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Throughout church history Christians have labored to know more about God. This hunger to know God in a more intimate way has led to many great developments in knowledge. A short list would certainly include, Science generally, but there is more: Such as, Epistemology (this is the study of knowledge), and of course, Hermeneutics (this is the science and methodology used to interpret the Bible as well as other literature). The basic way that Hermeneutics work is the reader considers the context, the subject being addressed, and the language of the time of writing. Also, these other things are considered. This would include things like the history of the writer, both recent and past. Also, the book has to be viewed as a whole, meaning it interprets its self. And equally important is the method used to translate the work if it were written in another language. This last statement led to the development of Etymology (this is the study of word roots and the transmission of their meanings into other languages). You may be saying to yourself, SO WHAT! What does this have to do with me? The simple answer is; we need to understand the historical interpretation of the Bible. Am I saying that the church fathers had everything right? No, I am not. What I am saying is we need to know what has been thought formerly before we abandon everything, including the literal interpretation of the Bible then start over a new. You may be asking yourself, "Who wants to abandon the past and start over?" You may be astounded to know there are preachers and teachers teaching that God does not know everything. They say: Yes God is in a sense, all knowing in that He knows all the past that there is to know. But, as far as knowing the future, God does not know some of what will happen because it has not happened yet. This position says, God simply waits for His creation to do what it wills, then God does whatever He needs to do to make conditions favorable to produce His plan. This to me sounds more like a chess game than the study of God's attributes. We know this as the openness view of God's Foreknowledge. Gregory Boyd, a Baptist pastor from MN. Is one of the proprietors of this view says, "While God knows much of the future as settled . . . He can decide to settle whatever He wishes . . . He knows some of the future as a maybe." Boyd believes this is the only way to make sense out of the passages in the Bible which advert to God as changing His mind, regretting His decisions, speaking of the future on conditional terms, expressing surprise or disappointment over events, and testing peoples hearts to see what they will do. Conversely, I would say that God knows what we will do, the test is for us � we don't know what we will do. After we receive testing and miraculously pass through it, we can see how far God has brought us in our walk. And our faith will positively be increased. There are two points in biblical interpretation that Boyd and others in this school of thought have missed. The first is the OT. Commonly used a literary device called, "Anthropomorphism" (Greek: Anthropos [human] + morphe [form]). To use anthropomorphic language is to assign human characteristics to something that is not human. Biblically speaking it is to describe God in human forms, this is to be expected. Human beings are the highest creation in our physical world, and we know ourselves well enough that we can describe our own attributes in detail. The second is, "Anthropopathisms" (Greek: anthropos [human] + pathos [passion]). These two literary concepts compare closely to each other. Writers and speakers use Anthropopathisims to illustrate God's emotions in terms we can understand. This describes things like jealousy, hate, anger, love, and pleasure. "Anthropomorphisms" and "Anthropopathisims" both are figures of speech. We use these to transfer theological truths about God to mankind. When these are willingly or mistakenly taken literally they produce a God similar to humans instead of the transcendent God of Scripture. Some teachers misinterpret passages that speak of God in human form, and thus, they actually have God having a sexual union with Mary and other beings. This cannot be what scripture is teaching. If we take Anthropomorphic passages as metaphorical expressions, which they are, they provide us with a framework by which the God beyond our comprehension becomes personal . . . A person whom we can love. And more important it allows us as finite being to be able to grasp the personal God who first loved us. This person becomes reality in the NT. in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, who was both God and man (John 1:1-18). God is not human (Numbers 23:19, 1Sammual 15:29). Aside from knowing God is not human John 1:18 tells us God is not visible, John 4:24 says that God is Spirit, and in Luke 24:39 Jesus says a spirit does not have flesh and bones. With this in mind Genesis 6:6 conveys the idea of God being sorry and grieved in His heart. First ask yourself what is the message being portrayed? Does God have a heart? Did this unpleasant situation take God by surprise? Lets answer the easy questions first. No, God does not have a physical heart; this is an Anthropomorphism. If God does not have a heart like us humans do, how can He be grieved in it? The picture of God grieving and felling sorrowful is an Anthropopathic one. God's emotions and His being are way beyond our accord. What I believe we should be getting from this is Fallen man on his own is continually self-seeking. We know God is immutable (changeless) from James 1:17 Isaiah 46:9-10 and Hebrews 13:8, says about Jesus, "the same yesterday, today, and forever." From this, the only thing that is changing is our human perspective. Also, we should read Psalms 139 and Jeremiah 1:4-5 for an even better view of God. Knowing this to be true what are we supposed to get from Genesis 6:6. God is presented in terms of human experience of emotion and knowledge. We must also recognize that God does deal appropriately with sin and transgression, but He does not actually change His mind He knows what is coming, Acts 15:18.; known to God from eternity are all His works, also Hebrews. 6:17-18. Genesis 11:5-6. The Lord came to the city . . . And said indeed the people are one and have one language. Do you suppose an all knowing God did not know what was going on? To ask such a question is to give yourself the answer, if God is indeed Omniscient (all knowing) than He had to know what was going on. And up to that point God had only given us one language so He had to Know the people were all one language, which we know soon changed, from our perspective, not God's. Language is a gift from God, and He knows how to use it to communicate His truths to His creation. Genesis 18:21. "I will go down.. .and see." If we believe God is omniscient then what is it that we get from this type of imagery, in Genesis chapter 11 and again in 18 we have a picture of God researching things before He judges them, this is not because, He does not know what has or what will happen. This divine investigation that takes place before God's judgment gives Christians the knowledge that God's judgment is just and based solely on truth. We have this picture for our own comfort, from this we see that God never acts unfairly or irrationally He always knows the facts. When reading the Bible we must always keep in mind when things are expressed about God in human analogies this is imagery not reality. We must understand that the language we use is the imperfect expression that gives us the near and suitable understanding of God's eternal truth. We do not speak God's language or know all things: Therefore, God speaks to us in our lansuage. God has to speak with us in terms we can understand, human terms. When passages deal with God's physical & emotional being we have to know that we can gain insights from this and have a better knowledge of God, but we need to be careful not to make God into only a glorified man. God is more than Scripture can tell us because of our limited perspective here in a physical world
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