An anthropomorphism is the attribution of human motivation, characteristics or behavior to that
which is not human; in The American Heritage Dictionary, an inanimate object, an animal or some natural phenomenon.
The Bible is full of such figures of speech. One psalmist
says, “The heavens declare
the glory of God ... day to day pours out speech.”
Another records, “The mountains skipped
like rams.”
Conscious and Subconscious Translation
Because most of us have read poetry, we have little
difficulty with this concept when we encounter it either in secular literature
or in Holy Writ. Most of us do a little conscious or subconscious translation
in the back of our heads when we read these verses and conclude that they mean
to say, in the first instance, that the glory of God is so patently evident in
creation that it may as well have been expressed in words. You cannot possibly
miss the glory of God in creation unless there is something very wrong with your
heart, as Paul will go on to affirm in the first chapter of Romans. In the
second case, we conclude that the presence of the Lord among his people was so
powerful as to transform the natural world around the Israelites and cause it
to behave in ways it otherwise would not. So the stars did not actually talk, the
mountains did not actually do a little dance, and the writers of scripture are
not claiming they did.
For some this process of unpacking less-familiar figures of
speech in order to discern their meaning is more instantaneous than others, but
we all get there eventually. Where we start to disagree about intended meaning is
when the writers of scripture use anthropomorphisms about God. It is unwise to draw
sweeping theological conclusions from a figure of speech, but that is often
what happens when we fail to recognize anthropomorphisms for what they are.
When God ‘Repents’
A frequently cited example is that of God “repenting”, as he
does in the King James translation of Genesis 6:6. Now we know God does
not literally “repent” of anything in the same sense that human beings do. The
scriptures state this plainly: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of
man, that he should change
his mind.” Nevertheless, failing to recognize the use of anthropomorphism by
the writer of Genesis, some literal-minded folks insist that repenting means
that God failed to foresee the results of his actions, making him not only not
omniscient, but defective at planning.
We know these to be false theological conclusions, but it’s
sometimes difficult to make that point to people who keep repeating, “But it says ... it says ...” The fact is, it is impossible for human language to give
full expression to thought processes infinitely more complex than our own. Even
attempting to be extremely precise about how God thinks becomes for us such an
exercise in technical language that if the writers of scripture were to replace
every anthropomorphism they use with a fully-developed theological explanation,
the consequent spate of “theo-splaining” would overwhelm the
narrative and distract us from the lessons the passage was intended to convey.
In fact, sorrow and regret are also components of human repentance
and acceptable synonyms for the Hebrew nacham
(“repented”). The word has such a broad range of meanings even when used with respect
to human beings that some modern translations simply replace “repent” with “regret”
and eliminate the problem altogether. It is quite possible for a thing to be
both regrettable and necessary, even preferable to the alternative.
Nitpicking and Fussiness
None of this nitpicking is necessary, however, if we simply
recognize a figure of speech for what it is and don’t try to make it say more
than it was intended to. We should not expect excessive theological fussiness
from a historical passage. We will not get it.
Another anthropomorphic passage is found in Psalm 102,
which I discussed at length in yesterday’s post. Verse 25 of that
psalm reads:
“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.”
The first problem is that spirits do not have hands, and God
is spirit, as the Lord Jesus himself declared. He should know. An eternal
spirit may indeed take physical form and use his hands as a human being might,
but this is not what happened in creation, as both Testaments tell us. In
Genesis 1 we read repeatedly the words, “And God said”. God spoke, and “it
came to be”, as the psalmist asserts. The book of Hebrews says this: “By
faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.”
So then, Psalm 102:25 is not technically fastidious in
the way that some readers might like, but then it is not intended to be. The
writer has simply used a very common figure of speech to tell us in
five words rather than fifty that the level of care used in the original
creative process was as precise as a series of choices made by a fine
craftsman.
The Real Questions Raised
Observing the use of anthropomorphism in scripture is
actually kind of liberating. In the poetic, historical and prophetic passages
of scripture, it frees us up to ask ourselves questions like “In what ways were
God’s emotions about the human race similar to human repentance?” or “In what
sense was God’s creative process like ours?” rather than becoming sidetracked
by errant theology that is corrected elsewhere in scripture plainly and
unambiguously. The answers to such questions about God will never be “exactly
like us”. We are made in the image of God, but we are not gods, and cannot
possibly imagine that we are capable of perfectly understanding or expressing
the Divine mind, purposes or process. The sooner we recognize the limitations
of our own understanding, the more comfortable we will become with the way the
writers of scripture express truth.
The alternative is contradiction and confusion, both of
which are unnecessary.
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