Characteristics vs. Attributes: Demystifying Lectures 3 and 4

Every now and then, you stumble upon an answer so satisfying it feels almost thirst-quenching, as if a missing piece just clicked into place.

I had one of those moments while revisiting the Lectures on Faith with the copy I carry to church. Lectures 3 and 4 lay out two distinct but closely related concepts: God’s characteristics and His attributes. At first glance, the distinction isn’t immediately clear, and there even seems to be some redundancy—mercy and truth appear on both lists.

So what’s the difference? And why does it matter?

God’s characteristics are described in Lecture 3:

1. he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness.
2. he changes not.
3. he is a God of truth and cannot lie.
4. he is no respecter of persons.
5. he is love.

His six attributes listed in Lecture 4:

1. Knowledge
2. Faith (power)
3. Justice
4. Judgment
5. Mercy
6. Truth

At first, I wondered: why separate these into two categories? Isn’t an attribute just another way of describing what God is like?

To untangle this, I turned to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary for some insight.

• Characteristic – That which constitutes a character; that which characterizes; that which distinguishes a person or thing from another.
• Attribute – That which is attributed; that which is considered as belonging to, or inherent in.

Definitions in hand, let’s flesh this out further.

The Key Difference: What God Is vs. What God Does

Characteristics: Defining God’s Being

Characteristics are inherent and unchanging; they describe what God is at His core. These are not contingent on anything outside of Himself. For example:

• God is love.
• God is a God of truth.
• God is unchangeable.

These aren’t things He chooses to be; they are what distinguish Him from anything else.

Attributes: How God Relates to Us

Attributes, on the other hand, are the expressions of His characteristics; they describe how God acts toward His creation.

• His justice flows from His unchangeableness.
• His mercy extends from His goodness.
• His truthfulness ensures we can trust His words.

To make this distinction clearer, let’s use a simple analogy:

The Sun as an Example

• Characteristics: The sun is a massive sphere of burning gas. It emits constant heat and light.
• Attributes: The sun gives warmth, provides light, and sustains life on earth.

The characteristics tell you what it is; the attributes tell you how it interacts with us.

This distinction is crucial in Lectures on Faith, because faith in God requires understanding both.

Why This Matters for Faith

In order to exercise faith in God, we must know:

1. Who He is (His characteristics)—the unchanging foundation that makes Him trustworthy.
2. How He acts toward us (His attributes)—which give us confidence to rely on Him.

If God’s characteristics included changeability or ignorance, we couldn’t trust Him fully.

If His attributes lacked justice or mercy, we wouldn’t know how He would act toward us.

The Lectures provide a framework for faith, a kind of theological engineering by which we can understand God not as an abstract idea, but as a being we can trust and rely on.

The Bridge Between God and Man: Christ as the Express Image

This distinction also reinforces Christ’s role as “the express image” of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). He embodies God’s characteristics and makes His attributes tangible.

Through Christ, we experience the attributes of God: His mercy, justice, and truth in a way that we can personally understand.

And this is where the Lectures on Faith align beautifully with John 17:3:

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ…”

To know God is not just to know facts about Him, it is to experience His attributes through the grace of His Son.

This is why the principles Jesus taught: faith, repentance, obedience, endurance, etc. are not just moral guidelines but pathways to experience God’s attributes in our own lives.

And as we do so, something remarkable happens.

Becoming One with God: The Role of the Holy Spirit

The Lectures teach that the Holy Spirit is the Mind of God. If this is true, then God’s characteristics are not only what define Him, but what He invites us to embody as well.

Through repentance and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, we can have a mighty change of heart and our dispositions begin to change.

• We experience mercy, and in turn, become merciful.
• We receive truth, and in turn, become truthful.
• We see His unchanging love, and in turn, we learn to love as He does.

This is how we become one with our Creator.

It is not just about knowing God intellectually—it is about knowing Him experientially.

Final Thoughts

So in the end, the distinction between characteristics and attributes offers us a profound insight into how faith in God actually works.

• His characteristics give us confidence in His nature.
• His attributes allow us to experience Him personally.

And through Christ’s life and sacrifice, we are invited to receive God’s attributes until, little by little, His characteristics become ours.

This is the essence of discipleship.

This is the path to becoming like Him.

And ultimately, this is life eternal.