The Bible describes God in human terms, using
human characteristics. We read, for example, that the "arm of
the LORD" (Is.51:9) does something, or that "the LORD smelled
the pleasing odor" (Gen.8:21). This kind of language is called
"anthropomorphism" which means that we are ascribing human
attributes to God.
The Calvinist tends to soften the
revelational content of such Bible-language because of his
commitment to his particular presuppositions about God. When the
Bible uses anthropomorphisms it reveals something about God, but
Calvinists sometimes so restrict what is really revealed, that
it makes the anthropomorphism meaningless. I will give some
examples shortly.
We should avoid the temptations of idolatry
which is to make God in our own image and in corruptible forms
and for that reason Christians have emphasized the radical
differences that exist between God and man. His thoughts are
higher than ours and too wonderful for us to fully understand
(Is.55:8,9). There is so much that is too difficult for man, but
"nothing is too hard for God" (Gen.18:14, Lk.1:37). Man can
predict so little, but God "declares the end from the beginning"
(Is.46:10). Man is only one place at a time, but God is
everywhere at once; some men have done honorable things, but God
is a source of total moral obligation and worthy of all honor
and praise; and so on.
Even though God is so radically different, He
is a person (in some sense) as man is a person. But since He is
a person with qualities to such unusual degrees we pause to
consider the differences when texts liken His life to ours.
Calvinists, though, have emphasized the radical difference
between God and man and have tended to discount what God has
taught about Himself in anthropomorphic language. There are
ways, however, to arrive at the meaning of anthropomorphisms
without imposing non-Biblical presuppositions on them and
thereby deciding in advance what they must and must not say.
ARRIVING AT THE MEANING IN ANTHROPOMORPHISMS
The Bible teaches us that God speaks. What we
normally understand the word "speak" to mean is to communicate
by means of the vocal cords. The Bible, however, teaches us that
God speaks and that He is also a spirit without human bodily
form (Deut.4:15) and thus without vocal cords as humans have
them. This seems to be a contradiction. The idea of vocal cords
in the anthropomorphism seems to prevent the meaning of "speaks"
from being applied to God. But, if we subtract the vocal-cords
element and have any meaning left that makes sense, then we
apply that sense to God. That is, God effects communication. we
have cut off the uniquely human element of vocal cords to arrive
at the real meaning. This method is generally good but there is
a danger to it. For one thing, God may use the vocal cords of
one of His people to speak; for another, He may have vocal cords
in some other spiritual sense. We may not know what is uniquely
human in a given anthropomorphism.
Actual human vocal cords may give us a dim,
shadowy indication of some greater, concrete reality about God.
We have with the word "speak", images of air movement causing
vibrations in other elements producing sound transmissions, etc.
All these things reflect the divine being. Air reflects the idea
of spirit; movement intimates life; sound suggest word, etc.
Much that we might initially think to be unique to man may, upon
reflection, give uncanny insight into the nature of God. He,
after all, said, "Let Us make man in our image, according to Our
likeness" (Gen.1:26,27). Man, it seems, is a "Theomorphism"; a
God-form. That is very close to being a copy in some way.
Our eyes and our seeing, for example, are
used as a form of what God does. God monitors His creation and
works it after the counsel of His will. "In Him all things hold
together" (or "endure" Col.1:17). God looks after His creation
and keeps it going. our eyes are a microcosm-like representation
of what God's eyes are. Our eyes may be created and named after
something in God which their function is like. In the same way,
our earthly fatherhood derives its name from the heavenly
Father. Ephesians 3:14,15 says, "For this reason I kneel before
the Father, of whom every fatherhood [patria] in heaven and on
earth is named." Our physical hands, our feet, ears, nostrils,
etc. all are really only a semblance of a much more solid
spiritual reality of what would be God's hands, ears, etc. I'm
not implying that God has a body. I am suggesting that the
organs and functions that are man's suggest to us something in
God that is like them.
2 Chron. 16:9 says, for instance, "For the
eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He
may strongly support those whose heart is completely His ...."
Certainly our conception of this illustration will be
anthropomorphic. That is to say, we may have a mental image of
God scanning humanity in a search that, were it like our own
searches, might involve overlooking things. The movement of "to
and fro" may suggest that when the gaze is in one direction,
action occurring in an opposite direction might be missed by
God. From our knowledge of God in all the Scripture we know that
these faults would not be true of God. What we can't deny is
that God finds out about our faith.
