The Metaphorical Use of "Father" for God

One friend once asked me: "Why the reticence about its [the term "Father"] applying to God's being? Why think that it couldn't?"

I replied:

First, let us prescind from the matter of God being
"Father" with respect to the eternal generation of the
Son or the Son's creation, as I believe. In whatever
sense God is Father, and we both agree that He is
"Father" in some sense, let's agree to bracket such
notions and consider the concept of divine fatherhood
IN SE.

I hesitate to think of "Father" as an ontological
designation because I don't believe one can hold this
position consistently when it comes to theological
metaphors. Let's also be clear what I mean by saying
the title "Father" does not apply ontologically. I
mean to say that God is not masculine (which I
distinguish from maleness) ontologically nor has the
deity somehow brought forth (in a manner closely
resembling the human reproduction process) a Son.

When I state that it seems one cannot consistently
believe God is Father in that the divine one is
transcendently masculine, some examples may explain my
position better than propositions would detail it.
Consider that Ps 23:1 refers to YHWH as David's
Shepherd. If we think of God as a Shepherd in His very
being, what sense does that make? Are we to believe
that God exemplifies the properties of a shepherd,
whatever they are to some eminent and transcendent
degree? Moreover, the apostle John's Apocalypse speaks
of God and the Lamb as the temple of New Jerusalem. To
me, the description is a metaphor of God and the
Lamb's function in relation to the figurative
eschatological city. Do you believe that Revelation
21:23 refers to God ontologically as the temple of New
Jerusalem? That is, is God more of a temple than the
temple in Jerusalem was? Stated another way, does the
Christian deity instantiate the properties of a temple
more transcendently than Solomon's Temple did?
Finally, Paul refers to Jerusalem above [edited] as the "mother"
of Christians. Please explain to me how Galatians 4:26
applies to the Church's being [ontos], rather than to its
function. In what sense is the Church ontologically
feminine?

[Note: My interlocutor believes that Jerusalem above is the ecclesia.-EF]

John Cooper writes:

"From the time of the Church Fathers, teachers of the
faith have used this doctrine [of divine genderlessness]
to explain that calling God Father does not imply that God is MASCULINE.
Thus the doctrine helps us rightly to interpret Scripture. It
prevents us from wrongly inferring from the gendered
language in Scripture that God is MASCULINE while we
work to understand what this language does mean . . ."
(_Our Father in Heaven_, page 188-189).

On this issue, I must concur with Arnobius of Sicca (a
somewhat controversial early church figure) who
evidently is not being unorthodox when he queries:

"For who, however mean his capacity, does not know
that the sexes of different GENDER have been ordained
and formed by the Creator of the creatures of earth,
only that, by intercourse and union of bodies, that
which is fleeting and transient may endure being ever
renewed and maintained?" (Against the Nations 3.8)

IN NUCE, there is no need of gender where there is no
reproductive activity. God doesn't need to be
masculine or feminine QUOAD SE because God doesn't
literally produce little boys and girls, wee angels
and angelettes. :)

Origen's Commentary on John (Regarding the Deity of Christ)

Taken from Commentary on John II.2:

We next notice John's use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God. Does the same difference which we observe between God with the article and God without it prevail also between the Logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the God who is over all is God with the article not without it, so "the Logos" is the source of that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence The Logos. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be God all but the name, or they deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, [John 17:3] "That they may know You the only true God;" but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, "The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth." It was by the offices of the first-born that they became gods, for He drew from God in generous measure that they should be made gods, and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The true God, then, is "The God," and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of God, who was in the beginning, and who by being with God is at all times God, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father, and not continuing to be God, if we should think of this, except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father.

Cotterell and Turner on KEFALH

While actually looking for something else,
I found some helpful information concerning
KEFALH in Peter Cotterell and Max
Turner's Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation(London: SPCK, 1989). See pp. 141-145.

Turner and Cotterell review GNT examples such as Col
2:19; 1 Cor 11:3 and Eph 5:23. They write:

"Now contextually it is by no means certain that Col
2:19 presents Christ as the origin, rather than as the
Lord of the Church, but clearly it would considerably
weaken the thesis if the sense 'source' was part of
the lexical meaning of the Greek word KEFALH ('head');
that is, if it were one of its established senses"
(page 141).

