ANTHROPOMORPHISM an’ thrə pə mor’ fism. A figure of speech whereby the deity is referred to in terms of human bodily parts or human passions. To speak of God’s hands, eyes, anger, or even love is to speak anthropomorphically.

It may be helpful to distinguish two types of anthropomorphisms: those which picture God in bodily form and those which refer to God as possessed of those various aspects of personality as man knows it in himself. In a sense, it can be argued that those of the first type only are true anthropomorphisms. They speak as if God possessed bodily form, which, of course, He does not. The second type of anthropomorphism which refers to features of personality in God may be called factual description and not a figure of speech at all. It is the Christian teaching that God, the living and true God, is actually possessed of these personal characteristics which men recognize in themselves as attributes of personality.

1. Bodily anthropomorphisms. There are numerous instances of bodily anthropomorphisms in both the OT and NT. Some of these are of a majestic nature for all their bodily representations. Some are much more ordinary. There are a few examples commonly referred to, which should be noted.

The creation of man (Gen 2:7) is a case in point. God formed man of dust and breathed into his nostrils. Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3:8). This particular case may be doubted. The word “cool” is the word rûaḥ, regularly tr. “wind” or “spirit,” never “cool.” The word for “walk” is a general word meaning “go.” The picture may just as well be that the voice of the Lord was going throughout the garden borne along upon the wind and that the representation of God is wholly immaterial.

When men made the tower of Babel, God “came down to see” (11:5). Likewise God resolved to “go down to see” the sin of Sodom (18:21). Such anthropomorphisms are to be distinguished from the appearance of God in human form to Abraham as he sat at his tent door in Mamre. The divine appearance in human form is called a theophany and is not a figure of speech.

Exodus 24:10 speaks of the feet of God. The commandments were written with the finger of God (Exod 31:18). Moses sees God’s “back” but not His “face” (33:23). Actually, this last instance is questionable. The Heb. word here is not the regular word for “back” but can mean “after effects.” That is, Moses saw the glory, but not the essence of God.

The Psalms illustrate the use of anthropomorphisms. The highly poetic Psalm 18 pictures God as breathing forth smoke (v. 8) uttering a voice of thunder (v. 13) and whose breath is the wind (v. 15). God’s eyes and eyelids test the children of men (Ps 11:4). Second Chronicles pictures the eyes of the Lord as running throughout the earth (16:9). In Ezekiel 1:26f. God is pictured as seated on a throne in human form, and in the NT this symbolism is repeated (Rev 4:2, 3).

There has been a tendency to apologize for these figures of speech and assume that they betray a low concept of deity. It is alleged also that the “J” narrative of the Pentateuch, as separated out by critical scholars, is characterized by such anthropomorphisms, whereas other narratives like “E” or “P” represent God as more distant and speaking only through the medium of angels. This division into documents is highly subjective, however, and is an example of circular reasoning. Most anthropomorphisms are placed in “J” and this is the reason it has several notable examples. The alleged “P” document also has anthropomorphisms, e.g. God’s “resting (Gen 2:2). The LXX tr. occasionally removes the anthropomorphisms of the Heb. text in the interests of a more transcendent picture of the Deity.

It should be admitted on all sides, however, that the OT does not anywhere represent God as actually possessed of a bodily form. The whole denunciation of idolatry rests upon the uniform teaching of the spiritual nature of God. The Psalms refer repeatedly to the eyes of God, but Psalm 94:9 remarks that the God who made the eye is not limited to lesser faculties than the creatures He made. The picture of God in the OT is an altogether worthy one portraying an exalted Being who, though He is pictured as having hands, yet reaches out to uphold His children even in the uttermost part of the sea (Ps 139:9, 10). The Israelites never thought of their God as six ft. tall with any limitations of body or flesh. The references to bodily activities of God are clearly figures of speech.

2. Anthropomorphisms of personality. The Bible repeatedly speaks of God as living, active, speaking, loving, thinking, judging. There have been many philosophers who insist that this is only a way of speaking of the infinite one. God Himself, being the Absolute, does not, they say, have the limitations of personality. Indeed, it is said, God cannot be known or defined in His essence. Man can have no factual knowledge of Him; he can have only a direct awareness, an experience, a divine-human encounter. God in Himself cannot be known, so the theory goes, nor can He be defined in human terms.

This is an old view newly reemphasized in that type of theology called neo-orthodoxy. Some Gr. skeptics argued that man pictures God like himself and thereby deceives himself. They said that if a triangle could talk, it would say “God is a triangle.” There is more truth in this charge than at first appears. The obvious point is that if a triangle could talk, it would not be a mere triangle. It would be a threesided figure possessed of intelligence, rationality, and self-expression. In short, to talk like this is the essence of human personality. Human personality may rightly claim that God is akin to man, because He has revealed that men are created in His own image. The fact of the image of God in man is what makes religion possible, and indeed is the only solid basis for finding meaning in life. If man is made in the image of God in personal characteristics, then it is no mere figure of speech or mythologizing description to say that God is love. Hodge in a significant treatment of these problems declares “We know that He is a Spirit, that He has intelligence, moral excellence, and power to an infinite degree. We know that He can love, pity, and pardon; that He can hear and answer prayer. We know God in the same sense and just as certainly as we know our father or mother. And no man can take this knowledge from us or persuade us that it is not knowledge, but a mere irrational belief.” (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology [1872], I, 360.) C. S. Lewis has a most helpful discussion of the same matters. He tells of a girl he knew who was brought up to believe that God was a perfect “substance.” On examination it developed that “her mental concept of God was ‘a vast tapioca pudding’! Such is the bleak alternative for those who deny personality in God” (C. S. Lewis, Miracles [1947], pp. 75-82).

The Bible everywhere assumes and repeatedly teaches that God is a living, infinite Person, and the description it gives of His love, pity, justice, and pardon are not really anthropomorphisms, but are sober descriptions of the living and true God.

Bibliography C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, I (1872), 360; H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (1902), 327; C. S. Lewis, Miracles, a Preliminary Study (1947), 75-82; R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (1948), 174; A. B. Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible (1963), 185, 314-317.