Yesterday we began some reflections on God, and I was trying to remind us of the difference

between the Creator and the creature.

We are, as the hymn says, frail children of dust and feeble as frail.

We grasp the privilege of knowing God then, not by making him small, but when we realise

the sheer greatness of the one we've come to know.

But what's involved in knowing God, knowing who He is and knowing what He's like?

We can come to know Him only because God is condescended to reveal Himself to us, and

because, in addition, He has made us His image and likeness, giving us, as it were, built

in receptors that enable us to know Him.

He is the original person.

He is made as His image persons, kind of miniature likenesses of Himself, persons of a different

genre from Him, but who have been created by Him to know Him and love Him.

And one way we come to know and love each other as persons is through what we might

call our attributes, and the same is true with God.

To be clear about what we are talking about here when we speak of attributes, we don't

mean the noun attribute, as lot meant the same as the verb attribute.

For example, you may know that in some hymn books the lovely 16th century hymn, I greatly

who my sure Redeemer art is, attributed to John Calvin.

For all practical purposes, attributed there means, maybe He wrote it, maybe He didn't,

but some people attribute it to Him.

But when we speak about the attributes of God, we are not talking about characteristics

we think He has, but He might not have.

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