Hi there,
So I was watching this very eloquent talk of Artificial Intelligence and I was inspired to imagine putting God in a box - this is what unlearned people do with theology all the time (I'm not saying I am excluded from that either!) -- I think Paul said in one of the letters that there are many who preach from different motives, some even from envy (the desire to put believers in a box, you might say!!)
The thing is, if you put God in a box, according to man, God is then powerless - I say according to Man, because to Man anything which is not able to save itself is less powerful than he considers himself and if God, then infinitely less powerful. The point would be that God would remain in a box, because that was the faith of the one that put him there - I'm not losing you am I? I am trying to say the first thing God would ask is whether He was welcome to be in box, as you might say "the way He wanted to be".
This is a catchy thing, we learn ourselves, over life, that we can relate to God in certain ways and not in others - some things He punishes, some things He chastens and realistically God does these things by faith -- you might say "God doesn't care whether He is in a box or not, God lives by faith", but this is slightly disingenuous: I am not saying God prepared a box before time, knowing that what He created would develop the faith to put Him there, in due time - God patently does not forsake being Unknown, to bend to the will of people who simply want to take advantage of Him. Far from it, God desires to be more Unknown that both faithful and faithless alike would fear Him - the suggestion if you are following it is that as long as the box does not interfere with God being feared, God would regard the box as theologically sound? I haven't even addressed the fact that God could continue to pray and thus bring about His Will by Faith: regardless of the box!
So, I guess what I am saying is that, its completely within the will of God to use the Ark of the Covenant to knock over a statue of Baal, but God Himself resists the idea that He can be boxed, rather making His will known theologically through the Bible, for which He is compelled to act in a certain way, but not be bound by Man in the process. I don't know, its basically the question of how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin all over again - except that I really need to know the answer, for the very same reason that I am asking: if you can put God in a box you can put believers in a box. Moreover, having the power to put believers in a box, you could manipulate God who desires to be with those believers, to enter into a box Himself without them! This is basically the process the atheist applies when attempting to debate believers on that very point, reductio ad absurdum.
It may be we never get out of this box!
So I was watching this very eloquent talk of Artificial Intelligence and I was inspired to imagine putting God in a box - this is what unlearned people do with theology all the time (I'm not saying I am excluded from that either!) -- I think Paul said in one of the letters that there are many who preach from different motives, some even from envy (the desire to put believers in a box, you might say!!)
The thing is, if you put God in a box, according to man, God is then powerless - I say according to Man, because to Man anything which is not able to save itself is less powerful than he considers himself and if God, then infinitely less powerful. The point would be that God would remain in a box, because that was the faith of the one that put him there - I'm not losing you am I? I am trying to say the first thing God would ask is whether He was welcome to be in box, as you might say "the way He wanted to be".
This is a catchy thing, we learn ourselves, over life, that we can relate to God in certain ways and not in others - some things He punishes, some things He chastens and realistically God does these things by faith -- you might say "God doesn't care whether He is in a box or not, God lives by faith", but this is slightly disingenuous: I am not saying God prepared a box before time, knowing that what He created would develop the faith to put Him there, in due time - God patently does not forsake being Unknown, to bend to the will of people who simply want to take advantage of Him. Far from it, God desires to be more Unknown that both faithful and faithless alike would fear Him - the suggestion if you are following it is that as long as the box does not interfere with God being feared, God would regard the box as theologically sound? I haven't even addressed the fact that God could continue to pray and thus bring about His Will by Faith: regardless of the box!
So, I guess what I am saying is that, its completely within the will of God to use the Ark of the Covenant to knock over a statue of Baal, but God Himself resists the idea that He can be boxed, rather making His will known theologically through the Bible, for which He is compelled to act in a certain way, but not be bound by Man in the process. I don't know, its basically the question of how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin all over again - except that I really need to know the answer, for the very same reason that I am asking: if you can put God in a box you can put believers in a box. Moreover, having the power to put believers in a box, you could manipulate God who desires to be with those believers, to enter into a box Himself without them! This is basically the process the atheist applies when attempting to debate believers on that very point, reductio ad absurdum.
It may be we never get out of this box!