We assume too much of our own intellectual
superiority to OT people if we think they did not conceive of
God as far more than the anthropomorphic image presented them.
It's not that OT people had to have crude illustrations to
understand God whereas we, with greater intellectual awareness,
can relegate anthropomorphisms to less weighty positions. Those
who do so will have to guard themselves from thinking they have
better notions of God that are more in harmony with
Platonic-like ideals. The ancients understood that God monitored
all of His cosmos instantaneously ("all things are open and laid
bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Heb 4:13 cf.
Provb.15:3).
THE CORRECT INTERPRETATIONAL PRINCIPLE
Man-forms (i.e. anthropomorphisms) appear to
limit God, which fact tempts those with Calvinist
presuppositions to favor the so-called "unlimiting" Bible
passages over the "limiting" Bible passages. A hermeneutical
(interpretational) principle is employed which at first seems
good: Statements about the "unlimited" extent of God's knowledge
and power, for example, must control the anthropomorphic
statements and not vice versa. If, on the other hand.
anthropomorphisms controlled our understanding of God, they say,
we would be reducing Him to idolatrous, human proportions. We
would be giving precedence to a language of ignorance,
indecision, and change over an all- powerful and all-knowing
type of language.
But, when I give what is considered too much
credence to anthropomorphisms that tend to modify
"unlimiting-type" Bible passages, I am faced with Calvinistic
accusations that are defamatory and libelous. They would accuse
me of maintaining that God is ignorant; that He capriciously
changes His mind; that His purposes of goodness are thwarted;
that He is vacillating; and so on.
I maintain that something is lost if either
principle of interpretation is used in exclusion of the other
and I plead what D. A. Carson would call a "disjunctive fallacy"
which is false logic. It is the wrong exclusion of what might be
an acceptable "in-between" in certain supposedly either/or
situations. [1] If the idea that God is
changeless, for example, takes precedence over anthropomorphisms
that show God making changes, then the total changelessness of
the Greek philosophy begins to dominate. If anthropomorphisms
are given undiscerning precedence, then our view of God becomes
dominated by the ever-changing emotional life of the Pagan
deities. We might then tend to think that perhaps God has a body
and is located somewhere in particular.
The unexcluded middle position gives the
correct hermeneutical principle which teaches us that God reacts
to man without loss or change of His character.
CALVIN'S ACCOMMODATION VIEW
Calvin said that God often describes
[reveals?] Himself in a way that "accommodates" our limited
capacity to understand Him. So at times He represents Himself to
us not as He is in Himself, but "as He seems to us".
[2] Calvin believes that because God wants
people to respond to Him that He must represent Himself as one
who is also responsive; that He reacts to human action.
[3] Calvin apparently thinks that God
represents Himself as responsive but with the truth being that
He is not; that it is really eternal decrees that are made to
look like responses so that man will act towards God in apparent
freedom. So, for example, when God reveals that "He regretted
that He had made Saul king over Israel" (1 Sam. 15:11,35),
Calvinists would say that God is revealing "what it seems to us
that He did." Such would be a false revelation if God in
actuality did not want Saul and his descendants to be kings
(c.f. 1 Sam. 13:13).
SPECIFIC ANTHROPOMORPHISMS OFTEN DISCOUNTED
An arrogant attitude toward the worth of
anthropomorphisms would tend to empty their content of didactic
use. Of what, for example, are we to learn about God from the
following revelation?
Gen.6:5-7; "Then the LORD saw that the
wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the
LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was
grieved in His heart. And the LORD said, 'I will blot out man
whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to
animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am
sorry that I have made them.'"
If we dismiss that God reacts to man, what is
left of this crude portrayal of disappointment; this being
touched with deep feelings of hurt? If nothing unexpected
happens with God, this revelation is meaningless. What an
inappropriate way to teach that corruption has been appointed to
reach a level where it will have to be totally dismantled. God,
on the contrary, was distressed to the core (v.6). He was not so
from eternity past. God's grief is incomprehensible if not
temporal in nature (as when we grieve the Holy Spirit). To truly
know God's deep feelings about His unrequited love (c.f. Lk. 19:
10, 41) makes our own repentance more grievous.
