‘For Christians, it is impossible to understand the nature of God.’
This question appears on the 2021 Christianity Paper (in the ‘Christian Beliefs’ section). Similar questions could appear on ‘Theme C’ of the Themes paper. And a version of this question could also appear on the A-Level paper in the ‘God’ topic. Here, however, we will focus on answering this question using three topics covered in the ‘Christian Beliefs’ paper: God as all-loving (omnibenevolent), God as all-powerful (omnipotent), and the Incarnation. Note that this approach would also work for an A-Level essay, but for that exam it is better to use the concepts explicitly named on that Specification.
Defining your terms
The first thing to address is what the question is actually asking. By ‘the nature of God’, we mean ‘God’s qualities’, or ‘how God can be described’. You can think of ‘the nature of God’ as a complete list of all the adjectives that apply to God. Christians have no shortage of these, but the Specification names three: omnipotent, loving, and just (AQA 2025: 12). We are going to focus on the first two. The Specification describes God as ‘omnipotent’. This is a Latin word which means ‘all-powerful’. This simply means that God can do anything. Now, there are debates about whether this includes logically impossible things, like making a triangle with four sides (some Christians say God cannot do this; Swinburne 2010: 8–9), but we do not need to worry about these at GCSE level. They will not matter for our argument.
What we do want to qualify, however, is the Specification’s description of God as ‘loving’. Most Christians would say that this does not go far enough. They would say that God is all-loving. What exactly this means is debatable too, but a common interpretation is that God loves everyone, including people who do not know about God, people who do not believe in God, and even people who hate God. There is a Latin word for this too, ‘omnibenevolent’. You do not need to use the Latin word in your essay, but you might find it useful to modify replace ‘loving’ with ‘all-loving’. Indeed, the argument we are about to make does not really work if God is just an ordinary level of loving.
The essential problem
We come now to the actual problem: what does it mean to understand the nature of God? In other words, what does it mean to understand that God is all-loving and all-powerful? This depends on what we mean by ‘understand’. Some might argue that we only really understand things that we have personally experienced. In this case, we definitely do not understand God, because we do not know what it is like to be all-loving and all-powerful. Others, however, would argue that you can understand something without having actually experienced it, and that we do understand what it means for God to be all-loving and all-powerful, even if we ourselves are not like this.
By way of illustration, take this analogy. Suppose that you live in a land-locked area, and have never been swimming in the ocean. You might be familiar with the ocean from books, films, and school. But do you really understand what it is like to swim in the ocean? Some would argue that you do not: you have an idea of what it might be like, but you cannot truly understand it without experiencing it for yourself. Others, however, might argue that this oversimplifies ‘understanding’. They would point out that there are levels of understanding, and that it is possible to understand things to a certain level without actually experiencing them. For example, imagine three people:
Person A lives on the coast and swims in the ocean every day.
Person B lives in a landlocked area, but has learned about the ocean from books and films, and has been swimming in lakes, rivers, and swimming pools.
Person C also lives in a landlocked area, but they have never even heard of the ocean, nor have they been swimming.
Does it make sense to say that only Person A understands what it is like to swim in the ocean? Is it correct to say that Persons B and C both have no understanding of this? Many people would say that this does not make sense. Person A might have the most complete understanding of ‘swimming in the ocean’, but Person B has at least some understanding.
We can apply this concept to the nature of God. Some people would argue that since no human being has ever had the experience of being all-loving and all-powerful, we cannot understand what it means for God to be this way. Therefore, we cannot understand the nature of God. Others, however, would argue that we (or at least most of us) have done things and loved people. It is not exactly the same experience as being all-powerful and all-loving, but it means that we — like Person B in the analogy — do have some understanding of the nature of God.
There are good arguments on both sides. At A-Level you would explore them in detail. However, the argument against our being able to understand God is the more complex one and is better saved for A-Level. Here, I recommend arguing that we can understand the nature of God. You can strengthen this argument (and get in your quotations) by pointing out that Jesus was God incarnate, meaning that he actually was all-powerful, and all-loving. But Jesus was also a human being like us, and embodied these qualities in a way that is easier for us to understand. So while we are unlikely to ever fully understand what it is like to be all-loving and all-powerful, Jesus provides us with an example of what it would look like for a human to be this way. And this is enough for us to say that we do understand the nature of God, at least to some level.
