![]() ![]() For Christians, the only God that exists is the Holy Trinity, that is to say, God as He has been made known through the God/Man Jesus Christ. The question is whether the God someone has in the Box is actually the true and living God and whether or not they are willing to get in the Box with Him.Įverything that can be said about God belongs to the realm of the particular. The God outside the Box is no God at all. It’s possible to complain that someone is “putting God in a Box,” but it really isn’t the problem. Such a God, while interesting as an abstraction, is actually no God at all.Īnd this brings us back to the Box. For a God outside the Box is far more convenient and subject to the imagination and safe from any authoritative meddling in human affairs. And we know Him only because He makes Himself known. It is only the God Who put Himself in the Box that can be discussed or considered. As imaginary attributions, they are just guess work, or worse. Even to attribute certain characteristics to the God outside-the-Box is meaningless. Of course, imaginary gods are not God at all, only idols that we make for ourselves. Outside-of-the-box is a simple blank slate available for every imagination. ![]() God outside-of-the-Box very quickly becomes a cipher for whatever we choose to consider ultimate. To recognize and confess these specific things is not “putting God in a box,” but admitting who the God is Who put Himself in our Box. And this God has made some very specific things known about Himself. Were that the case, then the infinite flexibility of ideas would be our playground (sadly, much modern theology is done in this manner). This is the great difficulty in Christian theology: we are not speaking in the abstract or ideal. ![]() But it also confesses that this same God, in His love for the world, entered our world in such a manner that He might be known and spoken of. John Chrysostom says of God: “For You are God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same.” The Church confesses from the beginning that God transcends the Box. God has so created us and the world in which we live that He can enter it and all of creation rejoices at His coming. ![]() So we can say that though we live in the Box, the Box itself bears some particular relationship and reflection of the Maker of Boxes. The Box is a place where we can speak and reason and consider order and structure, because it was fashioned through the Logos. John notes that the cosmos is created by and through the Logos, which gives this Box in which we live its very shape. The Logos describes God as Speaker, Fashioner, Reason, Order, Structure, and the like. For this aspect of Christ is uniquely related to the Box. He could have used any number of other titles for the Second Person of the Trinity, but he chose to speak of Him as the Word, the Logos of the Father. John chose the title, “Logos” (Word), when speaking of Christ in the prologue of his gospel. When the Gospel of John says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” he could just as easily have said, “God came into the Box.” God not only entered the Box, but did so in a way that can be known and spoken of. The only God who can be spoken of is the God who enters the Box. We are limited, circumscribed, utterly bounded by our own ignorance. We are not infinite creatures who live in an infinite universe. I cannot therefore insist that, based on His undeniable justice, God “must” do one thing or another.īut there is a much larger problem concerning God and the Box. For the mystery of God’s justice lies indeed “outside of the box.” If it is true that His justice cannot be denied, His justice remains incomprehensible to us. Even if the statement is granted, the rest of the corollary does not necessarily follow. Sinners “must” be punished – God’s justice requires it and His justice cannot be denied. For example, “God cannot deny His justice.” This is often affirmed by those who assert that God “must” condemn some to hell. I am deeply averse to statements that begin: “God cannot.” They are often little more than bad theological reasoning. But, let’s think a little more about the box. It is also a common rhetorical ploy to shut down a theological discussion. It is a commonplace that you “cannot put God in a box.” It is an affirmation of the transcendence of God and of the limits of human understanding. ![]()
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