Sunday, July 15, 2007
Metaphors and the Son's Begettal
The last three years of my life have been occupied by a study of paterology (doctrine of God's fatherhood), Christology and metaphorology (theory of metaphor). One thing that has become fairly clear to me is that much confusion often arises when Trinitarians discuss the eternal generation of the Son doctrine because they seem to be construing this concept in a literal fashion. The difficulties that purportedly arise from a Christian believing that the Son was not eternally generated no longer exist when the language of Scripture is interpreted metaphorically. God is not a literal Father of the LOGOS or of those who have been renewed by means of his spirit. The fatherhood of God is metaphorical which means that God does not have the matter-of-fact properties that one commonly associates with a literal or biological father. God is not a male, the Father has not literally generated a Son continuously or eternally. Such metaphors help us to apprehend somewhat the reality that is God. See Hosea 12:11.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Is Hosea 2:11 the correct scripture in this instance or did you have different passage in mind
Hosea 2:11
If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.
Riverofjoy:
It's Hosea 12:11 instead of 2:11. I checked the blog post, and it does have 12:11. Hope this helps.
Post a Comment