God in Christianity

In Christianity, God is the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the material universe). Christians believe in a singular God that exists in a Trinity, which consists of three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Christian teachings on the transcendence, immanence, and involvement of God in the world and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe (rejection of pantheism) but accept that God the Son assumed hypostatically united human nature, thus becoming man in a unique event known as "the Incarnation".

Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline epistles and the early Christian creeds, which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus. Although some early sects of Christianity, such as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites, protested against the deification of Jesus, the concept of Jesus being one with God was accepted by the majority of Gentile Christians. This formed one aspect of the split of early Christianity and Judaism, as Gentile Christian views of God began to diverge from the traditional Jewish teachings of the time.

The theology of the attributes and nature of God has been discussed since the earliest days of Christianity, with Irenaeus writing in the 2nd century: "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all things". In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes which remain widely accepted. As time passed, Christian theologians developed systematic lists of these attributes, some based on statements in the Bible (e.g., the Lord's Prayer, stating that the Father is in Heaven), others based on theological reasoning. The "Kingdom of God" is a prominent phrase in the Synoptic Gospels, and while there is near unanimous agreement among scholars that it represents a key element of the teachings of Jesus, there is little scholarly agreement on its exact interpretation.

Although the New Testament does not have a formal doctrine of the Trinity as such, "it does repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit... in such a way as to compel a Trinitarian understanding of God". Around 200 AD, Tertullian formulated a version of the doctrine of the Trinity which clearly affirmed the divinity of Jesus. This concept was later expanded upon at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and a later definitive form was produced by the Ecumenical Council of 381. The Trinitarian doctrine holds that God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit are all different hypostases (Persons) of one substance, and is not traditionally held to be one of tritheism. Trinitarianism was subsequently adopted as the official theological doctrine through Nicene Christianity thereafter, and forms a cornerstone of modern Christian understandings of God—however, some Christian denominations hold nontrinitarian views about God.

Christians, in common with Jews and Muslims, identify with the biblical patriarch Abraham to whom God revealed himself. It is believed that Abraham was the first to affirm monotheism (the belief in one God) and had an ideal relationship with God. The Abrahamic religions believe that God continuously interacted with the descendants of Abraham over millennia; both Christians and Jews believe that this covenant is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, which most Christian denominations consider to be (and refer to as) the Old Testament. In the traditional interpretations of Christianity, God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only.

Early Christian views of God (before the gospels were written) are reflected in the Apostle Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 8:5–6, written c. AD 53–54, about twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, and 12–21 years before the earliest of the canonical gospels was written:

...for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

Apart from asserting that there is one God, Paul's statement (which is likely based on pre-Pauline confessions) includes a number of other significant elements: he distinguishes Christian belief from the Jewish background of the time by referring to Jesus and the Father almost in the same breath, and by conferring on Jesus the title of divine honor "Lord", as well as calling him Christ. In the Book of Acts (Acts 17:24–27), during the Areopagus sermon given by Paul, he further characterizes the early Christian understanding: