A cartoon, striking in its simplicity, yet profound in its message, captures a fundamental human struggle. It depicts a large cardboard box, labeled "THEOLOGY," gaping open. From its confines emerge colossal limbs: arms, legs, a head, all clearly too vast for their attempted enclosure. Beside it, a tiny figure strains with futile grit, shouting, "Come on, God, get in there!"
The humor here is not mocking but revealing. It mirrors a deeply human impulse: the urge to compress the infinite into something comprehensible. Theology, at its best, is the disciplined study of the divine, an attempt to speak of God with clarity, coherence, and reverence. Yet theology, no matter how rigorous, remains bound by language. And God, as every believer and seeker knows, exists beyond the limits of human speech.
The box in the cartoon is not an indictment of religion itself, nor of theology as a whole. Rather, it exposes the inherent limitation of any system that claims to fully encapsulate the divine. The moment we think God is neatly packaged, boxed by doctrines, creeds, or logic, something resists. That resistance is the mystery that defies articulation, the grace that shatters our categories, the paradox that lies at the heart of faith.
Organized religion offers indispensable gifts: structure, community, continuity. But when it grows overly attached to its own scaffolding, it risks confusing its architecture for the divine presence it seeks to honor. A theology that hardens may exclude whatever or whoever fails to fit its dimensions.
This is not a call to discard theology. On the contrary, we need it. Theology helps us grapple with life's most urgent questions. It guides us through Scripture with depth and discernment. It distills millennia of human encounter with the sacred. But like any tool, it must recognize its purpose. Theology is not God. It is, at best, a map. It is not the territory.
The cartoon's exasperated figure is all of us at some point. We try to rationalize divine silence. We try to systematize suffering. We try to reduce belief to bullet points. Yet every time we think we have succeeded, God spills over the edges.
Mystics, prophets, and poets have always understood this. They traffic in parables, not syllogisms. They dwell in wordless awe, not dogmatic prayers. They speak in metaphors that breathe, not manifestos that bind. For them, theology is less a container than a threshold. It is a doorway that does not confine God but points toward Him.
The tension between definition and mystery will always remain. The cartoon does not scorn this struggle. It invites us to acknowledge our limits with humility, and maybe a rueful smile.
At times, a theology hardens when it begins to equate salvation with agreement; that is, when belonging hinges on affirming every line of a creed rather than embracing the living Christ it points to. In such cases, those who doubt, question, or interpret differently may find themselves quietly edged out, not by God, but by the system built around Him.
For the God we seek cannot be contained. He is the one who breaks the box.
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?
—1 Kings 8:27, (KJV)