God’s Essential and Contingent Attributes

I’m writing a systematic theology. As a small part of the task, I’m comparing and contrasting my view of God with other systematic theologies.

Most theologies prioritize a different list of divine attributes than what I prioritize. A common way to prioritize one or some divine attributes identifies those the theologian thinks are essential to God and those she thinks are contingent. Essential attributes are necessary aspects of God’s nature; contingent attributes are not.

Essential vs Contingent

By definition, the essence of a thing identifies what makes it what it is. Essential divine attributes make God who God is, no matter what.^[1] Contingent divine attributes are properties that God does not need to be divine. God can be God without these contingent attributes.

For instance, if God exists necessarily and nothing could terminate deity, existence is essential to God. If God can exist without creating and relating with creatures, by contrast, creating and relating is contingent to the divine.

If God exists necessarily as an incorporeal Spirit, nothing and no one could destroy deity’s spiritness. If God can exist without loving creatures, however, love for creatures is contingent to God.

Usual Lists of Attributes

The list of essential attributes includes those God everlastingly manifests, with or without creaturely others. That list typically includes independence, omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, impassibility, eternality, timelessness, freedom, goodness, glory, unity, and holiness. Most theologians say these attributes are true of God in isolation from creation.

The usual list of contingent attributes includes love, creating, providence, miracle-working, communicating with creatures, compassion, wisdom, mercy and grace, patience, forgiveness, justice, anger, and empathy. According to most theologies, God only takes on these attributes or does these activities if creatures or creation exist.

In fact, some theologies say God never expresses some of these attributes. The impassible God of traditional theology, for instance, would never have compassion, show empathy, forgive in response to creatures, get angry, etc.

The Social Trinity Makes a Difference

Some attributes on the contingent list are added to the essential list by theologians who embrace a social doctrine of the trinity. (For reasons the idea of a social trinity is attractive to some theologians, see this blog essay.)

For instance, most social trinitarians will say God essentially and everlastingly communicates and loves among triune persons. If so, internal communication and love for Godself are necessary. But divine communication with and love for creation is contingent.

The result: God loves Godself no matter what; God may or may not love creatures. (For reasons some theologians reject the idea of a social trinity, see this blog essay.)

Love is Not Essential for Most

Notice that the usual accounts of God say love for creation and various love forms are not essential to God. These attributes are contingent, and, therefore, they don’t tell us who God essentially is. In traditional theologies, God could exist without ever loving or relating with creatures.

The usual accounts also say God existed without creation and then, for some reason, created others from nothing. If true, this means creating is not an essential feature of what it means to be divine. According to most systematic theologies, God is essentially independent and not essentially a creator.^[2]

My Alternative View

The systematic theology I’m writing differs from traditional systematic theologies. It considers love for creation an essential divine attribute. Creating and relating are also essential and everlasting divine activities. Loving, creating, and relating are inherently time-related, which means God has an essentially time-oriented relation to creation too.

In these and other ways, my systematic theology reconfigures the usual lists of essential and contingent attributes. This will become evident in the various chapters I’m writing for this new book. But I note early that what I consider necessary divine attributes is not the typical list systematic theologians offer.

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[1]. R. T. Mullins explains in an accessible way essential and contingent attributes in Eternal in Love: A Little Book about a Big God (Eugene, Or.: Cascade, 2024).

[2]. R. T. Mullins seems to take the traditional view on God as creator. “God would certainly not be the creator if he refrained from creating anything at all,” says Mullins. Ibid., 5.