Theological Term of the Week

 

anthropomorphism
Narrowly, the attribution of human form to God. More broadly, a description of God using human categories; language that speaks of God in human terms, ascribing human features and qualities to him. 

• An example of anthropomorphism in the narrower sense from Exodus 7:5:

  The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. (ESV)

• An example of anthropomorphism in the broader sense from Genesis 9:

  And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

• From A. B. Caneday in Veiled Glory: God’s Self-Revelation in Human Likeness—A Biblical Theology of God’s Anthropomorphic Self-Disclosure, an essay included in Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity:

  …God’s Word does not simply contain anthropomorphism as one figure of speech alongside metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and others. Rather, God’s word is intrinsically anthropomorphic, for the Bible is God’s speech to humans in human language. God’s speaking to humans is anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is a description of God’s revelation; anthropomorphism is not a description of our interpretation of Scripture. The fact that God revealed himself anthropomorphically does not warrant us to subscribe to “anthropomorphic interpretation.” We are not to read the Bible anthropomorphically. Rather, we are to recognize that the Bible is anthropomorphic in character. Therefore, I propose the following definition of anthropomorphism, a definition that emerges from the soil of Scripture: Because God formed Adam from the “dust of the earth” and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, making him in his own image and likeness, God makes himself known to his creatures in their likeness, as if he wears both their form and qualities, when in fact they wear his likeness. (pages 160-161)
  

• From D. A. Carson, in a lecture on Openness of God Theology:
  

  It turns out that almost everything we say about God…is in terms of categories that we’re familiar with. …We don’t have access to “infinite talk”; we have access to human talk. And through human talk we are talking about the infinite, the holy. So much of what scripture says in that regard, about God’s knowing, seeing, acting—whether it’s riding upon the wings of the dawn, or the winds of the storm, or putting a muzzle on the leviathan …—or speaking and the world was formed, is, in some sense, metaphorical language. That is to say, it’s a figure of speech whereby we speak of one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another. And “the other,” here, is us. It’s human speaking….
  
  …We know that the language has to be metaphorical because the Bible keeps stressing that God is other. He is not a human being; he is not a man. He is not created; he is not dependent. He is the God of aseity. He is transcendent. He was there before we were. He speaks and brings all things into existence. He is Spirit. He doesn’t have a body. We are forced to recognize that this is the way we must think about God.
  
  So to come at this question, then, of anthropomorphism….and uphold the view that by refusing to see them as anthropomorphisms we are interpreting Scripture more simply and directly is, I would want to argue, not an appeal to a simpler biblicism, but to a massive and even grotesque reductionism.
  

Learn more:

1. CARM: Anthropomorphism: God Relates to Us in Human Terms
   
2. Theopedia: Anthropomorphism
3. Steve Hays: Neotheism and anthropomorphism (Added June, 2010)

Related term (Added June, 2010):

• anthropopathism

This week’s theological term was suggested by David Kjos of The Thirsty Theologian.

 

Have you come across a theological term that you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

 

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Gas Up: July 3

Were you hoping the price of gas at my regular gas station would change so you could see a new photo? Well you’re out of luck. My gas prices are high—$1.449 per litre—but holding.

You? With all the scary stories in the news this week about the price of a barrel of crude, the price of gas must have changed—and probably not in a good way—for some of you.

The price of gas is up 8¢ a gallon for Dorothy.

Tell me your gas price stories.

• From Heidi A. in Tucson, Arizona:

  Down here in Tucson, Arizona, we have not only been watching gas prices fluctuate from $3.79 to $3.85 but our local station has switched companies 3 times in the last month! What? The latest company has a digital readout of the price of gas so the price literally changes within the day. As of yesterday afternoon, “holding steady(?)” at $3.84 per gallon.

Update on Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 3:41PM by rebecca

On the price of gas in the Ukraine from Columbine:

Gas prices here in Ukraine are rising, too. At a local filling station yesterday Regular was going for 6.85 UAH per liter. The dollar has been doing terrible since the US news has repeatedly insisted the US is in a recession (the facts disagree with that, but it is an election year and I am digressing!). So, the dollar has fallen from 1$ = 5.42 UAH down to 1$ = 4.53 UAH as of yesterday. Doing some quick calculations, I come up with a liter of gas selling for $1.51, or a US gallon selling for $6.05. This is impacting the cost of public transportation. Route taxi buses and minibuses have gone up from 1 UAH to 2 UAH this year already (from $.22 to $.44). Doesn’t sound like much until you multiply for most people’s use: 2 times per day, 6 days per week minimum, and then figure that the average ‘above the table’ wage here is around $300 a month (I won’t go into what is paid under the table :) ) It seems to me that it’s almost impossible to really compare the gas price here and in the States/Canada. To try, I also need to compare average wages and cost of living, etc. All of which is a little too much for me on a nice Saturday morning.

Complicated, yes?

Bumbleberry Jam

Last week youngest daughter decided that she wanted to learn how to make jam, so we spent Friday afternoon making a couple of batches of Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, which is the favorite jam of almost everyone in this family.

 

Next up, I’m going to start a batch of Bumbleberry Jam, another yummy jam that uses rhubarb. It’s good for using up bits of overripe summer fruit and for giving you a reason to rummage through the marked down section of your supermarket produce department.

 

Here’s how you make it.

1. Wash fresh rhubarb and cut enough of it into 1-inch pieces to make 2 cups of cut-up rhubarb.
2. Put the rhubarb pieces into a saucepan with 2 cups sugar. Heat slowly, stirring constantly, until mixture boils. Boil for 10 whole minutes of fruit-stirring misery. (This is where having a couple of stand-by stirrers will come in handy.)
3. Put the mixture into a covered 2 quart container the fridge.
4. Keep cooking and adding fresh fruit as you get it. You can use strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, plums, grapes, cherries, peaches, oranges, apricots, or apples—whatever fruit you like. Prepare each batch of additional fruit in the same way as the rhubarb—cut it up (berries and cherries can be used whole), measure two cups, add two cups sugar, bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes.
5. Then add the previously cooked fruit to the newly prepared fruit in the saucepan and heat the whole mixture to boiling. Pour the whole shebang back in the covered container and store the fridge again.
6. Repeat this process until you’ve added 3 kinds (or six cups) of fruit to make a total of eight cups of jam.
   
7. Seal the hot jam in hot sterile jars. (I’m a little food-safe compulsive, so I process this one in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes because something about having it sitting in the fridge for a couple of weeks makes me nervous. I’m pretty the boiling water bath isn’t necessary, however.)

No matter what fruit I use, this jam turns out very tasty and deliciously fruity.