Hal wrote

This is a different approach to the subject than I have addressed, publicly, than in the past,though Bogey will recognize it. I think that the approach to free will,from a Biblical basis,which is the primary thing we are really debating,here, has to include the fact that scripture says we are created in the Creator's,(God's),image. An analysis of the Hebrew and the thought behind the Hebrew phrasing,would indicate that we are not created in the image of an anthropomorphic God,but that we,(anthropos),are created in the image of a Theomorphic God,which INCLUDES free will,since by very definition,God has to have free will,indeed,the freest will of all,or we are not talking about God,in the true definition of the word,at all.

I think Hal has pretty much hit it right on here. I wanted to comment on something he said though which I had not thought of in these terms, but it makes an interesting point.

He mentions that God is not anthropomorphic but theomorphic. I like this idea.

First off I think there is a great deal of confusion, even among Christians and especially among evangelicals and among those even more so southern evangelicals, that God is an old man sitting on a throne in the middle of outer space somewhere shaking his fist at us when we sin. This notion is in fact not only erroneous, but so erroneous as to be utterly indefensible and so far off base that it need not be redefined or refined, but jettisoned and a new idea of God must be conceived of altogether. The problem is that this notion is so widely held that when those who would attack the Faith are met with resistance which begins with, "Well I don't believe in that god either so let's talk about the God who is instead..." the response often borders on violence because the detractors of thd faith think that this notion, being so widely held after all, is the notion of God which Christianity confesses.

But it is not, and it never has been.

And for those who will say, "Well I speak to lots of Christians and they think God is like this...." two things. One, truth is not subject to public opinion. If ten million people hold a view of something erroneously then all of them are wrong. Two, just because lots and lots of people believe something doesn't make it right (nazi germany, ufos, compassionate conservatives) or anything less far fetched.

The Bible uses anthropomorphic language to describe God; the eyes of God search the earth, to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, etc, but such language is not a statement about the actual nature of God, but rather about the way in which God relates to us in such a way as we can understand. We have no concept of what God is like, but we know things about ourselves. For example we know the tender care of a mother nursing her child and the safety of a child in her arms, so when the Bible calls the Lord El Shaddai (God the breasted One) it does mean that God literally descends and feeds us from His breasts, rather it means that the affection and care which God shows toward those who love Him and are called according to His purpose is like the care of the nursing mother for her child. The anthropomorphic language exists to serve as an analogy for us to help us understand the care and nurture and wrath and judgment of God.

So what is God like?

Well on the authority of none less that Jesus Himself, which by the way settles the argument for faithful Christians, God is a Spirit. Not the Spirit, as in Holy Spirit (that's the Trinity.... aaaaand we don't have time) What that means is that God is non-corporeal. God does not have a body. God exists and has being and that being has a nature which is part and parcel of that being, but is not contained locally within a body. Remember the notion of God in the box?

Is God in a box? Well since God is everywhere, yes.

...and no, since God cannot be in the box only, or rather in this box but not that one.

You see incomprehensible. God exists perfectly and His being needs nothing to exist. He did not need someone to praise Him so He made us. Such a statement implies that God was lacking something (praise) and had to make it. The problem is how could God possibly make something which was not within Him in some fashion already. In other words if there were no us, God would praise Himself and be right to do so. After all, who else would a perfect being praise perfectly if not the perfection from which such perfect praise originates in the first place. Once again Trinity.

The point is Hal's idea of the Theomorphic is helpful because it distinguishes God-ness from everything else-ness. God in Himself makes and upholds all things, and that Creation bears His image, but that Creation is not God and neither is it exactly like God. So what it means to be made in God's image it to be higher that the Creation which only indirectly bears the image of God, and yet to not be exactly like God since we are Creature and He is Creator.

I know I am inviting a discussion on the nature of man from Hal here so feel free buddy and I'll hash that one next.

What I want to say here though is that we must jettison a lot, a lot of really bad thinking where God is concerned and instead read the Scripture for what it has to say about God. Because far from saying that we and our rock are the bright shiny center of the universe and God dotes on us because He has nothing better to to do, instead Scripture points out that we, one and all, are wretched fallen sinners who's idea of self is way to big and who's idea of God is way to small.

Just thinking.