Calvin's accommodation view, because it
appeals to God's level of understanding as being superior to
ours (which I readily grant), insists that "anthropomorphisms"
such as Genesis+6:5-7 to be a case of God in His grace, coming
down to our level to converse with us in our own speech. It
insists that the meaning is not "regret" on God's part, but the
abhorrence of a holy God at the awful wickedness and corruption
into which man had fallen. I agree that it means this too, but
it is not as though Moses (or his sources) could not have
expressed what I have just expressed. He, in fact, expresses
God's abhorrence several places including Leviticus 26:44 which
states, "... neither will I [God] abhor them [Israelites] to
destroy them [actually] ...."
Man's wholesale rejection of faith in the
face of God's grace was apparently worse than what God's
prognosis had been. Interestingly, the NT word for foreknowledge
(proginosko) was sometimes used by the Greeks in the medical
sense that I have just employed: "a prediction based on a
diagnosis." [4]
I know the way I am interpreting
anthropomorphisms here urges the question of God's sovereignty
and majesty and for that reason I need to make a short
digression. The simple answer is that a Sovereign may self-limit
His sovereignty in a way that will not transgress His overall
will. For example, the Calvinist friend of mine (prior to
becoming a Calvinist) gave me this illustration of God's
sovereignty and man's freedom. He had been an excellent basket
ball player in high school and college. He told me that when he
played his little brother at home that his abilities allowed him
to "declare the end from the beginning." He said, "I have
spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed and I will
do it" (Is. 6:10,11). Instead of merely looking into a virtual
future to see what would happen and then make his announcement,
my friend was actively involved in bringing events to the place
where he could fulfill his announcements. By his superior power
he could have the game end with any point values that he wanted
to predict at the beginning. This he could do by regulating his
brother's progress by limiting himself in some ways. When God
made man, He also had made a creature who, by the nature of the
case, demonstrated God's action of self-limitation without the
loss of His sovereignty. This is a higher view of God's
sovereignty than the view espoused by the Calvinist.
As Jack W. Cottrell has said, "Such
limitations as these in no way contradict God's sovereignty,
simply because they are self-limitations. They are part of the
sovereign decree, not a violation of it. If they were
limitations imposed on God from outside God, then his own
sovereignty would indeed be compromised. But they are God's own
choice, and as such are not the negation of sovereignty, but the
very expression of it. The sovereign God is free to do as he
pleases, and this includes the freedom to limit himself".
[5]
If I were to say, "I don't think of my God as
being a wrathful or just, but a loving and merciful God." And I
proceeded to strip off something of what God is, then I would be
making an idol for myself. Now, from the Calvinist's point of
view, this is what I am doing with the concept of God's
sovereignty. They say that I am making an idol when I describe
God's sovereignty in a way that shows God freely limiting
Himself. They think I am making an idol whereas the truth is
that they are making God out to be the way they imagine He
should be. That is to say, they are the ones who have made an
image from their imagination -- an idol! My conception of God is
closer to what He has revealed Himself to be in His written
word. The Calvinist, on the other hand, has taken a concept
represented by the word "sovereignty" and has made God conform
to their notion of the concept.
Thus (getting back), through Bible
anthropomorphisms, we may be touched with the feelings of God's
"infirmities" so to speak; His self limitations. God knows ours
and we His by virtue of there being a correspondence between
object and image. God truly grieves (Eph.4:30), rejoices
(Zeph.3:17), is pleased or displeased (Heb. 11:6), etc., but He
has not lost control of what He wants to control.
ANALOGICAL LANGUAGE
Calvinists have tried to salvage their
unresponsive notions of God by reference to what is called the
"analogical" nature of descriptive terms. When men use words to
describe a thing and then use the same word to describe
something else, the meaning intended for each use might have 1.)
no difference, 2.) have some difference, or 3.), it might have a
high degree of difference.
Meanings that don't change when used are
precise. They call this kind of word usage "univocal". If a
word's meaning does not remain precise when used of two
different things they call its usage, "analogical". A large
difference in usage they call "equivocable".
[6]
The point Calvinists try to make is that
man's language is incapable of being precise about God but is
capable of being understandable and useful because we can
imagine things proportionately. [7] For
example, because I am the father of my children, I can know
quite precisely what it is for others to be fathers of their
children. By analogy I can know what it would mean to say that I
am the father of several generations of Moores. There are some
differences introduced when I begin speaking of "generations"
but the meaning is still understandable. By analogy I can
understand what it means to say that Jubal was the father of all
those who play the lyre and pipe, that Abraham was the father of
all those who are having faith, that Einstein was the father of
the theory of relativity, or that the Church Fathers were
instrumental in guiding the Church through the early stages.
