while reviews have been very positive, they have raised three serious critiques of the work. first, in his effort to emphasize the imminent and relational nature of god, fretheim neglects to adequately address themes like holiness as a balance to his relational theology. without the tension provided by god's holiness, relational theology can be pushed too far, and fretheim sometimes is guilty of this. dale patrick points out that while fretheim does not deny that much of the god-talk in the old testament does fit into the traditional paradigms which emphasize holiness, sovereignty, and transcendence he ignores these elements claiming that the organismic is predominant. patrick argues that the task of biblical theology is to present a comprehensive image of god rather than simply a prominent one. some have claimed that fretheim's process theology (a term fretheim himself never embraces) is to blame for the lack of material on holiness. however, given fretheim's presupposition that transcendence and sovereignty have been overemphasized, it is easy to see why he doesn’t spend time affirming them. his stated goal is not to replace ideas of holiness, but to bring balance to them.