When you look at a piece of furniture and see the beautiful graining in the wood, you are aware that the variation of the graining is simply the polished surface of the whole.  It is only the exterior that you see.  When it comes to God, His essential attributes or characteristics are somewhat like the grain of a beautiful piece of wood with its intertwined veins, which blend together and glow with a deep radiance and beauty.  When it comes to seeing God, we only see a very small part, yet because we are human and strive to understand God in terms of human relationships or behavior, we talk about his qualities which we call attributes.