But, the Calvinist would say that my understanding of the
fatherhood of God would be useful but much less precise than all
of these examples because of the "great" proportionate
differences between God and man.
This is how they invariably account for texts
that would otherwise give the idea of God as a responsive
person. Because God's insight, for example, is proportionately
so much greater than man's, the volatile reaction we may have to
things (of which we have little insight) is so much greater than
that of Him who has unlimited insight. [8]
In fact, they would say, God would have no reaction because the
proportionality is carried out infinitely.
How does the "analogical" understanding of
language, then, help one to understand texts like Genesis 6:6
where God grieved in His heart and was sorry that He had made
man? If one has already decided that God is unmoved then even
the "analogical" description of word meanings here is useless.
We ought not operate on the assumption of the
univocal validity of language for both God and man, because it
is clear that things like the Father to Son relationship of God
is not exactly the same thing it is for me and my son. it is
also clear that we cannot impose the same limitations on God's
grief that are implicit in man's grief, but, as I have shown,
the difference is not totally beyond our understanding.
Calvinists make a point of saying that
analogical language introduces not just quantitative
differences, but qualitative differences. For example, they say
God's knowledge is not just many times greater than our
knowledge, but of a different quality. By this they mean to show
that although we can understand something of one whose knowledge
is quantitatively greater than ours, we might not grasp the
significance of a knowledge that is qualitatively different than
ours. Although they say analogical language gives us an
understanding of God, they imply that because words are not used
precisely in the same way with us and with God, we may be
susceptible to misunderstandings. I agree with that possibility,
but would like to give an illustration that shows the
effectiveness of analogical language for communicating truth.
Building upon the note above, concerning the
analogical nature of the Flatland story, I would like for you to
imagine what the Square would think of a Cube. Having never been
able to see a Cube in his two dimensions, the Square would
probably be focused on the quantitative differences between
himself (one square) and a Cube (six square faces). To us three
dimensional creatures, we know that the Square's thoughts can't
really take in the qualitative difference of perpendicularity of
the Cube's square faces to each other (except to believe it to
be true in some mysterious way because of lower dimensional
relationships). The Square on Flatland might imagine that when
he sees one square face of a Cube resting on his Flatland, that
the five other alleged faces are somewhere else on Flatland so
far removed that they are out of sight. The Square is
susceptible to misunderstandings because of tendencies to think
quantitatively. Nevertheless, when the Square is transported out
of his Flatland and given the ability to see in three
dimensions, he must marvel at what he did understand about the
Cube's squareness and yet, what more there was to it
qualitatively (c.f. 2 Thes 1:10; 1 Jn 3:2; Jn 20:19).
I believe that it will be the same with us
and God. We know that God reacts to men, but we will be
astonished at the quality of that reaction. That God "reacts",
makes sense just as the fatherhood of God makes sense (Eph.
3:14-15). God does not make man His pattern, but rather, since
we are in the pattern of God, we are able to understand Him in a
very important and loving way.
UNNECESSITATED KNOWLEDGE
We, ourselves, may understand how an all
knowing agent can experience disappointment or surprise and
delight by considering the following: Reflect for a moment on
the way you felt, for example, when several of you and your
friends began to play a game involving the throw of dice. If
your first throw was sixes, you were shocked and elated; if
snake eyes, the opposite unbelief. Intellectually, one throw is
as likely as another (we would be all knowing in the sense of
knowing all possibilities in this case), but the odds against
any particular throw are remote for us.
Much of our revelation concerning God tends
to show that the all knowing (omniscient) attribute of God is to
be understood, in part, in the sense of His knowing all
possibilities. This is my view of what I call "unnecessitated
knowledge". It is unnecessitated in the sense that this kind of
knowledge does not have to be actualized but it may be
actualized with God remaining sovereign. First of all, though,
God knows all that is (i.e. all that has existed or is now
existing -- Prov. 15:3) and all that He will cause to come into
being (Acts 15:18). This kind of all-knowing has to do with all
that is actual. God knows the future truths in willing them (not
unlike my basket ball playing friend). But, second, the Bible
teaches that there are some things that may come to pass apart
from God making it necessary even though He made it possible
(e.g. Ex. 4:8,9; Is. 54:14,15). The fall of man is the first and
best example of this. Because He knows all possibilities, He has
what I call "unnecessitated knowledge." This is one view of
God's omniscience that is rejected by the Calvinist.
