Marcus Borg, like so many other theological liberals (although I must admit that Borg is so liberal that even a lot of theological liberals would disown him as such), claims God is ineffable. During a recent debate between Borg and William Lane Craig, Craig pointed out that to say God is ineffable is to say that no human concept is applicable to God. But since ineffability is a human concept, it doesn’t apply to God either. This is self-refuting, and thus cannot be true. Great point!
November 11, 2009
Craig vs. Borg on Divine Ineffability
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Nature of God, Pluralism, Theology[8] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
November 11, 2009 at 5:13 am
Just in case people are wondering (I was)
Ineffable – adj – causing so much emotion, especially pleasure, that it cannot be described
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
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November 11, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Scott,
Thanks for offering a definition. I would only add “in words” to the end of that definition.
Jason
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November 11, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Great rejoinder by Craig.
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November 11, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Actually, many of the early Christian writers regularly associated this term – which simply means inexpressible – with God while writing long volumes describing Him.
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November 12, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I figured this one would be up your alley Scalia! 🙂
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November 13, 2009 at 9:15 am
I think the misconstrued argument here though is that ‘the full nature of God is ineffable’ where we can only describe certain attributes to Him.
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November 13, 2009 at 10:16 am
Joel,
Interesting. I wonder if the word they used is truly equivalent in meaning to the English “ineffable.”
scottspeig,
If one thinks humans can know true propositions about God, I think its best to avoid the word ineffable altogether. Personally, I like the apprehension-comprehension distinction. While we cannot fully comprehend the nature of God, we can apprehend certain truths about Him, albeit none of them exhaustively.
Jason
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January 19, 2010 at 3:41 pm
[…] perspective is incoherent. Not only is it self-refuting and contradictory, to say no human concept of God can be true of God (since the concept of […]
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