The question of God’s nature seems purely theological until we begin to examine what exactly we mean by the word «God.» After all, most religious disagreements arise not because people read entirely different texts, but because they understand the same words differently. This is especially evident when Judaism and Christianity are compared. Both religions speak of one God, turn to the Hebrew Scriptures, and use the concepts of the Divine Spirit, the Word, holiness and revelation. Yet from these shared concepts they draw substantially different conclusions.
For example, a Christian may say that the Holy Spirit is God. And a Jewish thinker may well agree with that statement if the Spirit is understood as the action of the Almighty Himself. But if what is meant is a separate Divine person, the agreement ends at once. The result is a curious situation: outwardly the statement is the same, yet its theological content is entirely different.
To make sense of this question, we must first turn to the Tanakh and see how it speaks about God at all.
The Torah contains no systematic philosophical definition of the Divine nature. We will find there no reflections on God’s substance, on His inner structure, or on what components the Divine essence consists of. Moreover, the very act of asking about components already presupposes divisibility, and that contradicts the fundamental principle of Jewish monotheism.
In the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy 6:4) it is written: «Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One.» This is the famous proclamation of the Shema Yisrael. Its meaning is not limited to the claim that there is only one God rather than several. It also speaks of the fundamental unity of God Himself, Who is not part of some more complex reality.
Here it is important to understand the difference between uniqueness and unity. Uniqueness means that there is no second such God. Unity, in classical Jewish philosophy, means that God Himself is not composed of parts. Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah, in the section «Laws of the Foundations of the Torah» (1:7), specifically stresses that the unity of the Almighty is not like the unity of an object that can be divided into its components.
This is a crucial point. If God is absolute unity, then one cannot speak of Him as a being within whom there exist several independent centers of consciousness or will.
But then a question arises: why does the Tanakh constantly speak of the Spirit of God, the Word of God, His glory, His presence and even His hand?
Does this not testify to some kind of plurality within the Godhead?
In my view, it is precisely here that we must distinguish between the language of revelation and a philosophical description of essence. The Tanakh speaks of God in the language of human experience. When we read about the hand of the Almighty, no physical limb is meant. When it is said that God became angry, this does not necessarily mean an emotional state in the human sense. And when it is said that the Spirit of God rests upon a person, it by no means follows automatically that some independent Divine person has separated from God.
There is a well-known principle in Jewish tradition: «The Torah speaks in the language of human beings.» This means that revelation is addressed to man and therefore uses concepts that man is able to grasp.
Take the word «ruach.» In Hebrew it means wind, breath, spirit. Already at the beginning of the book of Bereshit (Genesis 1:2) we encounter the expression «Ruach Elohim,» usually translated as «the Spirit of God.»
But what exactly does the word «spirit» mean here? Is it a separate being located alongside God? Or is it a manifestation of Divine power in the created world?
In the context of the Tanakh, the second understanding seems more natural. God acts, creates, imparts wisdom to man and inspires the prophets. All of these actions can be described through the concept of His Spirit. And there is no need to assume the existence of an independent person within the Godhead.
For example, in the book of Shemot (Exodus 31:3) God speaks of Bezalel, the craftsman entrusted with making the furnishings of the Sanctuary: «And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.»
Clearly, Bezalel does not become God. He receives the abilities necessary to carry out a particular task. The Spirit of God here is connected with wisdom, knowledge and creative work.
Likewise, the book of Bamidbar (Numbers 11:25) tells how God took of the spirit that was upon Moshe and placed it upon the seventy elders. If this account is understood literally, as the transfer of a part of the Divine essence, many philosophical difficulties arise. But if we see here the transfer of a prophetic gift and a spiritual capacity, the meaning becomes clear.
That is precisely why in Jewish theology Ruach HaKodesh is usually regarded as Divine inspiration or a special form of the manifestation of God’s presence, rather than as a separate hypostasis.
