The immutable attributes of God are the starting place of all reliable and consistent truth. The human, especially the modern human, regularly defines truth and meaning from the capacity of that which is personally perceived and experienced. This is not unlike the use of terms like “sunrise” and “sunset”. From the vantage point of the human standing on the earth, the sun appears to rise and set with a gradual meandering across the sky in between. However, the sun is not moving, at least not around the earth, but the planet is spinning on its axis. The ignorance within the vantage point is inconsequential while sitting in a West-facing chair at the end of a challenging day, but it is detrimental to global functioning. How humans view the attributes of God is of permanent or eternal importance. The foundational assumptions that humans make about the observable and invisible universe matter.

I am pursuing a Ph.D. in biblical social psychology because I am interested in expanding the vantage point of Christians toward the foundational attributes of God and restructuring perspectives based on the intentional design of a covenant union between God and His created people. The objective then is to reformulate self-concept, neurological and interpersonal systems, marriage, family, and community formation within the church sourced from God’s intentional design.

A consistent and foundational premise of scripture is that God is unlimited; “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Rom. 11:33-36). He is also permanent, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Psa. 90:1-2) and unchanging, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, James 1:17). Moreover, this infinite God of all things designed all things toward a permanent covenant union between Himself and His created people, “I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with the. And I will set them in their land and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Ezek. 37:26-27).

Humanity primarily interprets observable things and information toward an objective of survival and sustaining the temporal things. Even the attributes of God are primarily thought of as resources for temporal survival more than the characteristics of a permanent and unlimited God. It is a delusion of maintaining the unmaintainable. Nevertheless, God repetitiously invites us into permanent union with Him, the singular objective and the intent of the design of all things. My longing is to clearly communicate this foundational message within God’s Word that is evidentiarily imbued but customarily overlooked.

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV.org. https://www.esv.org/

Toward a More Permanent Perspective