The arguments in detail
Let us now consider specifically why it is so difficult for us to fully understand what it is like to be all-loving and all-powerful, and how studying the life of Jesus can help with this.
All-loving (omnibenevolent)
In the Hebrew scriptures, we encounter lines like ‘The Lord is good to everyone | he is merciful to all he has made’ (Psalm 145. 9). This is a good description of what it is like to be all-loving, but does anyone really understand what this is actually like? Most people understand what it is to be ‘good’; but most people just about manage to be good to their friends. Being good to ‘everyone’ means being good to strangers and enemies. And this is a good deal more difficult.
God is worthy of worship precisely because God does this. But few, if any, people have ever had the experience of being good to absolutely everyone. Likewise, most people (sadly, not all) are merciful to ‘all that they have made’ (i.e. their children). But most people in the UK who have children only have one or two, and many people have none (Shearing 2025). Someone with children might be able to guess at what the experience of being all-loving is like, but what about someone without children? Can anyone really claim to understand God’s being all-loving?
Fortunately, Jesus’s parables offer us many relatable examples of what this would look like for a human. To give an obvious one, the Parable of the Good Samaritan features a Samaritan man giving up his time and money to look after a complete stranger (Luke 10. 25–37). This is a concrete example of what it looks like to be all-loving — sacrificing for a stranger in the same way you would sacrifice for your friend or your child.
But Jesus’s own death provides perhaps the clearest example of what being all-loving looks like on a human scale. In Luke’s Gospel, we learn how Jesus was beaten, mocked, and finally executed. However, as His execution is taking place, he calls out ‘Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing’ (Luke 23. 34). In other words, He wishes God’s forgiveness on the very people who have rejected him and are now killing him. This is what being ‘all-loving’ looks like on a human scale. And this, the Christian might argue, allows us to understand the nature of God.
All-powerful (omnibenevolent)
The idea of God’s being all-powerful stretches our understanding to the breaking point. We get the clearest demonstration of this in Genesis 1, where God creates the universe simply by speaking. Let us take the most famous of these passages as our example, ‘Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, so he divided the light from the darkness. God named the light “day” and the darkness “night”’ (Genesis 1. 3–5).
Now, we have the power to create light too — by flipping a light-switch, lighting a candle, or turning on a torch. However, our power over light comes from our ability to make light sources. We cannot make it directly; we can only make tools that make it for us. But when God creates light, literally nothing else exists yet. How can anyone create light directly? How can light even exist without a light source? It is beyond our ability to understand. So while we have some understanding of what it is to have power, can anyone really say they understand what it is to be all-powerful?
But the Gospels contain many stories about Jesus doing miracles. These, by definition, are impossible acts which only an all-powerful person could do. But unlike God’s creation of light, Jesus’s miracles take place for reasons that people can identify with, and on a scale that they can understand. For example, in Mark’s Gospel we read about Jesus crossing a lake with his disciples. A great storm erupts, and the disciples are afraid that they will be thrown from the boat and drown. They go to Jesus for help, and He stops the storm simply by saying ‘Quiet! Be still!’ (Mark 4. 39).
This is relatable in a way that the creation of the universe is not. Few of us have ever wanted to create day and night; probably all of us have at one time or another wanted a storm to stop. But notice the parallel to Genesis. Jesus does not create a machine to stop the storm. He does not use tools of any kind. He simply speaks and the world obeys. This is what it looks like to be all-powerful. But it is an example of being all-powerful that is near enough to our own experience that we can understand it. And through it, we come nearer to understanding the nature of God.
Structuring your essay
We can now assemble the above points into an essay. We want to first set up the argument that the nature of God cannot be understood, because we will never know what it is like to be all-loving and all-powerful. We will then challenge it by pointing out that we do not need to actually experience these things to understand them, and that Jesus’s example brings us very close to true understanding.