Of course, a caveat is in order here. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is not considered a separate god either. Christian dogma affirms the unity of the Divine essence alongside the distinction of three persons. It would therefore be wrong to portray Christianity simply as a belief in three gods. The disagreement is far subtler: Judaism does not accept the very idea of a plurality of Divine persons, even if they are defined as consubstantial.
Now let us consider another concept — the Shechinah, the Divine Presence.
In the Torah, God commands that a Sanctuary be built and says: «And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them» (Exodus 25:8).
Let us note one particular feature. God promises to dwell among the people, but this does not mean that He physically moves into a structure built by human hands. Moreover, at the dedication of the Temple, King Shlomo says plainly: «But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built!» (1 Kings 8:27).
An apparent contradiction arises. On the one hand, God dwells in the Temple. On the other, even the entire universe cannot contain Him.
But the contradiction disappears if we distinguish between the Divine essence and the manifestation of the Divine presence. The Temple does not contain God the way a vessel contains water. It is a place of special disclosure of His presence in the human world.
And this distinction is extremely important for the rest of our discussion.
If God can manifest His presence in a particular place without becoming that place, then why should God’s presence in a human being automatically mean that the person himself is God?
After all, the Tanakh repeatedly speaks of people through whom the Almighty acts. Moshe performs great miracles, Eliyahu brings down fire from heaven, Elisha restores a dead person to life. The prophets utter the words of God, sometimes even in the first person. Yet none of these examples requires us to recognize the prophet as the Creator incarnate.
It is precisely here that we come to the question that became one of the main points of divergence between Judaism and Christianity: can the Word of God become a human being?
In the book of Bereshit, the world comes into being through Divine speech. «And God said, Let there be light: and there was light» (Genesis 1:3). Psalm 33:6 (in the Hebrew numbering) says that by the word of the LORD the heavens were made.
But what is the Word of God?
Hebrew uses the concept of «davar,» meaning word or speech, and in certain contexts also a matter, a deed or an event. This is quite characteristic of biblical thinking: a word is not necessarily abstract information. It is bound up with action.
When a person makes a promise, his words may remain an empty sound. When God speaks, His will is accomplished. The Divine word is effective not because it is a separate being, but because it is the word of the Almighty.
Therefore the expression «God created the world by His word» does not require the assumption that alongside God there was yet another person who was directly engaged in the work of creation.
A simple example may help. When a person makes a decision and then carries it out, we distinguish between his thought, his word and his action. Yet this does not mean that we are dealing with three different people. These are different manifestations of the activity of a single subject.
Of course, every analogy between man and God is limited. But it helps us understand why, in Jewish tradition, the Word and the Spirit of God are not necessarily regarded as independent persons.
Here a connection arises with the prologue of the Gospel of John, which says: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.»
Christian tradition sees in this text one of the foundations of the doctrine of the divine nature of Jesus. However, the term «Logos» used in the Greek original has a complex history. It is connected not only with the biblical idea of the creative word, but also with Greek philosophy and with Hellenistic Judaism.
It is especially interesting to compare this text with Jewish wisdom literature. In the eighth chapter of the book of Mishlei (Proverbs), wisdom is presented as speaking in the first person. She describes her presence at the creation of the world.
Does it follow from this that wisdom is a separate deity? In the classical Jewish understanding, no. What we have is a literary personification of Divine wisdom.
Such images make it possible to speak about complex theological concepts in language people can understand. But personification does not yet mean the existence of an independent person.
That is why the opening lines of the Gospel of John can be discussed in the context of Jewish ideas about the Word and wisdom. However, in the fourteenth verse a statement appears that creates the fundamental divergence: «And the Word was made flesh.»
For Christian theology, this is a statement about the incarnation. For Judaism, it raises the question of the boundary between the Creator and creation.
The Tanakh repeatedly emphasizes that God is not a human being. In the book of Bamidbar (Numbers 23:19) it is written: «God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent.»
