As the perfect parent, God suffers emotional pain when his creatures, created in his own image and likeness, rebel against him and do evil instead of good.

Before saying 'I disagree' be sure you can say 'I understand.'

To some of us, raised and trained in allowing the Bible to absorb the world (that is, to "see" all of reality through the biblical story), the Bible is quite clear about all really important matters.

The Bible portrays God as entering into covenants with people which, when broken, causes him grief and sorrow. The biblical prophet Hosea and God's using him as an illustration of how much Israel's idolatry costs God emotionally points to God's vulnerability. But also the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ who, even as God the Son, suffered for our sins, points to God's vulnerability.

Humanism cannot survive on a purely secular platform.

We're creatures, so we have limits.

We, including many Christians, read the Bible through "eyes" conditioned by, and even accommodated to, modern Western culture plus the influences of messages and ideas from other cultures that are alien to the worldview of the biblical writers. Therefore, in order fully to understand the Bible and allow the Bible to absorb the world (rather than the world - culture - absorb the Bible) we must practice an "archaeology" of the biblical writers' implicit, assumed view of reality.