The Communicable and Incommunicable Attributes
As taught in the Pentecostal / Charismatic tradition
Study of God's character, focusing on His holiness, omniscience, and unchanging love.
Within the Pentecostal tradition, the study of the nature of God—often termed "Theology Proper"—is not merely a pursuit of intellectual categories but a quest to understand the One with whom the believer has entered into a dynamic, Spirit-filled relationship. The question that grounds this subtopic is central to the Pentecostal experience: How can a God who is infinitely "Other," transcendent, and sovereign, also be the God who "dwells within," who speaks, heals, and empowers today? To answer this, theologians distinguish between the "incommunicable" and "communicable" attributes of God. This distinction provides the structural framework for understanding both the transcendence (God’s greatness and distance from creation) and the immanence (God’s nearness and involvement in creation) of the Almighty.
By the end of this lesson
- **Identify** and define the core incommunicable attributes of God (Aseity, Immutability, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence) within the Pentecostal framework.
- **Distinguish** between attributes that God possesses alone (incommunicable) and those that are reflected in humanity through the *Imago Dei* and the work of the Holy Spirit (communicable).
- **Explain** the theological necessity of God’s immutability as the foundation for the "Full Gospel" and the continuity of spiritual gifts today.
- **Articulate** how the communicable attribute of holiness serves as the primary calling for the believer in the Pentecostal "Holiness" tradition.
- **Trace** the biblical grounding for God’s omnipresence using Psalm 139, specifically highlighting its implications for personal prayer and Spirit-led ministry.
- **Defend** the Pentecostal emphasis on the "present-tense" experience of God’s attributes against cessationist or deistic views that relegate God’s active power to the past.
- **Apply** the knowledge of God’s incommunicable sovereignty to the practice of "yielding" to the Holy Spirit, recognizing the limits of human agency in the divine-human encounter.
- **Compare** the classical theological definitions of God's attributes with the experiential "relational" theology characteristic of teachers like Jack Hayford and James Bradford.
Scripture
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