Commenting
on John Calvin and other theologians who try to relegate most, if not all,
scriptural references to God’s emotions and other human-like attributes, Wm.
Curtis Holtzen wrote the following which Latter-day Saints should appreciate:
I agree that “all speech about God is
anthropomorphic” because human language is anthropomorphic . . . While I
believe it is appropriate to understand anthropomorphic statements as
metaphors, some anthropopathisms are more literal than others—though none are
perfectly analogous to human emotions.
It is important to distinguish the purpose
and use of anthropomorphic and anthropopathic Scriptures. First, if we treat
all utterances about God as accommodations, that never represent God as God
actually is, then what can be said of God’s love, plans, will, wisdom, or goodness?
Can it even be said that God is a living God
or that God has being? Second, it
seems that Scripture is meant to communicate something true about God. An
anthropomorphism such as “And before him no creature is hidden, but all are
naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account”
(Heb 4:13) is meant to communicate that God knows our thoughts and intentions—we
cannot hide from God. While the passage makes use of anthropomorphic and
metaphoric language, it nonetheless communicates something true about God—not literal,
but true. But what of anthropopathisms? When we are told that God is patient (2
Pet 3:9), what does this communicate about God if it is simply an
anthropomorphism? What about divine changes of mind? As Greg Boyd argues, “If
God in fact never changes his mind, saying he does so doesn’t communicate
anything truthful: it is simply inaccurate.” Hermeneutically, we need to ask
what anthropomorphizing a passage brings to the table. Does it bring clarity
and understanding to an otherwise difficult text? Or does it obfuscate and lead
us to conclude that the text does not mean anything near what it says?
Finally, it may be better that we speak not of anthropopathism but of theopathism. Depictions of God’s emotions may not be
mere reflections of the ways God is like humans but ways in which we are like
God, and these depictions give us examples of how we should feel and emote.
Scripture reveals God’s thoughts, feelings, and responses in part to teach us
how we, in certain times and ways, should think, feel, and respond. We are made
in God’s image (Gen 1:26-27) and are meant to be imitators of God (Eph 5:1).
John Sanders, following the lead of Abraham Heschel, says, “Instead of saying that
God is like us we should say we are like God and love is not anthropomorphism,
rather our concern for justice and love is a theomorphism” (Sanders, The God Who Risks, 29). (Wm. Curtis
Holtzen, The God Who Trusts: A Relational
Theology of Divine Faith, Hope, and Love [Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2019], 25-26)
Further Reading
Critique of "The Christ Who Heals"
