I have remarked earlier that these attributes are difficult to grasp because they describe truths about God that have no analog in human experience. We are limited as to place, power and personal knowledge. God is not. Thus we say that God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (present everywhere), and omnipotent (all-powerful).

Theologians sometimes speak of God’s attributes in two categories—communicable and incommunicable. That sounds strange until you remember that we commonly speak of communicable diseases—diseases that can be spread from one person to another, such as chicken pox. Incommunicable diseases are those that cannot be spread from one person to another, such as rheumatoid arthritis or most forms of cancer.

When this distinction is applied to God, communicable attributes refer to those aspects of God’s character that ...