ANTHROPOMORPHISMS THAT TEACH THE NATURE OF
GOD'S KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING MAN'S FAITH
If God has created in Man an agent that may
bring something uncaused into being (uncaused by God), then God
may not know the actuality of its being; merely the possibility.
The Scriptures plainly teach that God learns of the actuality of
our faith and love coming into being (or, being rejected)
whereas He knew them only as possibilities beforehand. The
nature of what God learns does not change God's nature at all.
He does not learn in the sense that He adds to what makes Him
God.
The following are some examples of God
learning actualities, and are "proofs" that there are some
things that He does not know in the sense of knowing their
actuality by virtue of causing them:
Deut 8:2 "And you shall remember all the way
which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these
forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what
was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or
not."
Deut 13:3 "you shall not listen to the words
of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God
is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with
all your heart and with all your soul."
2 Chron 32:31 "And even in the matter of the
envoys of the rulers of Babylon, who sent to him to inquire of
the wonder that had happened in the land, God left him alone
only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart."
Gen 22:12 "And he said, 'Do not stretch out
your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know
that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your
only son, from Me.'"
Jer 3:7, 19-20 "I thought that after she had
done all this she would return to Me, but she did not ...."
(I will omit discussion here of the many
passages on God's repentance in response to something in man)
The deep, uncertain and wishful feeling of
God is expressed again in Deut 5:29; "Oh, that they had such a
heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My
commandments ...."
This is an expression of God's will. It shows
that God has granted the possibility of such a heart but not an
irresistible necessity or actuality. Deut 29:4 says, "Yet to
this day the LORD has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to
see, nor ears to hear." This shows that the initiative in making
faith a possibility lies in God's grace and in that respect,
when they do have faith it is to God's credit. This point is not
obvious to those steeped in the Reformed tradition. These
scriptures teach us that God wants to give the Israelites a
heart to know but they are refusing to have faith in Him. Deut
31:21 explains it further; " ... for I know their intent which
they are developing today, before I have brought them into the
land which I swore." God sees the developments of our faith or
unbelief apparently as they develop.
Genesis 18:21 appears to be a case of God
testing to know a people's faith response to His grace. It is
sometimes dismissed too easily as crudely anthropomorphic. It
says, "I [the LORD] will go down now, and see if they [Sodom]
have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to
Me; and if not I will know." Superficially it tends to reveal
that from afar God cannot discern what exists in our location. I
suggest, however, that what He will come to know is whether or
not He will elicit any faith upon His special visitation. Up
until this visitation, complete non-faith rejection has been
Sodom's response to their knowledge of God. (On the other hand,
God's visitation on Nineveh, through Jonah, elicited faith. c.f.
Lu. 19:44)
An interesting aspect of this particular text
is the revelation of God's deliberation about whether or not He
would even share His intentions with Abraham (Gen. 18:17-19).
This tends to support the notion that some of God's intentions
are formed in our time.
Because I part with the Calvinist over
accepting the Greek, "Unmoved Mover" description of God as an
influence in my interpretation of Scripture, I hold a view of
anthropomorphisms that reveals truths about God that the
Calvinist rejects on non-Biblical grounds. In some sense, God
actually waits on our response to Him (Is.30:18).
ANTINOMY
Some Calvinists have tried to persuade me
that some Bible truth is in the form of an "antinomy". An
antinomy is defined as an apparent contradiction between two
ideas; a paradox. In the case before us, these Calvinists say
the Bible teaches both a), that God controls the occurrence of
absolutely everything and b), man is responsible for what he
does. As J.I. Packer puts it,
An antinomy exists when a pair of principles
stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both
undeniable. There are cogent reasons for believing each of them;
each rests on clear solid evidence; but it is a mystery to you
how they can be squared with each other. You see that each must
be true on its own, but you do not see how they both can be true
together. [9]
Packer believes Bible antinomies to be only
apparent and (hopefully) only unreconciled until the
resurrection:
We may be sure that they all find their
reconciliation in the mind and counsel of God, and we may hope
that in heaven we shall understand them ourselves. But
meanwhile, our wisdom is to maintain with equal emphasis both
the apparently conflicting truths in each case, to hold them
together in the relation in which the Bible itself sets them,
and to recognize that here is a mystery which we cannot expect
to solve in this world. [10]
If it were a given that God controls the
occurrence of absolutely everything, I would be tempted to join
the Calvinists. You know by now, however, that I don't believe
the Bible teaches this view of God's control; so the antinomy
argument doesn't persuade me. I don't see the Bible teaching
both a) and b). I know some people who think that the case is
similar to light being modeled by unreconcilable particles and
waves. They say that mysteriously, both models are true of
light. Even if the particle model and the wave model are both
true of light I am not enjoined thereby to make the Calvinist's
view of God's sovereignty true. Some Calvinists have urged me to
look at the "problem" as one of the mysteries of God. This I
would be willing to do if it were necessary, but the Bible
doesn't make it necessary. In fact, many of the Bible
"mysteries" were temporal in nature; they were designed to be
revealed.
