Attributes Of God Aw Tozer

Working Through The Knowledge Of The Holy

I picked up A.W. Tozer's Attributes Of God Aw Tozer around 2019 and honestly didn't know what to expect. I'd read plenty of theology books that either read like textbooks or sounded like they were written by someone who'd never had to explain these ideas to a regular person. Tozer sat somewhere in between. The book is organized around divine attributes, and each chapter walks through one: holiness, omnipotence, omniscience, love, justice, and so on. That structure works fine, but the real value isn't in memorizing the list. It's in how Tozer handles the tension between God's transcendence and immanence without flattening either side. The book itself is short, maybe 250 pages depending on edition. Tozer doesn't pad things out with academic citations or historical surveys. He just sits with each attribute long enough to show where it runs into trouble in practical belief. I've seen people use this as a devotional read, which is fair, but it also works if you're doing serious study. The problem is that it's easy to skim through it without actually stopping to think about what he's saying. Each attribute gets treated fairly briefly, and that speed is both the book's strength and its main limitation. I ran into a specific issue when trying to use Tozer's framework in a small group setting. Someone asked me how the attribute of divine simplicity actually connects to the other attributes, and I realized I hadn't thought through that link clearly myself. Tozer mentions simplicity in passing but doesn't build the systematic connections that someone like Thomas Aquinas would lay out. I ended up pulling in supplementary material from Richard Howe's commentary on the book and a few papers on classical theism just to fill the gaps. That's not a criticism of Tozer. It's just honest about what the book does and doesn't cover.

How To Approach The Material Without Wasting Your Time

Read one attribute per session. Don't rush. Tozer's prose is accessible, which means it's tempting to breeze through. The material moves slowly and deliberately on purpose. Each chapter is designed to make you sit uncomfortable for a bit, and if you read fast you miss the point entirely. I typically spend about forty-five minutes on a single chapter, rereading sections, and jotting notes. That pace gives you maybe three to four chapters per week if you're doing this seriously. The common mistake people make is treating the book as a reference manual. It isn't. It's a meditation on the nature of God framed around specific attributes. If you want systematic theology, go grab Wayne Grudem or B.B. Warfield instead. Tozer is writing pastoral theology with a philosophical undercurrent, not constructing a comprehensive system. Trying to force it into that mold just leaves you frustrated and missing what he's actually doing. Here's something most guides don't mention: the real test of whether you've absorbed any of this isn't whether you can define omnibenevolence correctly. It's whether your understanding of God's character changes how you handle a situation that seems unfair. I kept running into this with people in my circle who could quote Tozer's definitions perfectly but still reacted to suffering with the same confusion and anger they'd had before reading the book. The attribute of sovereignty in particular tends to land as abstract theory unless you've actually worked through what it means in practice. That gap between knowing and applying is where most readers get stuck.

Common Pitfalls And Where The Book Falls Short

Tozer wrote in the 1960s, and while his core arguments hold up, there are areas where his framework shows its age. He doesn't engage much with modern philosophical theology, so if you're coming at this from a contemporary analytic philosophy background, you'll notice the gaps quickly. The discussion of the problem of evil, for instance, gets treated in a paragraph or two rather than getting the sustained engagement it deserves. That's a known limitation, and it's worth acknowledging before you start. Another thing that catches people off guard: Tozer's Protestant evangelical assumptions shape his reading more than he sometimes lets on. If you're coming from a Catholic, Orthodox, or non-Christian tradition, you'll find yourself disagreeing with him on certain points without it being a dramatic disagreement. It's subtle. The attribute of grace, for example, gets a treatment that assumes a particular soteriological framework that not everyone shares. That doesn't make the book wrong for its intended audience, but it does mean you should be aware of what you're signing up for. There's also the question of whether Tozer overcorrects toward mystery. He frequently reminds readers that God is ineffable and beyond full comprehension. That's theologically sound in its own context, but it can become a conversation stopper. If you press him on a specific point about how an attribute works in practice, you sometimes get the mystery card played rather than a substantive answer. It's not dishonest, but it does limit how far you can take the framework in a dialogue with someone who wants more precision.

What Actually Works When You Apply This

The most useful approach I've found is pairing each chapter with a corresponding scripture passage and then writing out three specific ways that attribute shows up in your actual life. Not hypothetical scenarios. Real ones. When I worked through the chapter on holiness, I listed three concrete moments where my own behavior had been shaped or challenged by an understanding of divine holiness. That exercise took about twenty minutes per chapter but made the material stick in a way that reading alone never did. I also recommend keeping a separate notebook for follow-up questions. Tozer raises things he doesn't fully resolve, and those unresolved threads are often where the real learning happens. The question of how divine immutability relates to God's emotional responses is one that comes up repeatedly in the book and never gets a clean answer. Writing down your own attempts to work through it forces you to engage honestly rather than nodding along. If you want a more complete treatment alongside Tozer, consider supplementing with J.I. Packer's Knowing God. Packer covers similar ground with more systematic depth, and reading them together gives you both the accessible meditation and the more rigorous theological backbone. That combination usually takes about eight to ten weeks to work through at a steady pace.

You can find the book in most Christian bookstores and online retailers. It's widely available in paperback, hardcover, and digital formats. No special edition is required, though the Zondervan publication is the standard version most people reference. Check Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or a local independent bookseller. The ISBN for the common paperback edition is 978-0060671232, but there are multiple printings with slightly different ISBNs depending on the year. I've recommended this book to people at various stages of their faith journey, and it works best for those who already have a foundation and are looking to deepen it rather than for complete beginners. The material assumes you're familiar with basic Christian doctrine and isn't designed to teach that from scratch. If someone is new to the faith, they'll benefit more from starting with something more introductory before coming here.