But is "source" one of the established senses of
KEFALH? After discussing LXX and Classical examples
where KEFALH is employed by ancient writers, these
scholars conclude:

"In other words, as far as we can tell, 'source' or
'origin' was NOT a conventional sense of the word
KEFALH in Paul's time. This does not preclude the
possibility that Paul himself began to use the word in
such a way, but we would need very strong evidence to
support such a view, and in our judgment nothing like
such strength of evidence is forthcoming" (145).

While, as Cotterell and Turner show, there does not
appear to be enough evidence in favor of
"source" being one of the lexical senses of KEFALH in
Paul's time, we do have attestation for the meaning
"ruler" or "authority over." Paul apparently used
KEFALH in this way, when he penned these inspired
words to the Ephesians:

KAI PANTA hUPETAXEN hUPO TOUS PODAS AUTOU KAI AUTON
EDWKEN KEFALHN hUPER PANTA THi EKKLHSIAi (Eph 1:22).

Paradoxes of Jesus, Bowman and a Possible Sleight of Hand

On pp. 74-76 of Why You Should Believe in the
Trinity, Robert M. Bowman, Jr. includes a section dealing with so-called "paradoxes of Jesus." Bowman seemingly puts a nail in the coffin of non-Trinitarians
(particularly, Jehovah's Witnesses) who think that the Incarnation of Christ concept is notionally meaningless or incoherent (i.e contradictory). Bowman argues that since Christ was both 100% God and 100% man (fully God and fully human) while on earth, we should not be surprised to read Bible verses that picture the Son of God both professing ignorance of the "day and hour" in Mk 13:32 and knowing "all things" in Jn 16:30.

Bowman also contends that while it is true that God cannot be tempted (James 1:13) and Jesus could be (and was) tempted in the days of his flesh (Heb 4:15)--Jesus could not sin (Jn 5:19).

There are other texts that Bowman appeals to in order to support the Incarnation as a biblical concept. I pick these two arguments to focus on though because they seem blatantly problematic to me.

Firstly, Jesus' disciples did say that he knew "all things" (OIDAS PANTA) in the Johannine verse mentioned by Bowman (Jn 16:30). As with other biblical texts, however, we must not only note what the Bible says; we must also seek to ascertain what a given scriptural utterance means. Were Jesus' disciples actually saying that they believed he was omniscient? If so, this would be a remarkable confession from a group of first century monotheistic Jews. In fact, it is highly unlikely that Jesus' followers were attributing omniscience to him. Mr. Bowman seems to be engaging in what a friend of mine has called "prestidigitation." His handling of Jn 16:30 does not appear to be all that rigorous, and it is evidently driven by some type of personal ideology. Simply put,
Jn 16:30 does not teach that Christ was or is omniscient.

PANTA is apparently not employed in an absolute sense at Jn 16:30. John's use of the Greek word should be construed in a relative sense, meaning that Christ knew "all things" to a degree. To illustrate what I am saying about Jn 16:30, I appeal to 1 Jn 2:27:

ALL' hWS TO AUTOU XRISMA DIDASKEI hUMAS PERI PANTWN . . .

In this passage, John informs his readers that God's "anointing" teaches spirit-begotten Christians about "all things." Yet, John is not employing PANTWN here in an absolute sense. The spirit of God does not teach those whom God anoints about physics, geometry, logic, foreign languages or marine biology. The children of God are taught subject matter that concerns everlasting life or salvation (1 Jn 2:25), not knowledge associated with the famed quadrivium or trivium (et al.).

Trinitarian commentator Gerald Borchert explains Jn 16:30 thus:

They [the disciples] were partly correct in their
assumption that Jesus had great knowledge . . . Their
generalization of how much knowledge Jesus had ('all
things,' PANTA) was, however, a typical human
overstatement that was far beyond their actual
capacity to comprehend. It was merely one of their
assumptions. Such an assumption has often become part
of our theological assumptions about the incarnate
Jesus' knowledge, even though elsewhere, for example,
he states that he did not know the time of the end
(cf. Mark 13:32). Moreover, Paul states that he
'emptied himself' ('made himself nothing,' NIV;
hEAUTON EKENWSEN, Phil 2:7), although we are not quite
sure of the full implications of that statement
(John 12-21, page 180).

In Alford's Greek testament, we read this paraphrase
of Jn 16:30:

Thou hast spoken so clearly of our feeling towards
Thee and of Thyself, that we have no occasion to ask
Thee anything;--and this was what Thou didst announce
would be;--we know therefore, by its being so, that
Thou knowest the secrets of our hearts (PANTA by
inference),--and hence believe that Thou camest forth
from God.'

