On a tangential thought . . . if “God cannot be tempted by evil” as James submits, what do we do with the God-Man who was tempted in the wilderness of his 40-day fast?  Was that not God?  Were his temptations not of evil?  Was he not truly tempted? 

I am convinced that Jesus, of one being with the Father, was in fact tempted by evil to do evil (perhaps this is a stretch of the term, “evil”?  Surely he was tempted to go against the “will of the Father.”). 

I also wonder then, was it impossible for Jesus to sin?  While among us would it be true to say, “Jesus CAN"T sin,” because that is outside his nature?  Is Jesus an exception to the “God rule”? 

I don’t necessarily disagree with your argument, but I am concerned about the implications it has regarding God in Christ Jesus.

Thank you for this post. I appreciate your explanation of what God cannot do. By definition if God’s character is unchanging and his character has certain traits, would this not automatically exclude some actions by God? By rule of exclusion if God is love, God therefore cannot be hate. Also it is important to say that God will never take complete control over another. I believe that God does intervene in our lives but He never takes away our freedom.

You write that, “God can’t prevent genuine evil…” What difference would it make if you were to say, “God doesn’t prevent genuine evil”? To me it does not appear that your argument would be interfered with in any meaningful way.

In addition, how do you define “genuine evil”?

“Many if not most ancient theologians implicitly or explicitly denied that creatures are free.”

Who?  I’m working on an article on free will skepticism, and would like to know who you are thinking of here.

Tom,

I agree that God can’t do certain things, and that he cannot entirely control others. But like a prison warden who cannot entirely control his prisoners, he definitely can avoid them causing harm in society. In fact, that is part of the very purpose of the prison. God doesn’t, however (yet). I’m still left with the question why.

Tom,

Very nicely stated. I make a similar argument in my thesis that creation (I know we disagree on the nature of this) was a risk and act of faith for God because once God created God would never be able to “uncreate.” That is, God would forever be different by God’s act of creation. God would for ever be a creator and unable to ever erase this fact. I also agree that God had no choice but to create humans to be free. God could have created a world full of nonrelational objects and creatures but to create a being in God’s image that was relational meant that God could not do otherwise than create them to be free. In other words, I don’t speak about the “gift” of free will but the necessity of it.

All this to say, very nicely said and I think I will share this with my class…assuming this is alright with you.

Thanks for this thought provoking post.

I think Bart agrees with you!
http://www.recycleyourfaith.com/2010/02/08/god-is-not-in-control/

The problem I struggle with is the inaction of God in the presence of “genuine evil”, and the tendency for many to attribute all the good things in life to God. If God doesn’t always prevent genuine evil, then cant the same be said for love? Just like God doesn’t always prevent certain forms of evil, it seems that God cant be responsible for promoting all forms of love as either.

A part of me wants to accept that God can do anything- literally. That part of me desires to be dependent on an all-powerful God, therefore leaving me as a relatively insignificant being on this earth. It’d easier for me that way, anyway. Yet, when I am closest to God, “insignificant” is the farthest description of how I feel. I’m content with the idea that God can’t do certain things, but rather He has faith in humanity to bring about His Glory. Praise Him forever, Amen!

In this blog you mention that, “Given these concerns, some Christians today say we should resist making any claims whatsoever about God’s nature.  We should restrict ourselves instead, they say, to descriptive comments about the way God has acted in history.” I can agree with this, because in this world there is not a lot of clear evidence of God’s Nature. I am a firm believer that we affect most everything in this life, and not that he had a plan for every single thing that has happened, when my brother is sitting in jail, for just straight bad luck, and I hear people saying God has made everything happen for a reason, No way my brother who is someone I love can not be there for a reason. We should restrict a lot of things said about God’s intentions.

I am kind of on the same page as Lori. I dont necessarily disagree either, but while Jesus was tempted in the dessert was that not God as well. Or, maybe it could be that because Jesus was actual man that is how experienced those temptations. I have heard that Jesus could infact sin if he wanted to because he was infact man. He experienced everything that we go through on a daily basis, and temptation and sin are a major part of our lives. How does this work? If Jesus is God, but Jesus is man, and God is the farthest thing from it.

It is interesting that in I Cor. 13 Paul doesn’t simply tell us what love does, but what it does not do. Because God is love, there must be things He doesn’t or can’t do. Open Theists have insisted that creaturely freedom is a prerquisite for genunine love and relationship. Is this true of God? Does he choose to love us, or does he love us because his nature constrains Him to? Can he not love us? If his nature constrains him to love us, why couldn’t God have made our nature so we are constrained to love and obey him? Or must we ascribe to God the freedom to not love us? I fear I see through a glass even more darkly.

