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The Suffering and the Repentance of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Lester J. Kuyper
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Extract

Much research in biblical studies today concerns itself with hermeneutics, in which biblical scholars attempt to establish principles of interpretation which will do justice to the meaning of the Bible. The need for hermeneutics is apparent for the understanding of any literature and especially of the Scripture since an understanding of the Bible involves the interpreter's subjective element of faith. The Bible in contrast to much literature asks the reader for his interest, his faith, and his commitment to God. Consequently subjective notions and arbitrary fancies frequently play a part in determining what the interpretation should be. Before the reader has been properly disciplined in understanding the language of other peoples living in ancient times, he has set up his own rules of interpretation which satisfy his own predilections but hardly the message of the inspired writer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1969 , pp. 257 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1969

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References

page 258 note 1 ZAW (1939), pp. 75–85.

page 258 note 2 De Mensvormigheid Gods (J. H. Kok N.V., Kampen, 1962).

page 259 note 1 op. cit., pp. 235–45.

page 259 note 2 The Impassibility of God (University Press, Cambridge, 1926).Google Scholar

page 260 note 1 Brasnett, B. R., The Suffering of the Impassible God (S.P.C.K., London, 1928)Google Scholar; Kitamori, K., Theology of the Pain of God (John Knox Press, Richmond, 1965)Google Scholar; articles in theological journals are: Pollard, K. E., Scottish Journal of Theology (1955), pp. 353–64Google Scholar; Wondra, G., The Reformed Review (December 1964), pp. 28–35Google Scholar; Woollcombc, K. J., Scottish Journal of Theology (1967), pp. 129–48.Google Scholar

page 260 note 2 The Netherlands Reformed Church in her Church Order, Article X, makes a declaration appropriate here: ‘In thankful obedience to the Holy Scripture as the source for preaching and the only rule of faith, the entire Church, also in her official gatherings, makes confession of the self-revelation of the Triune God in fellowship with the confession of the fathers and in recognition of her responsibility for the present, pressing forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.’

page 262 note 1 A study of the verbal root NHM and a history of translations appear in The Reformed Review (May 1965), pp. 3–8.

page 262 note 2 Philo, The Loeb Classical Library, vol. III (G. P. Putnam's Sons), pp. 3–101.

page 263 note 1 According to Philo anthropomorphism is used as a ‘crutch for our weakness’. Observe his discussion on the impropriety of God binding himself with an oath. ‘Why then did it seem well to the prophet and revealer to represent God as binding himself with an oath? It was to convince created man of his weakness and to accompany conviction with help and comfort. We are not able to cherish in our souls continually the thought which sums so worthily the nature of the Cause, that “God is not as man” (Num. 23.19), and thus rise superior to all human conceptions of him.... Therefore we invent for him hands and feet, incomings and outgoings, enmities, aversions, estrangements, anger, in fact such parts and passions as can never belong to the Cause. And of such is the oath—a mere crutch for our weakness.' Philo, The Loeb Classical Library, vol. II, pp 165–7.

page 263 note 2 J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, XXXVII, 1416.

page 263 note 3 J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, XXIV, 796.

page 264 note 1 Commentaria inPentateuchum Mosis (Fratres de Tournes, Lugduni [Lyons], 1732), p. 84Google Scholar. Other references are from commentaries in loco.

page 265 note 1 Calvin's commentaries in loco.

page 265 note 2 Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. I, chap. XVII, 13, 14.

page 266 note 1 Compendium Theologiae Didactico-Elenchticae (1731), p. 65f.

page 266 note 2 (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1860), pp. 195–230.

page 267 note 1 Brunner, E., The Christian Doctrine of God, vol. I (Lutterworth Press, London, 1949). pp. 266–269.Google Scholar

page 267 note 2 Gesammelte Schriften (Verlag von Wilhelm Hertz, Berlin, 1883), pp. 188–377.Google Scholar

page 268 note 1 Church Dogmatics, vol. II/I (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 490–500.Google Scholar

page 271 note 1 K. J. Woollcombe introduced this term to me. Op. cit., p. 142. Even as he supposes that ‘to hold paradoxically that God is both passible and impassible without any breach of “contrapletal” logic’, so it seems possible to bring the concepts of changeability and unchangeability within contrapletal logic.

page 273 note 1 Also Ps. 110.4; Jer. 4.28, 20.16; Ezek. 24.14; Zech. 8.14; Mal. 3.6.

page 273 note 2 Also Gen. 6.6f; Exod. 32.12; Judges 2.18; 1 Sam. 15.11, 24; 2 Sam. 24.16; 1 Chron. 21.15; Jer. 18.8, 10, 26.3, 13, 19, 42.10; Amos 7.3, 6; Joel 2.13; Jon. 4.2.

page 277 note 1 Jesus similarly declares that the changeability of God becomes evident in His response to tribulation. ‘And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days’ (Mark 13.20).