There was a quote of ex-South Carolina governor Mark Sanford in his victory speech in the House vacant seat election in the New York Times article (May 13) written by Gail Collins under the title “Guess who’s back”:
“I want to acknowledge a God not just of second chances, but third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth chances,”
I thought the word, ‘God’ is an uncountable noun, – unless you are in a polytheist world.
(BTW, according to Japanese myth, there are 8 million! gods and godess in the universe).
Is it grammatically right to place an infinite article before the capitalized 'God'?
Did he mean that there is a merciful God who awarded him many chances albeit a lot of scandalous misconducts he had committed among many Gods, or there is a merciful aspect of God in the God?
Best Answer
The structure "a God of [X]", when referring to "the God" is in fact Biblical. See for example:
In fact, although the Jewish/Christian Bible is monotheistic in that it acknowledges only one true God, it also understands that surrounding cultures are polytheistic. So, often scripture will speak of other "gods", even though it insists that they are false gods. See, for example Isa 37:19:
So despite it's recognition of the polytheistic cultures of the day in forms like "a god", at the end of the day the Bible will continue to insist on the uniqueness of God (Jude 1:25):
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.