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Figuring Out Who the God of the Bible Really Is

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

In reading Werner de Boor's book "Das ist Jesus", 1968, he notes strongly and with repeated emphasis that "in Jesus selbst liegt die Einzigartigkeit des Christentums." (p. 7). That is, the uniqueness of Christianity lies in Jesus. The entire essence, the whole meaning, the fundamental reality for Christians is this Jesus fellow. However, many Christians have become overly alarmed at a new movement within Christianity, as well as in our modern world-view (Weltanschauung) concerning what history is, what myth is, who and what Jesus is, and how it relates to our views of reality, or way of living, loving, having hope, not having to live with over-anxiety etc. Richard Kreise in his Fundamental Christian way has hit it on the head in his "Ohne Angst in die Zukunft", 1975. With our certain theological current including concepts such as the virgin birth, the cross, the resurrection of Christ, the final judgement, etc., there has arisen the view that Jesus was only a man and not the literal Son of God, that the resurrection stories in the New Testament (Die Auferstehungsberichte) have only symbolic value, that Jesus' ascension "ist ein Legende", that Jesus is not going to come again personally, nor during our lifetime, nor anyone elses lifetime, all of these ideas are gathered under the rubic, by our modern intellectuals, of "pervertierte Theologie", perverted theology plain and simple. These are only myths, not realities. (pp. 131f).

The two schools of thought, opposite with each others philosophy is, of course, that the stories of Jesus are "alles nur Mythe und Legende", while the other school of thought maintains that the entire Bible, as it is, is historical and true, and not only "myth und legende." Annie Besant directs our attention to the fact that these two schools of thoughts are diametrically opposite each other and on either end of the pendulum of debate with this issue. (Her book "Esoteriches Christentum Oder die kleinen Mysterien", Leipzig, 1911, pp. 82f) Of course, there are middle roads, and Besant takes the one which seems to believe and indicate that Christ was more than just a human person, yet He is a mystery that needs exploring (p. 83f).

The scholarly approach to this situation has been to separate the Christ of History from the Christ of faith. Walter Beltz comes straight out and says the Biblical Christ is not the historical Christ at all. The Biblical stories of Christ are myths. The Biblical and extrabiblical sources for Christ's historicity leave us with only two valid actual historical circumstances of Christ. One that he was a preacher (prediger) in Galilee, and two, that he died at Jerusalem. Everything else in the Bible and especially in the Gosepl of John with its poetic framework and scaffolding (dichterischer Rahmen und Gerust), as well as the numberless retellings and handed down speeches and words of Jesus (zahllosen uberlieferen Reden und Worte Jesu), is relegated to the myth of the times. It is not actual reality as we think of it at all. ("Gott und die Gotter: Biblische Mythologie", Leipzig, 1975, p. 305f).

And of course, there are numerous books out there proclaiming the same supposed liberating message, for us to rationally accept as truth.

Now, as with Jesus, so with the concepts of God, scholars have added onto God, manmade philosophical concepts in order to bring God more in line with man's thinking, instead of what the Bible says. Adolf Harnack in his text "Das Wesen des Christentums", trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders, "What is Christianity?", notes that in the 2nd century, Christianity adapted wholecloth Greek philosophy and readily ascribed to Hellenism and the philosophical view of God. (p. 145f). "...Hellenism as a whole and in every phase of its development was established in the Church." (p. 146). They went so far as to even equate Jesus with the "Logos" itself, "The identification of the Logos with Christ was the determining factor in the fusion of Greek philosophy with the apostolic inheritance." (p. 146). David Fideler has recently written a very fine text with this developed historical outlook on Jesus titled "Jesus Christ Sun of God". And what was left out, was of course the anthropomorphic nature of the Biblical God! In its place was adapted a more spiritual God, a philosophical God with all the trimmings. While it satisfied the doctors of the Church from the Fourth century on, it was not the Biblical God at all. Karen Armstrong recognized this in her 1994 book "A History of God", wherein she notes "...the God of the Greek philosophers was very different from the God of revelation: the Supreme Deity of Aristotle or Plotinus was timeless and impasible; he took no notice of mindane events, did not reveal himself in history, had not created the world and would not judge it at the end of time. Indeed, history, the major theophany of the monotheistic faiths, had been dismissed by Aristotle as inferior to philosophy." (p. 171). Gershom Scholem has noted that the Bible does discuss God and his "three dimensional image or form" in the Hebrew term "tselem 'Elohim". In fact Scholem almost laments the fact that "The Old Testament instead constantly speaks, with great naivete, about God's form...God is this conceived as a human being." ("The Mystical Shape of the Godhead", p. 17f). Yet later on, the Jews also "abolished any view that attributed to God any human attributes whatever...in the newly evolving Kabbalah, by contrast, we find the opposite tendency. Here too, the spiritualization of the idea of God is an accepted fact...the ancient images re-emerged, albeit now with a symbolic character." (p. 38).

