Who Is God?
God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Numbers 23:19 NASB
Not a man – Thomas Aquinas would have gladly endorsed this claim of Moses. In Aquinas’ view, this proves that the only way we know about God is through the via negativa. The transcendental God is in every way not like us. Aquinas’ list of the attributes of God is simply the negation of the attributes of Man. If man is finite, God is infinite. If Man is limited, God is unlimited (omnipotent). If Man is temporal, God is eternal. You get the idea. Of course, this makes Genesis 1:26 a bit difficult since God specifically says He will make Man in His image, but theologians have figured out ways around that apparent contradiction. What they haven’t figured out is the real contradiction with the view of the prophets.
Theology postulates an abstract God, a God whose essence is the epitome of rational thought, a sort of personalized Platonic ideal. This transcendental God shares nothing with the creation. He is the summum bonum, the lofty ideal. He is not a man. But the Bible doesn’t treat God this way. It doesn’t even treat Man this way, as we shall see.
“Prophetic revelation, indeed, does not reveal anything about God’s essence. What the prophet knows about God is God’s pathos, but this is not experienced as a part of the divine essence. Not God Himself is the object of understanding, but only His relation to Israel and to the world. Hence revelation means not that God makes Himself known, but that He makes His will known. In the separation of essence and relation the prophetic knowledge of God becomes possible.”[1]
Heschel’s point is important. The Bible simply doesn’t tell us about God’s essence. The Bible’s approach to God is fundamentally relational. That means systematic theology gathers its core approach to the question of God not from the Bible but from rational thought. Theology is a man-made religion. The Bible, on the other hand, speaks only of God’s will and interaction with men. While theologians often claim that the true essence of God is unknowable (for noetic reasons), they quickly proceed to tell us what that essence is. The Bible doesn’t. God in Himself is not its subject. That always remains a mystery—an unimportant mystery. What matters in the biblical text is the answer to the question, “What does God demand of me?”
Interestingly, the Bible doesn’t treat Man in his essence either. In like manner, the biblical treatment of Man is also relational. This could not be clearer than a look at the use of ʾîš (ish), commonly translated “man.” Note the definition provided by Mccomiskey: “The word ʾîš connotes primarily the concept of man as an individual and thus differs in that regard from the more general concepts inherent in the words ʾĕnôš and ʾādām (‘mankind’).”[2] Unfortunately, this definition is incorrect. The real meaning of a word is how it is used. David Stein’s study shows us that ʾîš is used as a term of affiliation, a relationship connection, not as a definition of ontological essence.[3] Mccomisky’s definition implies a Greek concept of man—an isolated individual. But Hebrew doesn’t work that way. Theology treats God as an isolated Being, but Hebrew doesn’t work that way either. What we know of God is God in relationship with His creation. All the rest is relegated to that material we find before the opening bet in Genesis 1:1.
Topical Index: ʾîš, man, God, essence, theology, relational, Numbers 23:19
[1] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 123.
[2] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 83 אישׁ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 38). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Rabbi David E. S. Stein, “The Noun (ʾîš) in Biblical Hebrew: A Term of Affiliation,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, ISSN 1203-1542.