Thanks for all your hard work, Tom. I agree with Kevin’s bewilderment, though. (I’m guessing Timpe.) What is striking to me is just how adamantly human freedom is affirmed and protected in early Christian theological writings, from Justin Martyr to Irenaeus to Athanasius to the Cappadocians, and many others. So I think you have more allies among the early theologians than you’re suggesting. And that’s a good thing!

A very interesting topic.  From a more philosophical perspective is a paper by Phillip Clayton on “Can there be Theology after Darwin”, Prof Clayton has some interesting comments about what God can and cannot do.  However, he does not ignore the Bible entirely.  He relates his view to the ancient hymn found in Phil. 2 to present a kenotic theology.  The apophatic theologian from Harvard, Gordon Kaufman has some interestint ideas about the nature of God also.  I think Kaufman’s books “In the Beginning…Creativity” and “Jesus and Creativity” are very readable

I think your point is very interesting, but more even more interesting to me is the fact that I have never heard it before outside of your class or this blog.  Not that it discredits your argument, but I believe that there are many people who tend to avoid questioning these theological arguments such as the problem with believing in both God and evil.  Even though it is tempting to sit back and say God is God and I am merely human so I cannot even attempt to understand Him or His actions, I agree that it is important to question and to seek out knowledge.  This is important because so many of us have grown up in a certain church, culture, or family that has taught a specific doctrine and it is important to realize that their are different opinions, philosophies and ideas out there.  As you stated, we will probably never capture a concept as deep as free will in full and this is an important realization when questioning certain Biblical ideologies.

In the beginning of your blog, you mentioned “many Christians today should resist making any claims whatsoever about God’s nature.”  I completely agree with your statement that we as Christians need to “think for ourselves.”  Statements like the one above always make me want to ask questions like “Why have a brain?” or “What was God’s purpose in creating such a complex and intricate organ?”  From what I have experienced throughout life, I believe that there is a purpose for all that God has created.  With that, the purpose for the human brain is to think and to challenge other ideas, theologies, philosophies, and whatever else is entailed.  The whole idea of trying to contemplate the issues of what God is and is not capable of just goes to show how unfathomable and complex He is.  Should not it be one of our purposes in life as human beings to make assumptions, figure possible answers, and formulate ideas for which we live by?  This debate is truly one issue we can only ask about and not truly understand. 

As for the examples you mentioned about God’s inability to lie and deny himself, in my opinion I feel those examples should be thought about more carefully.  If God were to lie and deny himself as God, he would no longer be considered the word “divine” and would no longer be the credible God that we know of him today. 

Finally, for your class, Introduction to Christian Theology, I have chosen to write my research paper about “Understanding Divine Omniscience” which can relate to this issue you have written about (and just about any other issue dealing with theology).  All I can say is that is one tough issue to research and understand! While writing this paper, I have started to formulate my own conclusion about this topic and have come up with this: it is impossible for my brain to understand one who can know all or one who can or cannot, period!

Dr. Oord,

I think this idea is interesting, but it does make me a little nervous. To say that, “God cannot do such-and-such” because He is loving, or because He is just, seems to put God under the control of His attributes. It is no longer, “God is love,” but “love is God.” I like the idea that God simply doesn’t change, not that he cannot. I know this does make the problem of evil more difficult, but this is the more traditional view, and I think early theologians did a good job of presenting potential solutions for that problem despite this view.

I admit that I did not look forward to reading your blog, just because of the title. I am not comfortable with saying God cant, but I understand why you wonder.

I agree that the passages do not shock me about God cannot lie, or God cannot be tempted by evil. These passages do not diminish my thought of God. God is perfect, therefore he cannot be related with sin, and that does not bother me.

I disagree with the statement that says “God’s loving nature prevents God from controlling others entirely.” I say this because in the Bible it specifically says in Genesis 38:6-7 “Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the LORD’s sight; so the LORD put him to death.” Is that not taking someones freedom away?? In my opinion life is the ultimate freedom. 

I do understand your point, but I would have to partially disagree with you, unless you can explain this to me.

I found this article to be extreemly interesting.  One of the best things I enjoy about your writings and lectures is you make people think outside of the box.  As christians most of us our taught to believe certain things and no one really challenges you to research or really seek out things for yourself.  I feel this is an important aspect of being in a loving relationship with God.  The idea of God not being able to do things is something I have never even thought about until your class.  You make a good point and it makes sense.  It was something I had always thought about but never really could explain in words what I was thinking.  If God is to truly love us, as he does, he must give us freedom to make our own choices.  Of course God does not want there to be evil in the world but it is not up to him.  It is up to us who have the freedom he gave us to live our lives and make the choices which may bring about genuine evil or not.  Another thought I had while reading this article was, I wondered if God had to give a piece of himself up in order to give us our free will and he did this because of his great love for us. I do not know where to go with that but it was just something that popped into my head.  All I know is I put my faith in God’s love and live my life accordingly and strive to learn all He wants me know.  Believeing that God can not do somethings in my eyes only makes Him more of a loving God.