Notice that Alford limits PANTA to the "secrets" of the disciples' hearts. Bowman may claim that only God can read hearts, but the disciples did not necessarily believe that only God could discern hearts. They affirmed that Christ was "from God" and it is conceivable that they believed Christ had knowledge of human thoughts based on the things he learned from his Father (Jn 7:16-18) In any event, it seems clear that the disciples were not imputing omniscience to Christ. A "great knowledge" of many things or an intimate acquaintance with a vast array of facts does not make one omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. Contra Borchert, I tend to believe that the words of Jn 16:30 simply constitute an idiomatic way to use a Greek term that can mean "all things." It is not necessarily an "overstatement," but Borchert nonetheless illustrates why one need not interpret the text as an apostolic declaration of Christ's omniscience.

As a closing note, has anyone else noticed how problematic it is to use Jn 5:19 as a proof that Christ was sinless or could not sin? The context of the passage is dealing with Christ observing and emulating the works of the Father toward the creation. The text has nothing to do with Christ's ability or inability to sin.

Regards,
Edgar

Thomas Aquinas' "Take" On Divine Emotions in the Summa Contra Gentiles

What's written below is a preliminary sketch of what we find in the SCG regarding God's emotions or lack thereof. I have long been interested in this subject because it seems to me that whether God is moved by our human plight or not, makes a difference theologically and existentially. I hope to develop these basic ideas as time goes on. If not, maybe posterity will finish my work. :)

Best regards,

Edgar
___________________________________________________________________________________

Summa Contra Gentiles I.LXXXIX.12

Differentiating emotions and passions

"No passion in intellective appetite" (Aquinas)

God does not acquire knowledge through the senses and thus has no sensitive appetite (could this be reversed?), there could be no need for sensitive appetite

Every passion is accompanied by somatic change (alteration) but God is not a body (ST I.3.1, maybe)

Emotions (passions) draw one outside the connatural disposition. But God cannot be withdrawn from outside of the connat. disposition since God is utterly immutable.

Passion has one object

Every passion is also in a subject "that is in potentiality." Yet God has no potential whatsoever.

Sorrow or pain [evils inherently by species] cannot be in God.

Repentance "denotes a change in the appetite." Repentance is a kind of sorrow: it thus implies a change of will.

God cannot be angry:

See SCG I.91.16-18 and II.2.5.9

Eusebius' Account of Irenaeus Addressing the Schismastics

See http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=QngPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader

Or just click on the title and you'll be taken to the Eusebius link.

Lactantius (Divine Institutes IV.14)

This quote is taken from Lactantius' Divine Institutes IV.14. Lactantius was a 4th-century apologist and historian who lived circa the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 CE). He writes:

"These are the ways of God, in which He enjoined Him
[Jesus] to walk. These are the precepts which He
ordered to be observed. But He exhibited faith towards
God. For He taught that there is but one God, and that
He alone ought to be worshipped. Nor did He at any
time say that He Himself was God; for He would not
have maintained His faithfulness, if, when sent to
abolish the false gods, and to assert the existence of
the one God, He had introduced another besides that
one. This would have been not to proclaim one God, nor
to do the work of Him who sent Him, but to discharge a
peculiar office for Himself, and to separate Himself
from Him whom He came to reveal. On which account,
because He was so faithful, because He arrogated
nothing at all to Himself, that He might fulfil the
commands of Him who sent Him, He received the dignity
of everlasting Priest, and the honour of supreme King,
and the authority of Judge, and the name of God."

Bruce Malina's Take on New Jerusalem

Salvete omnes:

The books I'm referencing in this blog entry are Bruce Malina's Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation and The New Jerusalem in the Revelation of John.

I must initially place my biases on the table before presenting what Malina has to write about Rev. 21:16. Having read through his social-science commentary on Revelation and most of his book about the New Jerusalem, I must admit that I am not overly impressed with Malina's method of explaining Revelation's contents. John was more than some seer beholding "visions" as a result of some altered state of consciousness (ASC): it seems that he was divinely inspired by God to behold visions and record them for later generations. I just had to get that out of the way.

