The Transcendence of God

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Question 4: What is God?[i]
Answer: God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
  
The answer to question 4 is a head full, but then again how does one sum up God in one sentence?  The difference between infinite and eternal is that “eternal” has do with the fact that God has no beginning or end.  “Infinite” has to do with the fact that God is not limited in any fashion.  Hence, he is all-knowing, all-powerful, and omni-present.  There is nothing God cannot do.  But all the attributes described above can be described with one word.  It’s what theologians call transcendence.  God is transcendent.  It means that God is far above our comprehension or understanding.  In Isaiah 55:8-9 God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  God is beyond our human understanding.  This is simply because we have no frame of reference for fully understanding God.  We have no idea what it means to be eternal, to have no beginning or end.  Everything we know of has a beginning, and all things come to an end.  Nothing lasts forever.  We have no idea what it means to be all-knowing.   The idea that God knows every human thought of every mind on the face of the planet, past, present, and future, and that none of it is confused in the mind of God, is a complete mystery to us.  But that is God.  This is the God we serve and pray to, and this is the God who cares about us, so much so that he sent his Son into the world to die on the cross for sinners when he did not have to.  That God is beyond our comprehension is not something that should create fear or uneasiness within us, but should bring us great comfort, knowing that our lives are in the hands of someone who is not just a bigger version of ourselves, but in the hands of the one who spoke the universe into existence by the power of his word.  

[i] “A Catechism with Proofs” by Charles Haddon Spurgeon