I agree with you regarding the idea that we should make humble hypotheses about what we believe God’s nature to be.  We as humans are visual people and in a way, we have to find some way to at least partially wrap our minds around His greatness.  Also, until this semester I have never considered the idea that God “Can’t” do something.  The idea of His character restraining certain actions is most certainly a new one, but actually very believable.  If it is impossible for God to lie or to be temped then, which are things that most Christians believe, this idea of God not being able to do something holds much truth.  Arguments like this are not seen very often for the simple reason that it causes dissonance within believers hearts, but I truly believe that this is essential for us to grapple with and ponder as each of us grows in our faith.

As you stated in your blog, “we know in part,” not in full and ought to humbly be ready to modify our views accordingly.  I agree that we can and should offer our hypothesis on the nature of God and may even understand some aspects of His attributes, but I also believe that we cannot fully grasp the entirety His divine character.  We can make our claims, but must also be willing to judge them against reason and scripture.

The claim that you are making is that God CANNOT go against His own nature.  I agree because to make the opposite claim, God can deny His own nature, is to pose a contradictory premises fallacy.  It is like the question “can God make a rock too big for God to lift?”  That question opens up a host of sillier ones that grow more ridiculous like “can God make a circle be a square?”  A noun cannot be what its definition excludes.  God cannot contradict Himself.  This however has not logically limited God’s power, but defined who He is. 

You then say that “God CAN’T do some things.”  The term “things” is vague.  In the next paragraph you relate this statement to God’s ability to act against evil.  By using “things” as an all-inclusive word you have jumped from a discussion on the nature of God to His power, which is an equivocation fallacy.  You cannot prove that God is incapable of being omnipotent or having all power because or God’s inability to contradict His own nature.

I still believe that God is capable of doing anything that he chooses to do. I obviously don’t have all the answers, but I do believe that you can separate the evil of today into two categories. The first category is natural evil, and the second I moral evil. Natural evil is natural disasters, sickness, and basic death by natural means. Moral evil is murder, stealing, or other man made problems. When we look at the world today we can see a lot of evil of both kinds. However these evils exist as a balance to keep human population at bay.  Overpopulation would be an extreme problem if we all lived to be 90 to 100 years old. In the year 1800 the estimated world population was less than 1 billion people. Today the estimated world population has rose to 6.7 billion people. That is with two world wars, and countless smaller ones, to take away from the Earth’s population. So if diseases, wars, and birth defects don’t reduce the life expectancy age then the world’s population would have already increased to the point where we wouldn’t have enough land to grow food to feed all the people on this planet. So there would HAVE to be a natural evil called starvation.  So why does he allow evil to exist, it’s in our best interest. I know that it sounds harsh, but that is why I believe that God allows for this world to be the way it is.

I have always heard the retaliation, “You can’t put God in a box” whenever talking about issues regarding God’s power and God’s capabilities. However, I don’t think that is what you are doing by making this argument. I completely agree with your point; I believe that God can’t do some things because of His very nature. He gave humanity free will, and because of that, we do have genuine evil in this world. Your theory here should be more comforting for everybody, considering it is depicting a God who CAN’T prevent evil from happening, instead of a God who DOESN’T, even if He had the power to. I would rather believe that God can’t prevent a 5 year old’s unnecessary brutal murder than believe that He could…. but He doesn’t. I think the following quote from your blog really sums it all up: “We don’t have to reject that God acts in mighty and miraculous ways.  God still acts providentially and miraculously. But we might need to think of God’s acts as not involving the entire control of others.” God GAVE us free will so that we, too, would have some control in this world, and so that loving Him actually meant something to us. It is okay with me to say that God does not have the “entire control of others.”

Dr. Oord,
Thanks for inviting us to respond!  I disagree partially.
I have always been of the opinion that God is fully omnipotent but also allows us to have our free will.  I agree that in order for love to exist and a true relationship with God to exist, we must be given the liberty of free will.  You make some very polarizing statements in your post.
It seems that a large part of people trying to justify God hinges on the fact that God is bound by the rules of logic. You say that either 1) God is fully in control and none of us truly have free will, or 2) we have free will and God is not fully in control.  All of this falls under the assumption that both cannot be true.  I understand that both being true is contrary to our logic, but did God not create even logic?  I believe God did.  I do not believe that all that we say is “logical” is simply stating something that is true and that those concepts somehow fit into God’s attributes.  In other words, it seems to be a reasonable argument that God created logic, but it is not one of God’s attributes nor does it place constraints on whom God is, because if God created logic, then he can do what is contrary to logic because he exists outside of logic.  At what point do we stop trying to understand and realize that God surpasses all understanding?
Also, as I believe we have mentioned in class before, there are some very real examples in the Bible of God being able to impede on a person’s free will.  The most striking example I can find is Exodus 9:12 (NKJV) which says “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.”  I find it interesting that Pharaoh may have been otherwise willing to comply with Moses’s and Aaron’s request, but that God willing hardened Pharoah’s heart.  This eventually led to the deaths of many people in the plague of the firstborn.  This does not fall in line with a God that is always trying to woo us to respond appropriately to God’s call to love.  It makes me think that we overemphasize one aspect of what it means to love. 

