Answer to question 1) the earlier you go in the bible, the more clearly we’re dealing with a tribal deity. you don’t need to ask those questions unless you assume all the other things we’ve been talking about. Certainly tribal gods hate people… but we grew up: and so did our concept of God.

Seriously - as you suggest - it is all metaphors, including the omnies. I’ve been saying that those raise other pastoral problems (just as passibility does). You don’t need ‘em, just as you don’t need the doctrine of passibility.

“Incarnation = quite a mystery” is about as far as we need to carry the conversation, I think.

1) Theology can only use metaphors. Some metaphors are better than others. Some metaphors lead to serious inconsistencies. I can sympathize with ignoring the concept of God’s impassibility to help understand the mystery of suffering (it has practically no pastoral application in my opinion), but what does one say when scripture refers to God hating individuals? Does God literally hate Esau? It goes without saying that God hates sin, but people? If so, who else does a passible God hate? If anything, that surely goes against the Gospels. How can God, Who is Love, hate?

2) Could you please explain your reference to “‘essence and energy’ silliness”? I honestly do not know what you mean by it. It is not mentioned in Weinandy’s article? The only concept I know that deals with essence is from philosophy/theology in regards to essence and existence, or essence and actuality.

The traditional doctrine of God’s impassability - preached in the face of God’s clear suffereing as recorded in the Gospels - is highly emphasised in Orthodoxy’s liturgy. I don’t buy it. Sorry. No more than I buy the “essence and energy” silliness.

The present critique of the Fathers is then entirely misconceived. Contemporary theologians wrongly hold that the attribute of impassibility is ascribing something positive of God, that is, that He is static, lifeless and inert, and so completely devoid of passion. This the Fathers never countenanced. The Fathers were merely denying of God those passions that would imperil or impair those biblical attributes that were constitutive of His divine being. They wished to preserve the wholly otherness of God, as found in Scripture, and equally, also in accordance with Scripture, to profess and enrich, in keeping with His complete otherness, an understanding of His passionate love and perfect goodness.

This paragraph shows the problem: they took an assumption (”the omnies”) and then re-wrote their understanding of scripture to make sense in light of their new discoveries. It’s funny that the writer goes to great pains to say this isn’t true - even as he says it, over and over.

Once you let go of the omnies, you no longer have to force the rest of the bible to jump through pagan hoops.

I have no doubt that the Omnies were important to the Church Fathers. The question was were they right to include such a Hellenism?

The Bible is a human-centred document, writen by humans about their dealings with this deity. The Church has produced Open Theism, Process Theology, Liberation Theology and, indeed, whole libraries full of other theologies since Nicea. The theology has evolved as our relationship with God has evolved and, again, that’s the point of the discussion.

You asked a question about the Bible: again, I’m not sure if you’re looking for “my” answer or “the right” answer. But here is mine: the Bible is a record (sometimes historical, sometimes not) of some persons’ dealings with God. It is right, wrong, poetry, mythology, commissioned flattery, political propaganda, and any number of other possibilities. But even in the places where it is wrong, it seeks to convey the truth as understood by our Spiritual Ancestors in the light of their experience of God. We walk in the same path (one hopes) composing the same texts: of equal value in Truth, if not in style, as we seek to follow the same deity in our own experience and lives.

I think the problem of Theodicy - of attempting to reconcile the presence of evil in the world with God - is caused by our words; not by God, not by our experiences.

Theodicy is caused by attempting to put our experiences into a box crafted by some people a long time ago who may have been wrong (as I may be wrong). I’m suggesting that we work with images from people who lived even longer ago. Not because those images are “more right” but because they reconcile these differences for us (and for those who posed the questions originally).

Whose story is the Bible?

Is it God’s story about us learning to live with him? Or is it our story about God learning to live with us?

If the story is about us learning to live with God, then it is our attitudes, our hearts, our programs for happiness that must change to his.

If the story is about God learning to live with us, then it is God who has to change and adapt to us.

I am tempted to say it is a little of both. Reading scripture, especially the Old Testament, makes it seem like it is both, but scripture is written from our point of view. And I think there is a grave danger in saying both.

I believe that the second interpretation leads to a form of idolatry as Donald Schell described in his reply to the theoldicy meme, that is, “a theology and spirituality that offer[s] a means to manipulate God for our own purposes”, a “religion of manageable results”. If God has to adapt to us, then we can manipulate him. (And didn’t Schell mention this in connection with the old Hebrew prophets?)

Regardless of the origin of the concept of omnipotence, it must have been very important to the early church fathers to include this one attribute of God’s nature into the Nicene Creed.

I think to deny this attribute of God starts a cascade of thinking that ends in the second interpretation of the Bible, an interpretation that is not God-centered. (And results in, or begins with, things like a process theology, open theism, gnosticism, and at least a too literal interpretation of scripture.)