From my most recent post at The Blazing Center:
Those of us who believe in God credit him with being in control of “all things”. And we mean it. He is control of absolutely everything. We run into trouble, though, when we start trying to piece that together logically. We try to add up the causes to equal the effect or lay out the events in sequence so that they make sense. But God doesn’t always make sense. He is a puzzling being who often leaves us baffled and frustrated.
God is good and loving. He doesn’t do bad things. But he’s in control of bad things. So that means he is responsible for tragedies without being at fault for them. Huh? That doesn’t make any sort of logical sense. By our logic, 2+2 = 4 and anyone responsible for bad is guilty of it.
Those delightful debates over election and soteriology rest in the fact that God doesn’t make logical sense. God decides who will be saved and who won’t; He chooses His elect. Yet we’re all responsible for our own actions and face judgment for our sins. It doesn’t seem particularly good to judge people for actions that were predetermined beforehand. Or is it that each of has free will and chooses pour own way, and somehow God is sovereign over our liberty. Logically, that doesn’t make sense either. It sort of lets God off the hook, but it sounds dumb. Now I’m flustered. God makes no sense.
What if our seeking to “make sense” of God is based in the wrong place? What if 2+2=4 isn’t the right system of thought for understanding God? We seek to limit God to something we call logic, but what if that isn’t enough?
God is not logical because logic is for the finite and the fallible.
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