Discussions of divine attributes and ambiguous expressions can become so extensive that the passage’s guidance is obscured. Theological excess occurs when an interpreter makes every difficult expression serve a predetermined system through remote or strained interpretations.
A disciplined approach respects divine transcendence, the revealed wording, and early scholarly restraint. Elaborate polemic should not displace meanings and teachings that the passage actually establishes.
Methodological point: describing how various theological schools historically handled these verses is distinct from declaring one contested method universally binding without further argument.