The Bearing of the Personality of God on the Idea of Religion.
True religion may be defined as the communion between two persons: God and man. religion is a personal relationship between God in heaven, and man on the earth. If God were not a person there could be no communion; if both God and man were one there could be no communion, and, consequently, no religion. An independent personal relationship on both sides is absolutely necessary to communion. Man can have no communion with an influence, a force, an impersonal something; nor can an influence have any moving or affection towards man. It is absolutely necessary to the true definition of religion that both God and man be persons. God is person, not force or influence.
a) Definition of Personality.
Personality exists where there is intelligence, mind, will, reason, individuality, self-consciousness, and self-determination. There must be not mere consciousness—for the beast has that—but self-consciousness. Nor is personality determination—for the beast has this, too, even though this determination be the result of influences from without—but self-determination, the power by which man from an act of his own free will determines his acts from within.
Neither corporeity nor substance, as we understand these words, are necessarily, if at all, involved in personality. There may be true personality without either or both of these.
b) Scripture Teaching on the Personality of God.
(In this connection it will Be well to refer to the Ontological
Argument for the Existence of God, for which see p. 17.)
(1) Exod 3:14;—"I AM THAT I AM."
This name is wonderfully significant. Its central idea is that of existence and personality. The words signify "I AM, I WAS, I SHALL BE," so suggestively corresponding with the New Testament statement concerning God: "Who wast, and art, and art to come."
All the names given to God in the Scripture denote personality.
Here are some of them: