See the sharp contrast drawn between dead idols and the living, personal, true and only God: Acts 14:15; 1 Thess. 1:9; Psa. 94:9, 10.
Statement: God is to be clearly distinguished from things which have no life; he is a living Person.
(3) Attributes of personality are ascribed to God in the Scriptures.
God repents (Gen. 6:6}; grieves {Gen 6:6}; is angry {1 Kings 11:9); is jealous (Deut. 6:15); loves (Rev. 3:19); hates (Prov. 6:16).
Statement: God possesses the attributes of personality, and therefore is a Person.
(4) The relation which God bears to the Universe and to Men, as set forth in the Scriptures, can be explained only on the basis that God is a Person.
Deism maintains that God, while the Creator of the world, yet sustains no further relations to it. He made it just as the clock-maker makes a self-winding clock: makes it and then leaves it to run itself without any interference on His part. Such teaching as this finds no sanction in the Bible. What are God's relations to the universe and to men?
aa) He is the Creator of the Universe and Man.
Gen. 1:1, 26; John. 1:1-3. These verses contain vital truths. The universe did not exist from eternity, nor was it made from existing matter. It did not proceed as an emanation from the infinite, but was summoned into being by the decree of God. Science, by disclosing to us the marvellous power and accuracy of natural law, compels us to believe in a superintending intelligence who is infinite. Tyndall said: "I have noticed that it is not during the hours of my clearness and vigor that the doctrine of material atheism commends itself to my mind."
(In this connection the Arguments from Cause and Design, pp. 16 and 17, may be properly considered.)