Does God Have a Body?

You’ve probably noticed that God is depicted as having a body, at least in some portions of the Hebrew Bible. This God is conceived of as a male who,

. . . walks in his garden, fashions Adam with dirt/clay, breathes life into him (Gen 2);

. . . appears to Abraham, looking like a man (Gen 18);

. . . wrestles with Jacob (Gen 32);

. . . shows Moses the divine backside (Exod 33);

So with this in mind, I came across this link (my emphasis):

Both the Bible and good philosophy report that God is non-physical - spirit. In John 4:24 it is said that God is spirit (see also Luke 24:39; Romans 1:20; Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17). This is why no material thing was to be used to represent God (Exodus 20:4). But this can also be shown by reflecting on what God is. Philosophically the same truth comes through. All that is created is necessarily finite and limited. But the first cause (God) is uncreated, and therefore must be non-finite, or infinite. That which is beyond the finite must, by definition, be infinite, and the Bible states that God is beyond creation (1 Kings 8:27; Job 11:7-9; Isaiah 66:1-2; Colossians 1:17). That which is physical cannot be infinite - for you cannot add finite parts together until they reach infinity. Therefore God is spirit as opposed to physical/material in His Being. This does not mean He cannot localize a physical appearance. God is not composed of matter nor any other imaginable substance. He also cannot be measured, is not spatial, and has no true location (presence is a different concept).

Yes, of course, we read elsewhere in Scripture that God is Spirit, not embodied. And the philosophical point made here has some merit.

But…

The Bible still speaks of God as having a body. And not just metaphorically. I don’t believe God has a body, but that isn’t the point. Some biblical writers did. At the very least, they believed that God could manifest himself corporeally. Supposed arguments of divine necessity cannot easily dismiss God’s corporeal nature in Scripture. I would have liked this online article to have at least mentioned this instead of blowing past it.

There is no need to pit one against the other. The Bible is multivocalic–its writers sometimes express different views on the same topic. (A wonderful book exploring the theme of God’s body is by two-time podcast guest Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. See podcast episode 147, “Does God Have a Body?”).

I don’t believe God has a body but at least some ancient Israelites did at least at some point in their history. They weren’t stupid. They were ancient. They were encultured. 

And so am I when I say that I believe God is Spirit that pervades all of reality. I make this point in Curveball. Thinking of God as a “being” is too much like thinking of God as a being alongside other beings. I prefer to think of God not as a being but as the ground of all being and existence–that by which all things are–and who enlivens all matter, from subatomic particles to unfathomable expanses of the cosmos.

Without this line of thinking (which I most assuredly did not make up), I would not be able to speak of God at all. My time and place at this point of the human drama lead me to conceive of God differently than the biblical authors did. 

We are all working with the mystery of God, trying to depict the Creator in ways that allow us to keep talking about God. For some that has meant that God has a body. For others, it means God does not.