Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism (from Greek anthropos, human + morphe, form) in biblical studies refers to the use of human bodily features, emotions, or actions to describe God — language that gives God human form and characteristics to communicate divine truth in terms accessible to human understanding. Scripture is replete with such language: God has hands (Ex. 7:5), an arm (Isa. 51:5), eyes (2 Chr. 16:9), ears (Ps. 116:2), a face (Num. 6:25–26), and nostrils (Ex. 15:8). He speaks, hears, sees, walks, rests, laughs, and grieves. In Genesis 3:8, God walks in the garden in the cool of the day. Moses speaks with God "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Ex. 33:11), though the same chapter qualifies this by insisting no one can see God's full face and live (Ex. 33:20). Theologians have treated anthropomorphism variously: Maimonides and much of medieval Jewish and Christian philosophy interpreted such language as purely metaphorical, to be allegorized away; Reformation and orthodox Protestant theology maintained that anthropomorphisms are accommodations by which the infinite God condescends to communicate with finite humans (Calvin's accommodatio), while insisting on God's spiritual, non-physical nature (John 4:24); recent evangelical scholarship (Frame, Feinberg) debates whether "literal" application of some personal-attribute language to God is more appropriate than always reading it metaphorically.