Only One

Mike Taylor in part 6 of his presentation on What God is Like begins this way:

Today we want to look at the awesomeness of God: his utter, ultimate power, knowledge and relevance to everything that ever happens. The three qualities of God that theologians talk about in this area are the ``omnis'':
His omnipotence - he can do anything.
His omniscience - he knows everything.
His omnipresence - he is everywhere.
We're going to look at all these in one session, somewhat mushed together, as they are facets of the same truth - the ``ultimateness'' or ``absoluteness'' of God, if you like. We won't try too hard to break the three ``omnis'' apart as they represent a rather artificial distinction. We'll see how they tie together.
For a lot of people, these issues are more fruitfully approached through the arts than than through the sciences. That's because, as we've observed before, God is just too big to fit into our finite, mortal minds. The best we can hope for is a piercing glimpse of the reality - which is what music, for example, can sometimes give us. While science wants to have everything mapped out neatly, and fails completely when it can't grasp its subject, art is content with allusions, hints and analogies. That's why, even though by nature I am a scientific kind of person, I've got more real insight into God's nature from novels and music than from any amount of theology. You need the theology so you can fit the glimpses into a coherent framework; but if all you have is a framework, you might as well give up and go home.
The key insight here is that God is much, much more than we understand. There is so much more to him than we will ever grasp in this life - and maybe in the next. Most Christians become Christians long before they have any real understanding of who it is they have come to love and trust; and to be truthful, we never fully find out. That's not a bad thing, though it may sound like it: it's like a developing love affair, which grows deeper as the lover grow to know each other more deeply.

(Mike is a minister at the Gospel Centre, Gloucestershire GL17 9XF ENGLAND)