Some people argue that it is impossible to understand the nature of God. For example, the Bible tells us that ‘God is love’ (I John 4. 8). This means that God is not just loving, but all-loving (omnibenevolent). But humans are not like this. We naturally love some people more than others. For example, everyone cares more about people they know than about strangers. And everyone loves their friends more than they love people who want to hurt them. As humans, we cannot understand what it is like to be all-loving. And so, we cannot understand the nature of God.
Another reason is that God is all-powerful (omnipotent). In the Bible we learn that God made the first light just by saying ‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1. 3). As humans, we cannot understand what this means. We can make light too, but we need to use a candle or a light-bulb. We cannot make it just by talking. Later, God makes the first plants by saying ‘Let the earth produce plants’ (Genesis 1. 11). If we want to make plants, we must grow them from seeds. We cannot make them just by speaking. It is not possible for us to understand what it is like to have this level of power (omnipotence). And so, we cannot understand the nature of God.
However, I argue that it is possible to understand the nature of God. This is because Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus tells us this when He says, ‘The Father and I are one’ (John 10. 30). This means that Jesus is fully God and fully human. He has all of God’s qualities, but He is also a human like us. This means He can show us what God’s qualities look like in a human. Jesus’s whole life was God’s way of teaching us about the nature of God. And so, it is possible to understand the nature of God. You just have to study the life and teachings of Jesus.
A good example of this is God’s being all-loving. It is true that people are not naturally all-loving (this is because of Original Sin). But Jesus shows us what it would be like if a person was. For example, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus teaches us what it looks like to love everyone, even strangers, like they are your ‘neighbour’ (Luke 10. 25–37). And when he was being crucified, Jesus showed what it is like to love your enemies when He said, ‘Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing’ (Luke 23. 34). We might not be able to love other people exactly like Jesus did, but through his life we can understand what it means to be all-loving.
Through Jesus we can also understand what it is like to be all-powerful. For example, the Bible tells us that Jesus saved His disciples from a storm by saying to it, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ (Mark 4. 39). He did not use any tools to end the storm, and he did not need anyone’s help. He just spoke and the storm obeyed. This is exactly like God speaking the world into existence in the Creation story. But Jesus did it in a way that people could see and understand. So, while we cannot be all-powerful ourselves, we can understand what it is like.
I conclude, therefore, that it is possible to understand the nature of God.
Note the following points:
This essay follows the Quaestio disputata structure (i.e. Objection 1 → Objection 2 → Point of View → Reply 1 → Reply 2). You could, however, easily rearrange it into a simpler structure by just moving the paragraphs around so that it reads as Point of View → Objection 1 → Reply 1 → Objection 2 → Reply 2. Indeed, this would be a good revision exercise — print the essay, cut out the paragraphs, and practise putting them into different orders, to see which one is strongest.
As ever, I have given the exact biblical references in the paragraphs, but you would not need to do this. Just remember to always include ‘The Bible teaches . . . ’ or ‘Jesus says . . . ’ (or any variation on these) before your quote, and you will be fine.
I have used the English words ‘all-loving’ and ‘all-powerful’ to describe God’s qualities, and given their Latin equivalents, omnibenevolent and omnipotent, in brackets. However, if you are comfortable with these words, it is better to use the Latin. It makes no difference from a meaning standpoint, but it shows that you are familiar with theological language, which tends to impress examiners.
I hope the above makes sense. If it does not, do not hesitate to reach out to us! Also, if you are preparing for the A-Level and want an example of an essay on this topic that is more specifically aimed at that Specification, let us know and we will prioritise that essay in the coming weeks.
Until next time.
References
AQA. 2025. ‘Religious Studies A: GCSE (8062)’, <https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/ab272d86486eb6b391a2c33de9072a5031e0f584.pdf?_gl=1*mi1nhw*_gcl_au*MTI5NjMxNDg4MC4xNzY1Mjk5MzUw> [accessed 9 December 2025]
Shearing, Hazel. 2025. ‘How a 'fertility gap' is fuelling the rise of one-child families’, BBC <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyv7211jljo> [accessed 9 December 2025].
Swinburne, Richard. 2010. Is There a God?, rev. ed. (Oxford)