Attributes Communicated?

As we begin this article, let us remember the various ways of speaking of God, namely, by way of negation, called the via negativa or apophatic theology, and the way of positive attribution called the via positiva or cataphatic theology. In the way of negation, we are saying that something true of the creature is not true of the Creator, such as his immutability. In our positive attribution of things to God, we also noted that this is done by way of analogy. We do not call God a Shepherd or Eagle in the same way we refer to the human who leads sheep or the American national bird as a shepherd or an eagle respectively. Nor do we say that these statements are meaningless due to the differences between those creatures and God. Instead, we draw on the doctrine of analogous language to speak of God. Even here, though, Thomas Aquinas helped us to recognize that there are two different ways of speaking of God by analogy, depending on whether the primary referent is the creature or the Creator. For instance, in the proper sense, only a human leading sheep is a shepherd, so when we refer to God as a Shepherd, we are using a word and concept that refers most properly to the creature to say something true about God, that he leads us to that which is needful for us and provides for us (e.g. Psalm 23). The second way of using analogy, though, is by recognizing that something most proper to God is seen analogously in the creature. In this instance, we might use something like love and note that the word “love” refers to something we experience among creatures but is something that most properly refers to God who is love. Love appears in creatures as a purposed analog to God; it reflects him.

With the background summary in place, we can now consider another distinction that has appeared in historic theological contemplation: the distinction between the incommunicable and communicable attributes, which Gill calls “the more commonly received distinction.”⁠1 To begin, we should recognize that any distinctions we incorporate in our speech about God “are all subject to the objection that they apparently divide the Being of God into two parts, that first God as He is in Himself, God as the absolute Being, is discussed, and then God as He is related to His creatures, God as a personal Being.”⁠2 Thus, when we begin to make distinctions between the apophatic and cataphatic, and even more between the incommunicable and communicable, we are treading on ground where we must watch our steps. The last thing we want to do in explicating our knowledge of God is to create two Gods, one who is out there somewhere in the bliss of separated perfection and another who is near to us in our messy mutation. As à Brakel says, “All God’s attributes, being His simple, essential Being itself, are equally incommunicable as far as their nature is concerned. This distinction is merely made for the purpose of comparison.”⁠3 We affirm that God is one, and we must continue to hold fast to that confession even as our complexity forces us to make distinctions in how we speak about this one God. 

While all God’s attributes are finally incommunicable, those we specifically tend to label incommunicable are those in which there is no similitude in man. For instance, man is in no way infinite, in no way eternal, in no way immutable. Note how closely each of these are related to the apophatic attributes. In the communicable attributes, however, we agree that among “Some of the attributes of God … there is a reflection and faint resemblance in man.”⁠4 Not what is not included here. It is not the case that God has given man some “bit of deity,” the “bits” that are capable of being contained by a rational creature. Rather, we are saying there are particular ways in which rational creatures reflect God, that there is a particular analogy between the Creature and his image-bearing creatures that is seen in these “faint resemblances.” À Brakel says, “They are neither denominated ‘communicable attributes’ because God communicates these attributes themselves nor because there is any equivalence between the Creator and the creature. Rather, He has communicated a slight resemblance of these attributes to His rational creatures.”⁠5 Consider his list of communicable attributes—intellect or knowledge, will, and power. We might add affections righteousness, faithfulness, and others to these. Would we really say that we know as God knows or will as God wills? As soon as we ask the question we feel the tension. We want to say both “yes” and “no.” We are sentient, and in this way we reflect our Creator, but we are also aware that we do not know as God knows. Even when we say this, we press further than what it might seem at first. A child might not know the way his father knows in the sense of quantity. He has not attained a similar level of knowledge of the world, acquiring various bits of information along the way through years of life. However, when we say we do not know like God knows, we mean that his knowledge is not merely quantitatively different than our knowledge, but qualitatively different. While creatures acquire knowledge from something else, God’s knowledge is not an acquired knowledge in any way.

We faintly resemble God and are therefore able to say true things of him. However, the priority of the incommunicable attributes ought always to guard our way of speaking about the communicable. Thus, we close with this statement from Louis Berkhof: 

the two classes of attributes named are not strictly co-ordinate, but that the attributes belonging to the first class qualify all those belonging to the second class, so that it can be said that God is one, absolute, unchangeable and infinite in His knowledge and wisdom, His goodness and love, His grace and mercy, His righteousness and holiness. If we bear this in mind, and also remember that none of the attributes of God are incommunicable in the sense that there is no trace of them in man, and that none of them are communicable in the sense that they are found in man as they are found in God, we see no reason why we should depart from the old division which has become so familiar in Reformed theology. For practical reasons it seems more desirable to retain it.⁠6



1 John Gill, A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity: Or A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, New Edition., vol. 1 (Tegg & Company, 1839), 51. Interestingly, Gill pursues his own course, saying he will use the fact that God is a Spirit, making four distinctions total. First, God is the uncreated Spirit, so he will deal with what we might call the apophatic doctrines (simplicity, infinity, etc.); second, he is active and operative (omnipotence and life); third, we attribute faculties to him (e.g. rationality, affections, will); and fourth, we attribute virtues to him (justice, holiness, faithfulness, etc.).

2 L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 56.

3 Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 89.

4 Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 90.

5 Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 102.

6 L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 56.