God is independent, immutable, mortal, and eternal. They help us sort out what kind of God the God of the Bible is. The attributes of God are important to study. So in presenting the attributes of god, Scripture does not emphasize the contrast between communicable and incommunicable.” Our love, at its best, is the love of God imaged in our own lives. On the other hand, no attribute of God are entirely incommunicable, for we are his image in a comprehensive sense. Human love at its best is analogues to divine love, but it is not the same thing, for God’s love is original and ours is derivative from his. But in on sense there are no communicable attribute. ![]() The former are attributes that God and man can share in common, the latter attributes that they do not share. The most common in Presbyterian circles has been the distinction between communicable and incommunicable attributes. “Theologians have chosen different approaches to describing the attributes of God. John Frame helpfully explains these terms for us when he notes: In this article, we’ll start with the communicable attributes of God. In two articles in this issue of Theology for Life Magazine, I’m going to explain what the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God are. ![]() Theologians often like to use fancy words to describe biblical teaching and categories. ![]()
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