God in a Box
Immature Christians should not try to digest heavy theological diets. Their stomachs just aren’t yet strong enough to process the startling and mystifying information of who God is revealed to be in Scripture.
Compounding the shock of some theological conclusions is that Theology is perhaps as much a psychological study of theologians themselves as it is the study of their infallible God. We humans cannot resist putting God “in a box”. The “box” is inevitable. If a theologian systematically gathers and studies scripture and reaches a conclusion, and if the conclusion is a “higher order” presupposition concerning the character and purposes of God, then of course other questions will be resolved consistently with the first presupposition. The problem is that a wrong conclusion at a high level produces wrong conclusions at lower levels.
So far, all I’ve stated is a principle of practical logic. The spiritual consequence of this reasoning can be disastrous for the new Believer who too quickly focuses on the arcane questions of theology. Without a deep foundation of grace and faith, supported by a personal experience of God’s redemptive love, the study of theology can disgust and disillusion the new believer. Why? Because theological notions of God can contradict our basic notions of a “loving Father”. Theologians, especially those in the conservative camp, can follow a path of “high level presuppositions” that lead to a starkly “harsh” God: one who has created “vessels of wrath made for destruction”.
Romans 9:22 - What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction,
Romans 9:23 - in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory,
Reformist (Calvanist) theologians focus on language like this from Romans 9 to support a “high level presupposition” that God predestined some to be saved, and others to be eternally condemned. Now God is “in a box” because other scriptures define God as offering salvation to all, so that whosoever should believe in Him (the Christ) will have salvation (a life of eternal reward).
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Even a mature Christian with a confident core belief in Christ will struggle to understand how God can be “fair” and “just” by granting some salvation and not others, when all people are equally deserving or undeserving of salvation. Reformed theologians reconcile these conundrums by stating simply: We are not to question a soverign God. After all, they argue, God need show no mercy at all. If He chooses to show some mercy, then that is to His glory. For the new believer who may be grounded in a culture of skepticism and materialism before conversion, this response is very difficult to swallow.
So I do not attempt to resolve this problem of “God in a box”. Frankly, the problem is irreconcilable, because we humans are creatures of our own limiting definitions, and we see the world (and God) through these boxes. A large measure of humility, faith, and trust in the personal experience of God’s love may be all we have to carry through the storms of doubt and logical inconsistencies.