A Calvinist might respond that Romans 11:36
definitely teaches a), above: "For from Him and through Him and
to Him are all things." This is not a full, precise expression
that makes definitive whether "all" refers to all possibilities
or all actualities. We draw too much doctrine from this one
source if we neglect to consider all that the Bible teaches on
the subject. When everything is weighed, compared , and
harmonized we see a God who does not cause the sin of man, but a
man who is responsible for his own sin.
The antinomy argument tries to preserve both
the God- caused and man-responsible notions together. I argue
that the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men are
not logically contradictory, but I urge it from the Biblical
view of the way God controls everything. Packer's view even when
we consider it on its own presuppositions, for the sake of
argument, may turn out to be holding to real inconsistencies and
not just apparent contradictions.
THE APPARENT INCONSISTENCY OF THE TRINITY
ARGUMENT
I am told that I should be persuaded to hold
both a) and b) above because the Bible reveals both that God is
one and that He is three and these are consistent though
apparently inconsistent. Although I have already begun to show
that a) is not Biblical I would also respond by saying that I
look at the Trinity as a truth whose nature is mysterious but as
a case upon which I think I have some insight concerning its
consistency. But, even if I had no such insight, I believe the
concept to be consistent because it is Biblical.
Concerning my alleged insight: I see that the
Flatlanders in Abbott's book [11] could
call a three dimensional cube (or "super square" as they might
say) both one and six. Flatlanders are two dimensional squares
and, according to the scenario, if a cube rested on their plain
they would perceive only the one square face of it that was in
their dimension even though the cube would have five other
faces. By analogy I can see where the Flatlander's apparent
inconsistency (with the concept of a being that was both six and
one) is similar to the apparent inconsistency of the Trinity.
There are extra-biblical reasons for the idea of the Trinity to
be consistent though it may not seem to be so on the face of it
(pun intended).
I have not been persuaded, however, to see
any similar consistency of a) and b). They are held by the
Calvinist as a consequence of non-biblical presuppositions about
God.
SUMMARY
Much of what God reveals about Himself is in
the form of anthropomorphisms (man-form language). This seems to
be a natural way of getting us to understand Him since we are
created in His likeness.
Eliminating the uniquely human element in
anthropomorphisms seems to be a good way of arriving at an
understanding of what God is like. But, this assumes that we
already know enough of what God is like to know what is uniquely
human and thus what is revealed about God in an
anthropomorphism. We should be cautious about assuming too much
here since we are explicitly made like God.
Many Bible statements about God seem to
represent Him in an unlimited sense. For example, in Isaiah
46:10, God says that He declares the end from the beginning. We
might infer from this that God's knowledge of everything that
will actually come to pass is totally unlimited (in the sense
that He always knows it as an actuality). On the other hand,
from anthropomorphisms we might infer that God is limited in His
knowledge of every future actuality. one initial approach to a
guide for interpreting these apparent inconsistencies is to let
the "unlimiting" notions about God overrule the "limiting"
notions. Letting one notion exclude the other does a disservice
to Biblical revelation. There is no reason to believe that God
has lost control of the future if He limits Himself by creating
a creature whose faith is not determined or known beforehand.
Such a self- limit seems to be the teaching of much Bible
revelation concerning God's knowledge about our faith.
Calvin's "accommodation" view does not
account for the content of what is revealed about God in many
situations, and in fact seems to allow for obscuring of truths
about God.
From Bible language we learn that God knows
a) all that is true now, b) all that He will cause to be true in
the future, and c) all that is allowed to be possible but not
necessarily true. The last of these I, myself, refer to as
"unnecessitated knowledge".
