> The Bible, and therefore God, are so complex as to be incomprehensible to us. But the flipside is that there are certain things we *can* understand about God -- the Bible, with its commands to study it and learn, makes that quite clear. I believe my analogy is incomplete regarding Jesus' sacrifice and what it means, but I also believe it is pretty much *correct* as far as the analogy presumes. Likewise, it is "incomplete" to describe God as infinitely just and infinitely merciful -- the two characteristics important to this discussion -- but that doesn't mean they are any less correct. We may not understand all of why God did what he did and what it meant when he did it, but we certainly better do our best to understand the facets of it God tries to teach us in the Bible.

No argument here, and sorry if I appeared to be expressing something different. As a student of theology, I naturally consider it a Christian duty to use analogy to whatever extent it can go towards helping us understand what the Bible teaches. Our language about God may be "only" analogy, and it may fail to touch Him in His reality (that is, in the way in which God understands Himself), but still we cannot simply not speak of God at all. So yes, I'd certainly agree with what you've posted here.

Iss