Musings: 6/09/08; Is There Anything God Cannot Do? by JAH

I've heard ministers preach sermons on the things God cannot do. It is correct to say God will not do some things, things He said He will not do, and it is certain He will not contradict Himself. I think that what those ministers had in mind. I've believed since I began studying Theology that God, to be God, must be able to do anything, or He is less than He says He is. Is that reasonable? After many years, I still believe it is. In one respect, it is not true according to our method of reasoning. Sometimes I think we get so hung up on a word or a phrase that we forget that a text without a context is a pretext! That's an old truism. I heard it my first year in seminary, and I've remembered it ever since. If we aren't careful, we will take a Scripture, maybe just a word, out of context and declare it to be true.

One of the first and worst examples I had of that is certainly Biblical. A man told me I put too much stock in the Bible. He said he could prove anything with the Bible. He said the Bible says that everyone who reads it should hang himself. I was young, and my hackles rose. I told him to prove it! He said Matthew 27:5 says about Judas, "And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." Then Jesus in Luke 11:37 said, "Go, and do thou likewise."

That is syllogistical reasoning, and of course is totally untrue including the fact that you cannot prove everything by the Bible! My sister-in-law once asked me when I was a small boy if I knew why they painted fire engines red? Naturally, I said I didn't. She reasoned it this way:

"Well, Newspapers are read, too. Two and two are four, four and four are eight. Eight and four are 12. Twelve inches in a foot. A foot is a ruler. A ruler is Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth is a ship. A ship goes in the ocean. The ocean has fish. Fish have fins. The Fins fought the Russians. Russians are red. Fire engines go rushing, so fire engines are red, too."

Now isn't that a prime piece of foolishness? It made a kid of a boy really laugh, and perhaps we should laugh at some of these arguments about the Bible, but let's get back to God. Does the Bible say God cannot lie? In the King James, it does in Titus 1:2; "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began:" The New International Version says, "a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time," The word translated "cannot lie" in the King James Version is aψευδeς. The English letters would be, "apseudes." Pseudes is their word for "lie." The "a" in front of it is called an "alpha privative." It reverses the meaning. Instead of "cannot lie," it accurately reads, "does not lie." We should not try to place limitations on God, but rather simply take what He says to be absolutely true whether we understand it or not.

Paul, in I Corinthians 2:9 quoted Isaiah 64:4, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." The very next verse completes his statement, "but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." The Holy Spirit is our Guide into truth, and we must compare Scripture with Scripture in order to find the truth. We cannot (to borrow the word from the KIV) do that without reading, studying and meditating on God's Word verse by verse until we arrive at the truth.