The fact that the Bible uses "analogical"
meanings when speaking of God will not serve to completely alter
the sense of anthropomorphic texts. It is useful language for
giving us a good understanding of many things we talk about
including such things as God, mind, logic, goodness, etc.
The antinomy view of some Bible revelation
allows that both divine appointment of all that occurs and human
responsibility are taught in the Bible; that they are both
divinely revealed truths and must be consistent since truth is
one. The weakness of resorting to this view is the doubt that it
leaves concerning whether or not all reasonable steps have been
taken to reconcile the two conflicting claims. Not having to
claim the absolute view of divine appointment is admissible once
the Greek presuppositions about God are not allowed to dominate
our thinking.
The next chapter deals with how it is that
God limits Himself without loosing control of what He wants to
control.
NOTES
D. A. Carson; _Exegetical Fallacies_ (Baker
Book House, Grand Rapids, pp.94-97
_Institutes_ I,17,13
Helm, _The Providence of God_ (IVP, Downers
Grove, pp.51-54)
As referred to in _God's Strategy_, Forster&
Marston, p.191
_The Grace of God and the Will of Man_, Clark
Pinnock, ed., Bethany House Publishers, p. 110
e.g. "The glass was clear" vs. "That he ought
to give thanks was clear". Or, "_that You might be clear in Your
judging." (Ps.51:4). These are "equivocable" usages.
An example of using analogous proportions in
trying to imagine something that does not exist in our
perceptions is found in Abbott's _Flatland_ and in Dionys
Burger's _Sphereland_. From these books we learn much about
thinking by use of analogies and proportionalities. For example,
as perpendicular and parallel lines are to a square, so are
perpendicular and parallel squares to a cube_ Now then, to move
beyond our experience, consider this: As perpendicular and
parallel squares are to a cube, so are perpendicular and
parallel cubes to a hypercube. A hypercube would be an object in
four spatial dimensions which we could imagine only partially as
having some sort of cube-ness properties. In the same way,
"Flatlanders" could only imagine in some sort of impoverished
way that a cube had square-ness properties. Just as a sphere,
for instance, has circle- ness, so does a hypersphere have
sphere-ness. Now, to bring it back to theology, just as men have
responsibility (which is to say that they must satisfy God's
justice), so, God has inconceivably greater responsibility
(which is to say that He must answer to Himself in a way that we
can't quite imagine). To further illustrate the
"univocal"/"analogical" use of words I will use a syllogism. A
"syllogism" is a logically consistent argument consisting of two
propositions and a conclusion deduced from them. If the terms in
the propositions and conclusion have identical ("univocal")
meanings, then the conclusion is valid. If the terms have
largely differing ("equivocable") senses, then the validity of
the syllogism may be faulty. But if the differences are only
ones of proportion ("analogical"), then there remains a
qualified validity: Proposition 1.) If we are able to do either
the right or the wrong in the choices we make, then we are
responsible for the action we take. [note: c.f. Romans 2:15]
Proposition 2.) If God makes it so that we are not able to do
one of the apparent options (right or wrong), then He is
responsible for our choice. [note: For instance, if God made
Adam and Eve unable to do the right, then He is responsible for
their choice, and He would have to satisfy His justice in the
matter.] Conclusion: Hence, if we are responsible for an action,
then God made us able to have done otherwise. Note that the word
"able" here is spoken of with identical ("univocal") meanings in
each case. "Responsible" is used analogously since in one case
it means in control and having to give satisfaction to God, the
other One, and in the next case it means in control and having
to give satisfaction to Oneself. There is some greater degree of
proportion with God than with man. Adam, for example, was
responsible to obey God's command (i.e. "eat not of the one
tree"). The Son of God, on the other hand, was responsible to
obey the command of the Father in an expanded way (Jn.
12:49-50), i.e. He was given all that He should speak. The
Father, likewise, was responsible to the Son (Ps. 2:8,9; Jn.
17:1,2). Analogically the responsibility is proportionately
greater, but not incomprehensibly so.
It is unlimited except for the nature of
cases where limits are understood or self-imposed. An
"understood" limit, to use a different example, would be the
limit to breaching the law of contradiction in logic. For God to
do so would be to contradict His nature; it would be the same as
to say that God can be both God and not God.
J.I. Packer, _Evangelism and the Sovereignty
of God_ (Leicester: IVP 1961, pp.18,19)
Ibid.,p.23
Edwin A. Abbott, _Flatland_ (Harper
Perennial, NY, NY ;94)