So it is with fascinating excitement that I bring you the latest and most stunning information in print on God, so far as I believe, from non-Mormon scholars who are coming to terms with the God of the Bible. It is, as we will see, the same God who is in Mormonism! Bear with me, this is too good to miss!

E. LaB Cherbonnier wrote an article for the "Harvard Theological Review" Vol. 55, (1962): 187-206, "The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism", (Cf. his "In Defense of Anthropomorphism," in Truman G. Madsen, ed., "Reflections on Mormonism: Judeo-Christian Parallels," BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978, pp. 155-173) which has been ignored far too long by Mormons and Christians alike. It is time to come to grips with this concept of God as a man in the Bible.

The anthropomorphism of God, of course, includes characteristics that are distinctively human, such as the capacity for discriminating judgement, the exercise of responsible decision and choice, the ability to carry out long-range purposes. Such a God is described in language of personal pronouns and transitive verbs, such as "possess", "love", "judge," "promise", "forgive," and the like. "The difference between Yahweh and Zeus is not logical or formal, but factual and existential. The prophets [in the Bible] do not charge the pagan deities with being anthropomorphic, but with being insufficiently anthropomorphic." (p. 187). When Hosea says "For I am God and not man, The Holy One in your midst" (Hos. 11:9), the context establishes the anthropomorphic nature of God powerfully. In fact, Hosea is daringly anthropomorphic. "He attributes to God Himself the feelings and emotions of the husbands whose wife has 'played the harlot.'" (p. 188).

HOW GOD IS INVISIBLE:

Both the prophets and mystics agree that God is invisible. However, the prophet means something far different than the mystic. The mystic says God so far transcends the spatio-temporal world that the "finite" categories of seeing, hearing, and touching simply do not apply. God is invisible in principle.

The prophet on the other hand shows that the God of the Bible is invisible as a matter of tactics. "De facto", men seldom get to see God. Upon occassion however, God does reveal himself to man; to Moses (exo. 33:23), to the elders of Israel (Exo. 24:10), to Isaiah (Isa. 6:1). And in the New Testament John quite consistently refers to "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life." (1 John 1:1). (Cherbonnier, p. 198f).

God retains the freedom to show himself or withhold his face at will. As Rudolf Bultmann observed:

"God is not invisible to the senses as a matter of principle. Indeed, Hebrew has no word for "invisible". God is invisible because He wills to be so." (p. 199).

HOW GOD IS INFINITE:

Significantly the word "infinite" does not occur in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, but only in the King James. Of the three occassions, the one refers to the wickedness of Job (Job 22:5), the second time in reference to the power of Egypt (Nah 3:9), and the thrid time to the wisdom of God (Ps. 147:5). The meaning is simply that God's wisdom is inexhaustible, not that he himself is "infinite." (p. 190)

HOW GOD IS TRANSCENDENT / IMMANENT:

The meaning of this word is that which is beyond space and time. To the philosophers God, if the categories of space applied, he would be limited. If the category of time applied to him he would not be immutable.

By contrast, the God of the Bible is neither transcendant nor immanent in the mystic sense. Being anthropomorphic he is quite compatible with spatio-temporal existence. His transcendence is that he is sovereign over his creation. Having conferred existence on all things, he can take it away also. Having granted freedom to men, he can overrule them. He is Lord and Master.

The God of the Bible is not diffused throughout the universe. Being omnipresent would imprison him! The Biblical God can be wherever he wants to be. He takes an active role in history guiding the destiny of nations, etc. God is immanent insofar as He acts in history. He is transcendant insofar as he acts triumphantly. Instead of being described in the Bible as immanent/transcendant, or absolute/relative, or infinite/finite, or unconditioned/condition, God in the Bible and his relation to the world is that of a free agent to his act; that is, of Creator to his creation. The doctrine of creation does not separate God and man. The existence that God bestows on Adam does not differ in kind from his own. There is no discontinuity between God and his creation in the Bible. Creation is an act of continuity not discontinuity. For the Bible, there is a one to one correspondence between God-as-revealed and God-as-he-is. (p. 201f).