Of course, the immediate context of this verse concerns God’s faithfulness to His word, not a specially developed doctrine of the impossibility of incarnation. It would therefore be inaccurate to claim that this one verse settles the entire philosophical dispute once and for all. But together with other biblical texts, it became an important part of the Jewish understanding of the difference between God and man.
In Maimonides this idea receives systematic expression: God has no body, possesses no bodily attributes and is not subject to the changes characteristic of the material world.
Consequently, from the standpoint of classical Jewish theology, a human being can be a prophet, a righteous person, a king, the Mashiach, a bearer of Divine inspiration — but he does not thereby become the Almighty Himself.
This allows us to frame the question of the Messiah differently.
The word «Mashiach» means «anointed one.» In the Tanakh, kings and priests are called anointed, and in the book of Yeshayahu (Isaiah 45:1) this title is applied even to the Persian king Cyrus. The word itself does not indicate the divine nature of the one who bears it.
Therefore, in traditional Judaism the Mashiach is understood first and foremost as a human being, a descendant of King David, who is to accomplish a specific historical mission. Maimonides, in the «Laws of Kings and Their Wars» (chapters 11–12), describes the Mashiach as a king who will study Torah, observe the commandments, restore the kingdom of David and lead the people of Israel to the fulfillment of their historical destiny.
Notably, Maimonides specifically warns that one should not think the Mashiach must necessarily perform miracles, change the laws of nature or raise the dead. His messianic standing is determined not by a supernatural nature, but by his meeting certain requirements and by the results of his work.
Here we discover yet another essential difference between the religious approaches. In Christianity, the question of who Jesus is is closely bound up with his divine nature. In Judaism, the question of the Mashiach is connected primarily with who this man is, what his lineage is and what he must accomplish.
This does not mean that Judaism denies the possibility of a special closeness between man and God. On the contrary, the entire prophetic tradition is built on the possibility of such closeness. But closeness is not the same as identity.
One might say that this is where the boundary runs between two different conceptions of Divine revelation. According to one, God can reveal Himself through a human being so fully that this person is the incarnation of God Himself. According to the other, even the most perfect disclosure of the Divine will through a human being does not remove the distinction between the Creator and His creation.
It is the second conception that underlies classical Jewish monotheism.
At the same time, I would not reduce the whole discussion to a simple contrast between a right religion and a wrong one. The history of theology is far more complex. For centuries, Christian thinkers have tried to explain how the doctrine of the incarnation can be reconciled with God’s immutability and unity. Jewish thinkers, in turn, developed various ways of understanding the Divine presence, prophecy, and the relationship between the infinite Creator and the finite world.
But the difference between these approaches truly exists, and it cannot be removed by simply swapping terms.
Therefore, when we say that the Spirit of God is God, we must specify what exactly is meant. If we are speaking of the action of the Almighty, His presence and revelation, then such an expression can quite well be understood within the framework of Jewish monotheism. But if a separate Divine person is implied, we are already moving into a different theological system.
The same applies to the Word of God. In Jewish tradition, the Word is not separated from the One Who speaks. It expresses His will and accomplishes His purpose. But it does not follow that the Word must have a human biography of its own.
It seems to me that, in order to understand these questions, it is especially important to abandon the habit of beginning to read an ancient text with a ready-made dogmatic conclusion. It is far more fruitful first to find out what the words meant in the cultural and religious environment in which they arose, what ideas were available to their first readers, and how those ideas changed over the following centuries.
For it is one thing to explain the Tanakh through later Christian dogma, and quite another to try to understand how the Hebrew Scriptures themselves speak about God.
And if we truly wish to understand the nature of the Almighty, then perhaps we should begin not with the question of what God can become, but with the question of what His absolute unity means.
Because it is on the answer to this question that our entire further understanding depends — of His Spirit, His Word, His presence in the world, and His relationship with man.
