http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=729
The Finger of God
Skeptics have railed against the Bible on account of its allusions to
God’s body parts. For example, the Bible speaks of the arm of God (Job
40:9), the hand of God (Job 19:21), the face of God (Job 13:24), the
eyes of God (Deuteronomy 11:12), the ears of God (Psalm 130:2), the
mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3), the voice of God (Job 40:9), and even
the “finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). Attentive Bible students are aware
that all such references are simply accommodative
language—anthropomorphisms (man forms)—in which the Scriptures provide
humans with a reference point for relating to God’s activity. The Bible
clearly teaches that God is
spirit—not physical (John 4:24). He
does not possess physical mass. Jesus Himself stated, “a spirit does not
have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39; cf. 1 Corinthians
15:50). It is difficult for humans to conceptualize an infinite, eternal
Being Who is not composed of physical matter, since humans are subject
to space and time, and experience existence in a setting that is
preeminently material. Nevertheless, while we may have difficulty fully
understanding the nature of a nonphysical Being, the concept itself is
neither self-contradictory nor incoherent.
For example, when Moses and Aaron unleashed the plagues by the power of
God upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian population, Pharaoh’s magicians
concluded: “This is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19). They simply meant
that the plague was God’s doing—that the affliction was the result of
God’s power. In like manner, the Bible states that the original Ten
Commandments that God gave to Moses on two tablets of stone were
“written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18; cf. Deuteronomy 9:10).
In other words, God authored them and supernaturally placed them in
writing on the stone tablets. Another sample of this type of figurative
speech is seen in the declaration of the psalmist regarding God’s
creative activity: “When I consider Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You
are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm
8:3-4, emp. added). Obviously, God does not have fleshly fingers, nor
would He find it necessary to use them if He had them. Being the
ultimate Mind, He can bring into existence
ex nihilo (out of nothing) whatever He chooses by simply
willing it into existence.
This same figure of speech is seen in the New Testament as well. Jesus stated: “But if I cast out demons with
the finger of God,
surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20, emp. added).
He simply meant that His actions were by divine agency. Observe the
alternate wording of a parallel passage where, in place of the “finger
of God,” the text has the “Spirit of God”: “But if I cast out demons by
the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew
12:28). It is evident that “finger” simply refers to deity (whether the
Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit) manifesting His presence and power
in a time-space continuum.
Those scholars who have devoted their lives to studying dead languages,
discovering their linguistic intricacies, figurative features, and
idiomatic expressions, have long recognized this particular figure. For
example, E.W. Bullinger, who published a monumental volume in the
nineteenth century titled
Figures of Speech Used in the Bible
(1898), labeled this linguistic attribute “anthropopatheia” or
“condescension,” which he identified as “the ascription of human
passions, actions, or attributes to God” (p. 871). He devoted several
pages to illustrating this figure of speech (pp. 871-897). In his
specific remarks regarding the “finger” of God, he wrote: “A Finger is
attributed to God, to denote the putting forth of His formative power,
and the direct and immediate act of God” (p. 881). John Haley, who in
1874 produced the respected and scholarly reference work
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible,
defended the “immateriality” of God on the grounds that all such
anthropomorphic passages “are simply bold figures and startling
hyperboles in which the Orientals are wont to indulge” (p. 63). He
identified the expression “finger of God” as referring to God’s “direct
agency.”
The Bible has been the target of a myriad of attacks by skeptics for
over 2,000 years. It will undoubtedly continue to be so. No other book
in all of human history has been the object of such sustained, frenzied,
and antagonistic scrutiny. For the honest, unbiased investigator, the
Bible’s supernatural attributes continue to validate its authenticity.
REFERENCES
Bullinger, E.W. (1898),
Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1968 reprint).
Haley, John W. (1977 reprint),
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Q.
Aristotle
once wrote: “[T]he same attribute cannot at the same time belong and
not belong to the same subject and in the same respect…. [I]t is
impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing
to be and not to be” (Aristotle, 4:4). It is impossible, for example,
for a single door to be completely shut and completely open at the same
time. Likewise, it is contradictory for a man to say, “Yesterday I never
left my house to go to the store,” if indeed he did leave his house
yesterday to go to the store. The fact is, nothing can both be and not
be for the same person, place, or thing, at the same time, and in the
same sense (cf. Jevons, 1928, p. 117). For a person to say otherwise, he
is either a liar or delusional.
