The Boxing of God
Monday, August 11, 2008 at 3:21PM No, you are not experiencing deja vu. This is a reposting of an oldish piece that I heavily re-edited because there were (and here I begin whispering) serious argument flow issues. Which, of course, you were all too kind to point out to me the first time round.
I have a confession to make: I am a former theology discussion board junkie. You
don’t have to be on these discussion boards long before you realize that
there are a few standard oft-repeated-but-mostly-meaningless all-purpose rebuttal phrases. The point of these particular counterarguments is to wipe out the opposition with one knock-out punch by making an accusation about the opposing position that is so shocking that those holding it slink away in embarrassment. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of these scandalous assertions actually work in this way, but lack of success has not kept them from being used again and again.
One of these all-purpose rebuttals is the God in a box argument. This accusation is usually is tossed into a discussion when someone makes a propositional statement about God
that doesn’t sit well with another participant in the discussion. But instead of giving reasons this statement about God is wrong, which might require some honest-to-goodness brain work, the person disagreeing simply trots
out the customary propositional-statement-about-God objection, “You
can’t put God in a box like that.”
Of course, part of the God in a box rebuttal is always right. We can’t put God in a box. God is infinite, so our statements and ideas about him will never contain the whole of who he is.
