WORD OF THE DAY From The Pastor's Study

Anthropomorphism

[an’-thruh-puh-mor‘-fiz’-um]


(Greek anthropos, “human” and Greek morphe, “shape” or “form”)
The ascription of human attributes to inanimate objects, animals, forces of nature, and others. With respect to Christian theology, the authors of the Bible assign certain emotions, actions or physical features of man to God. For example, in Exodous 3:20 we have God “stretching out His hand.” Without anthropomorphism we would not have a framework from which to begin to understand God, since he is invisible and immaterial (cf. 1 Tim 1:17). The purpose is to describe God in terms more understandable to humans.
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