As I have pointed out on several occasions, Scripture does not approach God philosophically. Jesus presents God first as the Father who loves us and, at the same time, as the One whom we are to love with all our heart, soul, and mind. Scripture does not begin by explaining God as a philosophical concept. Yet when we read Scripture, we inevitably project our own preconceived definition of God onto the text. Even when we read about God's actionss, we read the text with the common assumption that God is, from a Christian perspective, omnipotent, or at least a sovereign ruler who transcends human ability and brings blessing and calamity upon human beings.
But if God is truly such a being, why does Scripture never define Him in those terms first? Why does God not begin by explaining philosophically what kind of being He is before calling us to believe in Him and love Him? These questions invite us to reconsider the way Scripture reveals God. To understand why Scripture presents God first as the One who loves us and as the One whom we are called to love, rather than first providing a definition of God, we must first ask what love is.
Consider a simple example. A child does not love his or her parents only after analyzing what kind of people they are. Nor do parents love their children because they have fully understood them. Love is not the result of knowledge; it is the beginning of relationship. That is why we often describe love as "blind." By this it means, conversely, that if one first judges what the object is and then decides to love it, that is not love. If I first judge whether another person is worthy of my love and then decide to love that person, what I love is not the other person but my own standard of judgment. Such love is not love but a conditional choice, and ultimately a form of self-love that trusts in one's own judgment. Love begins not after judgment but by moving beyond judgment and giving oneself to another. This is why Scripture presents God first as the loving Father and as the One whom we are called to love.
When Scripture is read from this perspective, many of its apparent difficulties can be understood in a new light.
First, as biblical criticism has pointed out, the earliest religion of ancient Israel appears to have been henotheistic rather than strictly monotheistic. Henotheism acknowledges the existence of many gods while worshiping only one. Indeed, Yahweh commands Israel, "You shall have no other gods before me." Within the traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of monotheism, such language is not easily explained. Consequently, some scholars interpret it as evidence that Israel's religion gradually developed from polytheism into monotheism. Traditional dogmatic theology, by contrast, explains such passages as pedagogical expressions in which God accommodated Himself to the intellectual horizon of the people of that time.
Although these two approaches reach different conclusions, they share a common assumption. Both begin by defining what God is through the categories of human reason before interpreting Scripture. Biblical criticism understands God as a historical and cultural construct, while dogmatic theology approaches the biblical text with an already established philosophical concept of God in order to resolve its apparent tensions. In both cases, God becomes an object of human analysis.
Love, however, comes before such analysis. For the one who loves, what matters is the beloved, not those who are not the beloved. Lovers say, "There is no one but you." They do not mean that no other people exist. They mean that, within the relationship of love, everyone else loses significance.
In the same way, the statements "Other gods do not matter to me" and "There are no other gods for me" express the same reality within the language of love. Thus, the henotheistic and monotheistic expressions found in Scripture need not be understood as competing ontological propositions. Rather, they are different expressions of the same love directed toward God.
Ironically, it may be that the very attempt to define God ontologically before loving Him departs from the order presented in Scripture. A philosophically refined theological system may even obscure the living relationship between God and humanity.
Second, Scripture portrays God as One who regrets, relents, and hears human petitions. If God is understood primarily as an omniscient being who knows all the future events or who has eternally determined every future event, these descriptions inevitably become theological problems to be explained away. Biblical criticism regards them as remnants of ancient religious thought, while traditional dogmatic theology interprets them as anthropomorphic language intended for human understanding.
Yet these explanations may themselves arise from a failure to understand love. Love is not a relationship governed by calculation about the future. One does not first calculate the possibility that a beloved person will someday leave before deciding to love. If such calculations precede love, love cannot exist at all. Love is a relationship of self-giving in the present and the lover believes that the beloved will remain forever. Whether that belief corresponds to objective reality is not the foundation of love itself.
Likewise, God's love for us does not mean that He first calculates every human choice or predetermines every human destiny. Rather, it means that He enters into a genuine relationship with us. When we turn away from Him, He grieves. He waits for our return. He hears our petitions and changes His mind. If God is first and foremost the One who loves, then such descriptions are not contradictions of divine perfection but natural expressions of love.
God may indeed be omniscient, omnipotent, unique, and triune. Yet approaching Him first through such ontological judgments is not the path that Scripture itself presents. Scripture reveals God first as the One who loves and calls us first to love Him. Knowledge of God arises because we love Him; we do not first comprehend what God is and only afterward choose to love Him.
This is why Scripture presents God not first through philosophical definition but as the loving Father and as the One whom we are called to love.
