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The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

E. LaB. Cherbonnier
E. LaB. Cherbonnier
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
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Extract

The Bible, we are continually reminded, was written with an intent remote from that of the philosopher. To examine the Bible for its logical implications might therefore appear futile. The present inquiry, however, is undertaken in a more Socratic spirit. Socrates carried his search for truth into the most unlikely quarters. Unimpressed by pedigrees, he winnowed ideas in banquet hall and market place, rejecting none until they stood condemned by their own inner contradictions. The aim of the following pages is to apply the Socratic method to the Bible; more specifically, to examine some logical implications of biblical anthropomorphism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , July 1962 , pp. 187 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1962

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References

1 Reade, W. H. V., The Christian Challenge to Philosophy, London: S. P. C. K. 1951, p. 67Google Scholar.

2 This illustration is taken from Dilley, Frank B., “The Quest for a Biblical Metaphysic,” in The Union Seminary Quarterly Review, Vol. XI, No. 2, January, 1956, pp. 55 fGoogle Scholar.

3 The same point has been made, though with a different purpose, by Henry N. Wieman, in “God is More than We Can Think,” Christendom I, Spring, 1936, p. 432: “If God has a summit that is higher than mind and personality, he cannot be a mind and personality because these must be at the summit or not at all.”

4 Although “mysticism” is loosely used to cover nearly anything beyond the commonplace, I use it in the sense proposed by W. T. Stace: “an apprehension of an ultimate non-sensuous unity in all things, a oneness or a One to which neither the senses nor the reason can penetrate.” (Stace, W. T., ed., The Teachings of the Mystics, New York, New American Library, 1960, pp. 14 fGoogle Scholar.)

5 The Selected Writings of Suzuki, D. T., ed. William Barrett, New York, Doubleday, 1956, p. 28Google Scholar. Suzuki is quoting the Zen mystic Nan-Ch'uan.

6 Chuang Tse 7:4 (trans. Lin Yutang in The Wisdom of Lao Tse; New York: Modern Library, 1948, p. 74 (my italics; translator's parentheses).

7 See, for example, Stace, W. T., Time and Eternity; Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 47Google Scholar; Hume, R. E., The Thirteen Principal Upanishads; London: Oxford University Press, 1934, p. 36Google Scholar.

8 Svetasvatara Upanishad 6:12 (trans. R. E. Hume, op. cit., p. 409).

9 D. T. Suzuki, op. cit., p. 287.

10 See, for example, Sermons CXVII, iii, 5, and LII, vi, 16.

11 Suzuki, D. T., Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series; London: Rider and Company, 1950, p. 101Google Scholar.

12 Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., The Dance of Shiva, Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1948, p. 193Google Scholar (footnote 17 to ch. 3).

13 Conze, Edward, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development, New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1959, p. 132Google Scholar.

14 See, for example, the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad, 1. 4. 10 (trans. R. E. Hume, op. cit., 83).

15 Bultmann, Rudolf, Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting, New York, Meridian Books, 1956, p. 22.Google Scholar

16 See the Theological Wordbook of the Bible, Richardson, Alan ed., New York, Macmillan, 1951, pp. 136 fGoogle Scholar.

17 See, ibid., p. 269 f.

18 Cited without reference by Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1945, p. 2Google Scholar.

19 Bowman, John W., Prophetic Realism and the Gospel; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955, p. 184Google Scholar.

20 Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Great Chain of Being, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948, p. 157Google Scholar.

21 ibid., p. vii.

22 Stace, W. T., Time and Eternity, Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 131Google Scholar.

23 Olan, Levi, “Reinhold Niebuhr and the Hebraic Spirit,” in Judaism, Vol. 5, No. 2, Spring, 1956, p. 7Google Scholar.

24 W. T. Stace, op. cit., p. 5, and Aldous Huxley, Aldous Huxley's Stories, Essays, and Poems, London, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., p. 186.

25 La Vida es Sueño, I, i.