ABSTRACT
In the first chapter, the knowledge of God is explored within the Christian tradition. It is the heart of Christian revelation, which tells Christians who God is and how all created things relate to him. Foundationally, God is triune, personal, and transcendent. These frame and qualify all descriptions of God’s nature. The belief that God is personal and relational begins with the intra-Trinitarian relationship between God the Father, Son, and Spirit, which shapes and analogously models not simply human relationships, but the relational nature of all creation. Further, God as personal assures the Christian that he is not a distant, sovereign deity weighing options and making decisions far removed from his creation. As personal, the Christian tradition believes God stands in relationship with each Christian, and his knowledge (omniscience), power (omnipotence), and goodness (omnibenevolence) invite, sustain, and apply to every Christian personally. This unique interrelationship of God’s perfect attributes results in a far-reaching providence, with God’s care extending to the daily struggles of Christians with emotional disorders. God’s personal presence in every Christian’s life is possible because of God’s transcendence. It is precisely God’s complete otherness that affirms his absolute immanence. This does not mean that he is far away, however. Rather, because he is not limited to time and space (as humans are), God can be everywhere present. So, the personal goodness, power, and knowledge of God is relationally present to every one of his people, wherever and whenever they live, which has implications for a distinctly Christian psychotherapy.