HOW GOD IS UNLIMITED:

Dealing with logical predication, the moment a thing has any characteristic applied to it, it is limited. For example, if a house is red, it is limited to that color. Similarly any positivie statement about God automatically restricts him. If he is great, he cannot be small. If he is personal, he cannot be impersonal. Everything that has a name thereby limits itself. Is the biblical God then "limited" in the sense that he is subject to predication? The Bible prophet asks a different question! He does not ask "Can God be described?" He asks "What can he do? Is He free to act, to accomplish his purposes?" If not, then he is no God at all. If so, then he must be anthropomorphic! The Gods of Canaan and Babylon are not charged with being anthropomorphic, but with being frauds. Isa 46:5,9 says "To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?...for I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me." What this is doing is contrasting the mighty acts of Yahweh with the impotence of every false god. "They lift it upon their shoulders, they carry it... it cannot move from its place... it does not answer." (vs. 7). The True God, however, does move and speak; he announces his purposes and brings it to pass (vs. 11). The intent of the scripture is precisely to distinguish Yahweh from idols by precisely those anthropomorphic terms! They have mouths, but do not speak, eyes, but do not see, they have ears, but do not hear, noses, but do not smell. (Ps. 115:5,6). Pagan Gods are contemptible because they are impotent. They cannot do the things a man can do, whereas, Yahweh does these things men do par excellence!

So the choice facing us is this: We can have a God, who, though unlimited by any predication, is ineffectual (the Christian philosophy God). Or we can have a God who at a "cost" of being describable, has the power to accomplish his will. From the Bible the choice is academic. The ineffectual "Ground of Being" is a God in chains. Only if God is a definite, determinate, personality can he make intelligible, purposive action. Only an anthropomorphic God can be omnipotent. (p. 192f).

HOW GOD IS ONE:

The mystic god is unlimited only if he is the sole being in existence. If there were two gods, then the second would, by its very existence, condition the first god. Carried to its conclusion, this logic forbids not only a second god, but the existence of anything else at all! Anything "outside" God would reduce him to one term in a relation. God must therefore be without relation; in a word "unconditioned", or "absolute." The philosopher means unity of God is monism. And its corollary is pantheism! If God is the sole reality, then the universe has no separate existence.

The Bible prophet on the other hand, when he says "Hear o Israel, the Lord thy God is one God" he was not referring to one without a second at all. He was calling attention to the constancy of God's purpose, his integrity of character. Precisely because God is anthropomorphic, with an unmistakable personal identity, he could not be represented by a bull or solar disc, etc. To worship him under any other name was to mistake his identity. In the Bible view, "particularity" is an honorific term for God himself is particular, a particular person! Rather than worrying how many gods there were, the Jews were more interested in knowing who they owed their allegiance to. The Bible God can be as absolute or as related as he wants to be - no more, no less. By the act of creation, he has become a being besides other beings. For the Bible to say that God is unlimited is simply to say that with God, all things are possible - even creation. (p. 194f).

IN WHAT SENSE IS GOD UNKNOWABLE?

Christian philosophy from St. Augustine teaches - "A God understood is no God at all."

In the Bible by contrast, God is unknowable, not because he confounds human categories, but because he can refuse to disclose himself. No man can by searching find out God. When God does reveal himself, he does so in the categories of everyday experience! Where God is anthropomorphic he holds the initiative. Unless he chooses to make himself known, through word and deed, no amount of prying can succeed in making his acquaintance. "They will seek me diligently, but will not find me." (Prov. 1:28). The prophet does not presume to deduce the attributes of God "de jure". He proclaims the character of God on the basis of his purposes and mighty acts. Such knowledge is unpredictable. (Isa. 48:6,7). The mystery of an anthropomorphic God is guaranteed, not because He overturns all human categories, but because he can confound all human expectation. "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall no wise believe, even if onedeclare it unto you." (Acts 13:41). Where God is anthropomorphic, there is but a single universe of discourse, capable of conveying things divine as well as things human. Consequently when God does choose to make himself known, he does so unambiguously. No matter how unexpected, his words are perfectly intelligible: "I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness. I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'seek me in chaos'. I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right." (Isa 45:19). If rational intelligibility is the desire, the God of Israle, the anthropomorphic God of the Bible, has the upper hand. Biblical humility consists of letting God be God, a determinate personality with his own integrity, not to be confused with anyone else, least of all oneself. (p. 197f).

HOW GOD IS CHANGLESS / TIMELESS:

The Bible God, to be perfect, means to be alive. To be alive is to be active. To be active is to be temporal. He is a living God, best described by active verbs. When the Bible describes God as changeless, he means something that could only characterize a living *person*. He means trustworthy, of steadfast character. Where men are fickle, God is faithful to his covenant. The Hebrew word *chesed* often translated as "Loving-kindness", means that God is steady and sure, firm and reliable. When the prophet describes him as the God of truth (Ps. 31:5; Jeremiah 10:10) he means that God is consistent and loyal, vindicating all who trust his promises. In the Bible the precious kind of changelessness it is talking about is the dependable loyalty of the person who, though free to betray, is always as good as his word. In this sense, God is changless *par excellence* but only because he is a living, active God.

The Biblical God is precisely the same God who revealed himself to Joseph Smith. He is the same kind of God as well. A living, active, person, who is a changeless God, who fulfills his purposes. This is the only true God in the Bible, and He is found in Mormonism.