While I am not a big fan of Malina's approach to the GNT, his comments on Rev. 21:16 appear to be quite helpful. In The New Jerusalem, Malina notes that the "holy city" is "of astronomical proportions, since it measures 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height" (page 54).

After observing that the city is a cube, Malina cites Pliny's Natural History which reports that a Greek stadion is equivalent to 125 Roman paces or 625 feet. The city of New Jerusalem, if measured in accordance with Pliny's comments, would extend through half of the US and "reach the height of 260 Mount Everests (the top of Mount Everest stands 29,028 feet above sea level). Furthermore, the city was of transparent gold, 'gold like pure crystal'" (Ibid).

A simple point I want to make is that the city of New Jerusalem which John saw coming down out of heaven from God must be symbolic. That is, unless we are to believe that one day a grand polis which can extend through half of the United States and is simultaneously equal in height to 260 Mount Everests will somehow literally fit on the earth as the new city further shines in all its golden splendor.

I don't think so. :-)

My Amazon Review of Tim Weldon's Book "Subtle Wisdom"

Review of Subtle Wisdom: John Duns Scotus's Philosophy of the Human Person

The Franciscan friar John Duns Scotus is known as the "Subtle Doctor" (Doctor Subtilis). He earned this designation by showing evidence that his mind was acute or capable of making important distinctions. Whether one agrees with Scotus doctrinally or philosophically, his thoughts on metaphysics and the human person are worthy of consideration. The late Etienne Gilson appropriately said that Scotus was no "mean metaphysician." In this small but effective work on Scotus, Tim Weldon clearly and intriguingly brings out the significance of Scotus' thought on the human person.

In the work "Subtle Wisdom" we learn about the historical background of Duns Scotus. The Subtle Doctor was apparently born in Scotland, educated at Oxford, lectured and served as regent master of theology in France, then died at Cologne (Germany). The year 1992 was also important from a Scotist perspective in view of the fact that Pope John Paul II pronounced Scotus "Blessed," thereby paving the way to sainthood for the Medieval thinker. It's also interesting to discover that Scotus produced a number of complex philosophical-theological works in his short lifetime. Weldon provides an approximate chronological outline of Scotus' oeuvre on pages 11-12. Editions for these works and their Latin titles are supplied in this portion of Weldon's book.

What constitutes the human person for Scotus? What does it mean to be a person? Weldon insists that Scotus would summarize human personhood in terms of love (page 14). That is the Franciscan way. To demonstrate this point, Weldon quotes Augustine of Hippo ("My weight is my love"), The Seraphic Doctor (Bonaventure) and other Franciscans who bear witness to the idea that Franciscans tend to define the human person within the context of love while affirming a teleology that represents God as the final cause of all things (human beings included). All things have come from God; hence, all things return to Him.

For Scotus, not only are we knowers, we are principally and inherently lovers as well. The Bible commands that we love God first, then it enjoins us to love our neighbors. Love is that which defines human persons: other theologians have called love "the primal ethical." But just what does the term "love" mean? Plato visited this question in his famous work "Symposium." However, in everyday conversation, the word "love" is used somewhat ambiguously. Scotus nonetheless views the will as "the seat of love and ethical action in the human person" (51). He argues that the will is rational, it's the locus of choice that is capable of acting in harmony with reason. Since for Scotus, the will's object is the good (bonum), the will "is inclined to self-determine in accordance with the good" (53). He also believes that we have no greater obligation than to love God (Deus diligendus est). Yet love for neighbor and ourselves is presupposed in the command to love God. And how do we manifest love for God or neighbor unless such love is willed by us?

Weldon touches on an aspect of Scotus' thought that can be particularly difficult to understand, namely, the philosophical concept of haecceities. Scotus coined the Latin term "haecceitas." Although it may be to some extent opaque, the concept seems to reveal something profound about the human person. Human persons are unique: they are "unequivocally, irreducibly, and indivisibly unique" for Scotus (66). The teaching about haecceities thus emphasizes the metaphysical role of individuation or it seeks to clarify in what sense things are individuated. Haecceitas literally means "thisness" (68). It potentially signifies the personal and indistinguishable nature of humans:

"As a determining, individuating principle, the genius of the concept of haecceity and its sacred reality has to be understood within the Franciscan worldview, specifically the Scotistic framework of creation and the place of the human person within creation" (70).

Weldon has briefly provided readers with a preliminary education of the Subtle Doctor.

