Grudem 12a: God's "Communicable" Attributes I

It's been over 3 months since I posted on Grudem, not least because I wanted to collect and edit my summary/evaluations of his first section on the Word of God.  Nevertheless, Grudem continues.

I have already summarized/evaluated three chapters of his section on the Doctrine of God.  Today I resume with the beginning of his chapter 12, God's "Communicable" Attributes, Part 1.
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12 The "Communicable" Attributes of God, Part 1
Chapter 11 presented God's "incommunicable" attributes, those that largely relate to God apart from the creation, like his eternity.  By contrast, God's "communicable" attributes are ones that have to do with his relation to the creation, like spirituality.

A. Attributes Describing God's Being
1. Spirituality
Summary
Grudem presents two attributes as aspects of God's being that relate directly to the creation.  The first is spirituality. By spirituality, Grudem refers to the fact that God is spirit.  "God's being, his essential mode of existence, is different from everything that he has created" (187).  God is not a certain size.  He does not have dimensions. He is not bound by a spatial location.

Here is his official definition: "God's spirituality means that God exists as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent than any other kind of existence" (188). Since "God has given us spirits," this attribute is placed in the category of communicable.

Evaluation
We in this universe are really in no position to know exactly what it literally means to say that God is Spirit.  Grudem's description is orthodox and fairly captures what it means when we say it. It connects to God's omnipresence--God is not limited by location.  God is not another being like we are a being.

At the same time, we can wonder whether we are really saying the same thing when we say God is Spirit as when we say people have spirits. We are in no position to say anything about what God's essence is like "outside" this universe. "Spirit" is a metaphor for what God is like inside this universe. "Outside," he is "other."

In that sense, we use "spirit" in relation to human beings to say that we have a part that belongs to the realm of God in addition to our obvious, visible, physical side.  In a sense, while we use "spirit" to refer to the fact that God, while other, is inside this universe, in relation to humans, we use "spirit" to say that we, while inside this universe, have a part that connects to the realm outside this universe.  In both cases, such language is only our attempt to get a handle on matters we cannot possibly understand, and it should not be taken literally.

When the Bible speaks in terms of God as a spirit or us having spirits, it is giving us a picture we can understand.  It is not likely a literal description of God or our make-up.

2. Invisibility
Summary
"God's invisibility means that God's total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things" (188). God does sometimes make himself seen in various ways, mostly by analogy. The "beatific vision" (190), a seeing of God face to face, is an experience Moses is said to have had. The Old Testament mentions several "theophanies," appearances of God on earth.

Evaluation
We can wonder whether to say God is invisible to us is really to say much more than the implication of what we are saying when we say God is spirit. Certainly mainstream Christians have always believed that God can make himself visible on earth and spiritually present to his worshipers.  Neither of these claims suggest that God's "essence" becomes visible. Apart from Christ, a theophany is simply an embodied analogy.

Quote from Alan Segal

From Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion, p.179. Segal is a genius, and the usual idiosyncratic professor. I once heard him read an SBL paper from his lap top, no doubt finished on the plane (if indeed it was finished :-). He is hilarious and generally on the list for a party of any significance at a scholarly convention. Jewish scholar of all things Jewish, including the New Testament, professor at Columbia in New York.
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"Though many think that dualism and monotheism are opposing phenomena, dualism actually seems to be a consequence of some difficulties with monotheism. From the perspective of ethics, monotheism is in opposition to polytheism, not to dualism. Once there is one god, he or she must be the author of all evil as well as good. Indeed, one might argue that dualism is not a stage on the way to monotheism so much as a stage beyond it, a strategic retreat from monotheism governed by the recognition that monotheism makes the explanation of evil problematic. In these dualisms, good will eventually conquer evil."

This passage appears in his treatment of Zoroastrianism.