What is the Orthodox Christian view on God?

By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10

The true understanding of God is rooted in divine revelation, preserved undefiled through the Holy Scriptures, Apostolic Tradition, and the Ecumenical Councils. God is not an abstract philosophical concept, a distant force, or a solitary monad; He is a personal, living God who has revealed Himself fully in the Person of Jesus Christ.

1. The Holy Trinity: One Essence, Three Hypostases

At the heart of the faith is the confession of the Holy Trinity. God—in native Coptic, Phnouti—is One in Divine Essence (ousia, a Greek loanword) and Three distinct Persons or Hypostases (hypostasis, a Greek loanword):

• The Father
• The Son
• The Holy Spirit (, Pipneuma Ethowab – using the Greek loanword)

These three Persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and of one undivided essence (homoousios), having one will, one power, and one divine nature. They are not three gods (tritheism), nor is God one person manifesting in three roles (the heresy of Sabellianism or Modalism).

• The Father is the eternal source, fountainhead, and cause within the Godhead, unbegotten and without origin.
• The Son is eternally begotten of the Father before all ages—"Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father," as St. Athanasius the Apostolic defended at the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) against Arius.
• The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone, as declared by Christ Himself ("the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father," John 15:26) and dogmatized at Constantinople (A.D. 381). The Western addition of the Filioque ("and the Son") by the Roman Catholic Church is an unlawful innovation that distorts the eternal relations within the Trinity.

2. God as Creator and Sustainer

God brought the universe and all creation into being out of absolute nothingness (ex nihilo) by His sovereign command. He is entirely uncreated and transcendent, while creation is created, contingent, and finite.

Creation is neither accidental nor self-generating; rather, as St. Basil the Great teaches in the Hexaemeron, the impenetrable wisdom and supreme intelligence of God created all things with order and purpose. Each species came into existence at His divine command, and humankind was uniquely created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26–27) with a rational soul, free will, and the capacity for eternal communion with Him.

3. A Personal God of Dynamic Communion

Christianity is not a mechanical set of rules or a deistic philosophy; it is a dynamic love relationship. Because God is intrinsically relational—an eternal communion of love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—mankind was created to participate in this divine life through grace.

As the Desert Fathers, including St. Anthony the Great, taught, salvation is not merely a legal acquittal before a judge (the distorted judicial view popularized by Protestantism), but a living, continuous covenant centered on union with God. Through the outpouring of divine grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the mysteries (sacraments), humankind is restored and elevated toward God's likeness.

4. The Incarnation: The Perfect Revelation of God

God's love for humanity culminated in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos (the Word). For our salvation, the Son took true flesh from the Holy Virgin Mary.

In Christ, the divine nature and the human nature united perfectly without mingling, without confusion, without separation, and without division into One Incarnate Nature of God the Word (Mia Physis tou Theou Logou Sesarkomene), as formulated by St. Cyril the Pillar of Faith. We reject both:

• Nestorianism, which divides Christ into two separate persons or two distinct natures acting separately; and
• Eutychian Monophysitism, which falsely claims Christ's humanity was dissolved or swallowed up into His divinity.

In Christ, we behold true God and true Man simultaneously, who lived, died on the Cross to conquer death, resurrected, and ascended into heaven to restore our fallen nature.

5. Truth Contrasted with Deviations

The true knowledge of God stands apart from all non-Orthodox teachings:

• Against Judaism: Judaism denies the Holy Trinity and rejects Jesus Christ as the divine Messiah and Son of God, clinging to a broken covenant and rejecting the fullness of divine revelation.
• Against Islam: Islam preaches a strict, solitary unitarian concept of God that strips Him of His eternal paternal relationship and denies the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity.
• Against Protestantism: Protestant theology has fractured into countless sects, frequently viewing God through a cold, transactional legalism (forensic justification) while stripping away the holy sacraments, apostolic tradition, and the dynamic reality of spiritual transformation.
• Against Roman Catholicism: The Latin Church altered the historic confession of the Godhead through the unauthorized insertion of the Filioque and advanced erroneous dogmas that elevate a singular bishop above the collective conciliar authority established by the Apostles.

In the confession of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we worship the One True God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to whom belongs all glory, honor, and dominion forever.