Tertullian's Exegesis of Isaiah 44:24 (Adversus Praxean 19)

"By thus attaching the Son to Himself, He becomes His own interpreter in what sense He stretched out the heavens alone, meaning alone with His Son, even as He is one with His Son. The utterance, therefore, will be in like manner the Son's, 'I have stretched out the heavens alone,' because by the Word were the heavens established. Inasmuch, then, as the heaven was prepared when Wisdom was present in the Word, and since all things were made by the Word, it is quite correct to say that even the Son stretched out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the Father's work. It must also be He who says, 'I am the First, and to all futurity I AM.' The Word, no doubt, was before all things. 'In the beginning was the Word'; and in that beginning He was sent forth by the Father. The Father, however, has no beginning, as proceeding from none; nor can He be seen, since He was not begotten. He who has always been alone could never have had order or rank. Therefore, if they have determined that the Father and the Son must be regarded as one and the same, for the express purpose of vindicating the unity of God, that unity of His is preserved intact; for He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally with Himself comprehended in the same Scriptures."

Some Links About Tertullian On This Blog

http://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2010/04/gerald-bray-on-tertullians.html

http://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2011/02/tertullian-of-carthage-and.html

http://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2009/11/mellone-on-tertullians-christology.html

I hope these might also be helpful.

Best,
Edgar

Omniscience, God and Time

What does it mean for a rational subject to be omniscient (as that word is commonly applied to the divine)? Does it require that a rational subject know all states of affairs (past, present and future) as actual or only as possible? Certain theologians and philosophers have called the traditional view of omniscience into question. For example, Owen Thomas (a contemporary systematic theologian) suggests that God may know all that it is possible to know: not every actual state of affairs. We also have the open theists who believe (I'm generalizing here) that the future is partly open to God and partly closed. In other words, God does not exhaustively know the future.

Similarly with the issue of time. Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Hasker have both maintained that God possibly has his own time-strand. Maybe God is everlasting in the sense that he had no beginning and will have no end. That is to say, God is always temporal, but his temporality differs from ours (See Psalm 90:2).

To be honest, I cannot make sense of a timeless God. It seems to conflict with what we know about agency in general. What does it mean for an agent (a doer) to be timeless? How does thinking, knowing or awareness occur/exist in a timeless sphere of being? This is not to say that God must be temporal if he is agential. I just don't understand how we correlate agency with divine timelessness.

Finally, if God is the ultimate first cause, then how do we explain the concept of atemporal causation? This argument was raised by Stephen T. Davis in Logic and the Nature of God. It has since been discussed in subsequent works of philosophy, yet, I'm not sure that the question has been answered in a satisfactory manner.

Justin Martyr Questions And A Link

I've been using the resources on Google Books to peruse texts of Justin Martyr and sources regarding his thought. I'm still curious about why the Latin texts sometimes take precedence over the Greek texts of his work. Of course, we could suggest that bias is responsible for this phenomenon but I also wonder if there are not other mitigating factors involved. You might want to consult the link at http://books.google.com/books?lr=&id=SKECAAAAQAAJ&q=latin#v=onepage&q=dialogue&f=false

It's for the work by Carl Gottlob Semisch Justin Martyr: his life, writings and opinions, tr. by J.E. Ryland

Regards,

Edgar

Justin Martyr on the Anonymous God of Christianity and Judaism

The ancient writer Justin Martyr contends that
God does not have a personal name. He is not
alone in his belief that God is anonymous.

Justin Martyr's comments are probably rhetorical or
somewhat hyperbolic. However, he still thought that
it was quite grave to name the (putatively) ineffable
and anonymous God. C. C. Richardson writes concerning
the Martyr's attitude toward the nameless God:

"Justin was aware that the Old Testament divine name
was used for magical purposes (as Iao and the like),
and hence his vigorous condemnation of a practice he
considers not only wrong (as all Jews would) but
impossible."

See C. C. Richardson, Fathers, 283.

Justin himself writes: "And all the Jews even now
teach that the nameless
God spoke to Moses" (Apology 1.63).

