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I’m so glad you are interested in discussing how man has anthropomorphized God!

It is part of the “observer problem.”

In the absence of Spiritual revelation or leading or seeking – or if he chooses to ignore it - man is left to rely on his own reasoning and sensory perception to understand “things.” To such a one, God is one of those “things.”

But the natural or mortal man is only capable of thinking in terms of four dimensions and his senses are limited to sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste. In such a state, he is spiritually blind. As a result, he very often anthropomorphizes God.

A typical example is his demand that God’s reasoning be understandable by him – and worse, acceptable to him. It sounds silly even to say it, but nevertheless that often happens.

Another is his insistence that God’s actions most comply with the laws of His own creation – physical causation (cause/effect) and the ilk. Again it sounds silly that the Creator is of necessity subject to His own Creation… and yet that also happens.

Yet another is the insistence that God must be “fair” – but what man really means is that God must be even handed with all of His creatures to be “god-like.” But Scriptures are quite clear – and we see in Creation itself - that God does not create men with a cookie cutter – some are made for trash, some for glory – but the clay must never complain to the potter.

And since man is loathe to accept what he (in his very reduced mental abilities) perceives as contradictions – he may anthropomorphize God by rationalizing as doctrine or traditions all kinds of things that the mortal mind cannot discern.

BTW, my two favorite examples of Scriptures which can only be Spiritually discerned are John 3 that we must be born again – and John 6 that we must eat Jesus’ flesh and drink His blood.

And, if he goes overboard in anthropomorphizing God, he ends up rejecting the God Who is and fabricating for himself a “god” of his making, a small “god” he can obtain, understand and manipulate. Oh, he might do it with all kinds of piety – but the bottom line is that he has anthropomorphized God.

God tolerated all kinds of anthropomorphizing in the book of Job all the way up to chapter 38 when He put His foot down (so to speak.)

In another example Jesus rails at the Pharisees whose lack of Spiritual discernment caused them to miss the point altogether :

Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

But ye say, Whosoever shall say to [his] father or [his] mother, [It is] a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, [he shall be free]. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

[Ye] hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with [their] lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. – Matt 15:1-9

Personally, I believe the Father has been anthropomorphized much more often than the Son or the Holy Spirit.

IMHO, people anthropomorphize the Holy Spirit by declaring He answers to or is otherwise under the control of man. Those who experience His indwelling, His Person, would experience Spiritual revelations and thus would not tend to anthropomorphize God anyway.

And, IMHO, some do anthropomorphize Jesus in believing that He came into existence when He was conceived (i.e. that He is not God from the beginning, everything that was made was made by Him and for Him, etc.) – or in the alternative, that He was a mortal man who achieved “godhood” and thus so can they. Jeepers…

Any hoot, that's my "two cents" for the discussion.

people anthropomorphize the Holy Spirit by declaring He answers to or is otherwise under the control of man. Those who experience His indwelling, His Person, would experience Spiritual revelations and thus would not tend to anthropomorphize God anyway. And, IMHO, some do anthropomorphize Jesus in believing that He came into existence when He was conceived (i.e. that He is not God from the beginning, everything that was made was made by Him and for Him, etc.) – or in the alternative, that He was a mortal man who achieved “godhood” and thus so can they...

Excellent for a first installment of the discussion..
You went right to the "point"..

GOD(Father, Son, Holy Spirit) seems to be not one Spirit at all but three personalitys/entitys..
Could be that "GOD" could be even more Spirits we just don't know about them all..
Whatever is; Is.. If theres only three thats cool too.. A spiritual Universe or a Universe of spirits is inconcieveable to most people I know.. Or a Universe where physical bodys are an after thought and not really needed..

Mankind anthropomorphizing God seem to tend to do it with the human body as some kind of model.. But then most people I know think they themselves are a human body.. NOT a spirit inhabiting a human body.. Theres quite a difference in that identification.. In that case they anthropomorphize themselves.. LoL..

If nobody dies, only human body's do (as scripture indicates).. Not only is God(plural) a Spirit(s), we are too.. Anthropomorphizing things is what fleshly man does.. Evolution is pretty much a yarn of an anthropomorphizing nature..

Yes, I'm willing to persue this subject more..
However we may be alone because it(the subject) gets way too close to exposing many peoples lack of faith..

Of course you know my agenda.. LoL.. That this subject highlights that mans body is merely transportation (3rd dimensional), a Donkey(metaphor), that houses the spirit..

A verse of scripture comes to mind.. for some reason..
We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time. Rom 8;22

And yet God can never be a "datum" of sense experience about which propositions may be advanced! To reduce God to human categories of reasoning is to lose God. E.g., the scientific method is a tool for measuring "things." Things are physical entities in four-dimensional spacetime. God utterly transcends four-dimensional spacetime, thus he is not a "thing."

Man cannot be the measure of God: reason and logic are wholly inadequate, not up to the job. What we know about God is what the holy scriptures reveal to us, what the creation reveals to us, and what the Spirit reveals to us.

My two cents worth anyway. FWIW Thank you so much for the glorious essay-post, dearest Alamo-Girl!