What is God's personality and character?

The Most Important Study

The eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope wrote: "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of Mankind is Man." For two centuries, the Western world largely took his advice — turning inward, prioritising self-knowledge, self-improvement, and self-actualisation above all else.

The results have been telling. Despite more access to therapy, philosophy, and self-help than any generation in history, rates of anxiety, depression, and purposelessness continue to rise. Perhaps Pope had it backwards.

The writer C.S. Lewis argued the opposite: that the proper study of mankind is not man but God — because only in understanding who God is can we understand who we are, why we are here, and how we are meant to live. Stephen Eyre, writing for the C.S. Lewis Institute, put it this way: knowing God's character is foundational to a meaningful life — and avoiding that study is a path to spiritual confusion and wasted existence.

So who is God? Not abstractly — but personally. What is he actually like?

God Is Holy

If you had to choose one word to summarise what God is like at his core, the word the Bible reaches for, over and over, is holy.

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." — Isaiah 6:3

The repetition of "holy" three times is the Hebrew way of expressing the superlative — not just holy, not just very holy, but utterly, completely, infinitely holy. In Hebrew thought, holiness carries the idea of being set apart — unmixed, unpolluted, completely other. God is morally pure in a way that is categorically different from anything in creation.

This is why Isaiah, when he saw a vision of God's holiness, did not smile with wonder — he cried out in terror: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isaiah 6:5). Holiness, when encountered directly, is not comfortable. It is overwhelming.

But holiness is not coldness. God's holiness means he is the only being in existence who is exactly what he should be — in every way, at every moment, without exception. His holiness is the ground of every other good thing about him.

God Is Gracious and Compassionate

One of the most complete self-descriptions God gives in Scripture comes in Exodus 34, when Moses asks to see God's glory. God responds by passing before Moses and proclaiming his own name — his own character:

"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." — Exodus 34:6–7

This passage is quoted more often within the Old Testament than any other — seven different books return to it. It is the Bible's own summary of what God is most fundamentally like. Not primarily a judge waiting to condemn (though he is a just judge). Not primarily a lawgiver (though he gives law). Primarily: compassionate. Gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in love.

Psalm 145:8 repeats the refrain: "The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love." This is not a soft, permissive love that ignores wrong. It is a strong, active love that runs toward people who do not deserve it and refuses to give up on them.

God Is Faithful

God never changes. He does not evolve, upgrade, or revise his commitments based on new information or shifting circumstances. What he has promised, he keeps. What he has said, he does.

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and then not fulfil?" — Numbers 23:19

This is radical in a world where trust is constantly disappointed. Human relationships fracture. Institutions fail. Governments rise and fall. God's faithfulness is the one fixed point in a shifting universe. Every covenant he has made — with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and fulfilled in Christ — has been kept, often at enormous cost to himself.

Malachi 3:6 records God saying simply: "I the LORD do not change." That is either the most reassuring or most unsettling sentence in Scripture, depending on whether you love him or are hiding from him.

God Is Personal

Some religious traditions present God (or the divine) as an impersonal force — the ground of being, the universe's energy, a cosmic principle. The God of the Bible is nothing like this. He is a person: he thinks, he wills, he feels, he speaks, he acts, and he loves in ways that only a person can.

He names himself. When Moses asked God who he was, God said: "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14) — not a principle or a force, but a self-existent, self-aware being who defines himself by his own nature. He responds to prayer, changes his actions in response to human choices (though never his nature), and grieves over sin (Ephesians 4:30).

Most astonishing of all: he became one of us. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). In Jesus Christ, God took on human nature, walked human streets, felt human hunger and grief and joy, and died a human death. You cannot get more personal than that.

God Is Triune — A Community of Love

The Christian understanding of God as Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is not a mathematical puzzle to be solved. It is a window into God's relational nature. Before creation existed, before there was anything to love outside himself, God was love — because love was flowing eternally between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

John writes simply: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Not that God loves — though he does. But that love is not something God does; it is something God is. The Trinity explains how this is possible: love requires an object, and God has always had one in himself.

When God created human beings for relationship, he was not satisfying a need. He was extending outward the love that had always existed within himself — inviting his creatures into the very life of the Trinity.

God Is Just

God's love is inseparable from his justice. A God who ignored wrongdoing, who simply looked the other way at cruelty, abuse, and evil, would not be a God worthy of worship — he would be complicit. God's holiness means he cannot tolerate sin. His justice means every wrong will be accounted for.

"For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face." — Psalm 11:7

This is not a contradiction of his love — it is an expression of it. God's justice is what makes it safe to entrust yourself to him. He will not let evil win. He will not leave suffering unanswered. He will set all things right. The cross of Christ is the place where God's justice and his love met most fully — where the penalty for sin was paid, so that forgiveness could be offered without compromising righteousness.

God Is Known Most Clearly in Jesus

All of these attributes — holiness, grace, faithfulness, personhood, love, justice — are seen most clearly not in abstract theology but in a person.

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." — Colossians 1:15

Jesus said: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). If you want to know what God is like — not what theologians say about God, not what your culture assumes about God — look at Jesus. Watch how he treats the outcast, the sinner, the sick, and the powerful. Listen to what makes him angry and what makes him weep. See how he loves, how he forgives, and what he was willing to suffer.

Jesus is God's personality made visible.

For further reading, the C.S. Lewis Institute's article on God's Character and Personality by Stephen Eyre is a rich and accessible exploration of this topic.