For the Martyr, the only expression that fittingly
describes deity is hO WN:

"For God cannot be called by any proper name, for
names are given to mark out and distinguish their
subject-matters, because these are many and diverse;
but neither did any one exist before God who could
give Him a name, nor did He Himself think it right to
name himself, seeing that he is one and unique, as he
himself also by His own prophets testifies, when He
says, 'I God am the first,' and after this, 'And
beside me there is no other God.' On this account,
then, as I before said, God did not, when He sent
Moses to the Hebrews, mention any name, but by a
participle he mystically teaches them that he is the
one and only God. 'For,' says he; 'I am the Being,'
manifestly contrasting Himself, 'the Being,' with
those who are not, that those who had hitherto been
deceived might see that they were attaching
themselves, not to beings, but to those who had no
being" (Hortatory Address to the Greeks, 21).

The Plan for 2011

Hi all,

I want to submit blog posts that will touch on my research projects. I have some book plans and ideas for journal articles. My plan is to submit research work to this blog in 2011.

All the best,

Edgar

Origen of Alexandria on God's Hardening of Pharoah

"And now we must return an answer also to those who would have the God of the law to be just only, and not also good; and let us ask such in what manner they consider the heart of Pharaoh to have been hardened by God— by what acts or by what prospective arrangements. For we must observe the conception of a God who in our opinion is both just and good, but according to them only just. And let them show us how a God whom they also acknowledge to be just, can with justice cause the heart of a man to be hardened, that, in consequence of that very hardening, he may sin and be ruined. And how shall the justice of God be defended, if He Himself is the cause of the destruction of those whom, owing to their unbelief (through their being hardened), He has afterwards condemned by the authority of a judge? For why does He blame him, saying, 'But since you will not let My people go, lo, I will smite all the first-born in Egypt, even your first-born,' and whatever else was spoken through Moses by God to Pharaoh? For it behooves every one who maintains the truth of what is recorded in Scripture, and who desires to show that the God of the law and the prophets is just, to render a reason for all these things, and to show how there is in them nothing at all derogatory to the justice of God, since, although they deny His goodness, they admit that He is a just judge, and creator of the world. Different, however, is the method of our reply to those who assert that the creator of this world is a malignant being, i.e., a devil."

See Origen of Alexandria's De Principiis III.1.9

God the Father and Genderlessness

John Cooper writes:

"From the time of the Church Fathers, teachers of the
faith have used this doctrine [of divine
genderlessness] to explain that calling God Father
does not imply that God is masculine. Thus the
doctrine helps us rightly to interpret Scripture. It
prevents us from wrongly inferring from the gendered
language in Scripture that God is masculine while we
work to understand what this language does mean . . ."
(Our Father in Heaven, pages 188-189).

Justin Martyr and the Eternal Generation

(1) I do not understand Justin to say that the LOGOS
or SOPHIA is eternally generated by the Father.
Granted, the LOGOS [in Justin] is begotten
prior to and for the purpose of creatures. However,
that does not mean that Justin professes or affirms
the eternal generation of the Son-Logos. Edmund Fortman,
a scholar who argues that Justin believes the LOGOS is divine,
nonetheless writes:

"It is not clear whether the eternal Logos is
eternally a distinct divine person [in Justin], as
some scholars think, or originally a power in God that
only becomes a divine person shortly before creation
of the world when He emanates to create the world, as
others believe. Nor is it clear that Justin held an
eternal generation of the Son, as some maintain, or
merely an 'economic' emission of the Son in order to
be creator, as others hold" (The Triune God, page 46).

(2) I find it highly unlikely that Justin posited
an/the eternal generation doctrine. He explicitly states that
the LOGOS is begotten by the Father's will. This information
suggests that the Son's generation is a contingent act.
In other words, it is logically possible that the
Father might not have generated the Son. The Son is
not SEMPER NATUS for Justin. The logical implications of God
generating the Son by means of the divine will
motivated Athanasius to maintain that God generates
the Son by nature, not will (See Contra Arianos
3.62ff).

Irenaeus on Free Will

Irenaeus writes:

"This expression [of our Lord], 'How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not,' set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it were spuing [sic] it out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, 'But dost thou despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.' 'But glory and honour,' he says, 'to every one that doeth good.' God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honour, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who do it not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it in their power so to do."

See Adversus Haereses IV.37.1

Tertullian on God's Spirit Body

"For who will deny that God is a body, although 'God is a Spirit?' For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form" (Adversus Praxean 7, Dr. Peter Holmes English Translation from 1870).

"quis enim negabit deum corpus esse, etsi deus spiritus est? spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie" (Adversus Praxean 7.8, Ernest Evans' Latin text from 1948)