Anthropopatheia
Human passions attributed to God
Anthropopatheia is the figure in which human feelings, passions, or affective states are attributed to God — not as naive anthropomorphism, but as a deliberate divine condescensio: God descends into human language to express His involvement with creation and humanity. Bullinger distinguishes this from anthropomorphism (attribution of bodily organs to God): Anthropopatheia concerns specifically inner emotional states.
Etymology
From the Greek ἀνθρωποπάθεια (anthropopatheia): anthrôpos (human being) + pathos (suffering, feeling, affection). In Latin condescensio (condescension, accommodation). The figure expresses that God communicates His will and engagement in the terms of human emotion — repentance, jealousy, anger, grief, joy — so as to make it comprehensible to humanity.
Definition
Anthropopatheia is a figure of accommodation: the infinite God adapts His self-disclosure to the finite capacity of human understanding. Bullinger insists that such expressions must not be taken literally as though God undergoes human passions in the way humans do; yet they are not empty metaphors. They reveal God’s genuine engagement with human history, but in language that human beings can grasp.
Biblical Examples
The repentance of God — the Flood:
- Gen. 6:6 — “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”
- Ex. 32:14 — “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people”
The jealousy of God:
- Ex. 20:5 — “For I the LORD thy God am a jealous God”
- Deut. 4:24 — “For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God”
- Nah. 1:2 — “God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth”
The grief and silence of God:
- Ps. 78:65 — “Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine”
- Isa. 42:14 — “I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman”
The tender affection of God:
- Hos. 11:8 — “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?… mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together”
- Jer. 31:20 — “Is Ephraim my dear son?… my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him”
The wrath of God:
- Rom. 9:22 — “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”
Related Stylistic Figures
- prosopopoeia — humans and things are treated as persons; in Anthropopatheia God is treated as human
- simile — God is sometimes compared with human situations by a Simile (Isa. 42:14)
- metaphor — simple transference; Anthropopatheia is specific to the divine sphere
Source
E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), pp. 871-894.