Furthermore, the Bible does not try to justify God, so why should we?  Of course, it is required to doubt to have faith.  I agree on that, but something must be said for the fact that the Bible does not seem to be an apologetic book or a book that tries to defend the actions of God.

~ Luke

I believe, as Christians, we should be able to make statements about God and his attributions and use our brains to develop theological hypotheses.  We might not have the full picture or understand everything, but that’s the way He intended it to be. If He wanted us to solve this theological mystery completely someone would have by now.  He gave us the privilege and intended us to know in part. 
On the topic of God and preventing genuine evil, I believe that since He is a loving God, He blessed us with the gift of free will. He loves us and knows we need free will in order to actually live. If He kept us in a box, and controlled every step we made, he would have a world full of robots. Genuine evil is present in this world and no one will ever fully know why but I trust in God and believe his intentions and action (or lack of action) comes from pure love. God gave us creaturely freedom and, as a loving parent, has allowed us to live in a world of his creations and that is the greatest gift of all.

interesting article. I do agree with God not being able to prevent some evil. I personally believe that with freedom of choice we have the package that comes with it, such as evil. If God were to come in and intervene with that, then what use is choice? Evil happens when we have it, and i see no other way around. But if God were prevent some things and not others, then why not prevent everything? i feel that he gave us free will, and by limiting it by stopping some things takes away from it.

God Can’t – and the Bible says so..
This was very interesting article and definitely expanded the thought of my theological thinking.  This class is very interesting because I have opportunity to think in different perspectives that I never even crossed my mind to think in that way.  As a culture back in Korea, whatever the pastor says about the Bible is right.  Thus, the Bible is the most perfectly written book in this entire world.  No comment, no curiosity and no doubts whatsoever is allowed to be spoken.  Thus, it is very interesting for me to hear all different perspective, curiosity, doubts about their faith and seeking the truth of what is right and wrong and finally what the correct “interpretation” is.  This article mentioned three verses what God cannot do.  First, “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb.6:18).  This for me sounds more like God always tells people the truth.  It does not have to do with the matter of what he can or he cannot do.  What it matter is God is always telling you the truth; therefore, it is important for you to listen to him.  Second, “God cannot be tempted by evil” (Js. 1:12).  I interpreted this verse as God is the creator of all.  Therefore, he purposely put evil in this world so that we can learn what is right and wrong.  Also, the power of God is so strong because he is the ruler of all. Therefore, evil cannot even tempt God who is superior to all.  Third, “if we are faithless, God remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself” (2Tim. 2:13).  In here, we are talking about God.  The one who created everything from nothing.  Whatever he says is the truth and whatever he does is right.  We do not make our judgment base on our thinking or moral.  We base everything on God’s judgment because he is the center of everything what we do.  It is not his ability problem that he cannot deny himself.  I interpreted this verse more as in the absolute.  He does not need the ability whether he can or cannot deny himself because he is the truth.  He does not have to deny himself. 
I have been having lots of questions, doubts and curiosity about “God”.  I’m still learning about what Christianity is and what the “truth” is.  Sometimes when I have questions and doubts about God, I realize myself that you always can get answer for it.  Also, seeking for logical, make sense, fit in answers is not as important as seeking for the faithfulness and the connection between you and God.  I feel like human’s knowledge always have a limit; therefore, it is impossible for us to find the absolute truth all by ourselves unless you ask God for help to find answers and God draws you to find answers.  Overall, this was very interesting article and I truly enjoyed reading this.

Dr. Oord i appreciate this article you have written.  The Bible does not seem to clearly give an answer to the problem of evil and because of this we hypothesize about it.  It seems that as Wesleyans, we should really like the fact that God can’t CONTROL us. We are not robots, we are free, and God gives us this freedom because He loves us and desires a mutually loving relationship.  Is this not the Wesleyan belief?

Yet, we want to say that God is able, if He wants to, to take away that freedom He has given to us.  That God can control us if He so desires.  I guess, these 2 beliefs dont really line up for me. If we value and cherish our freedom as a core belief, then why can we not say God cant take it away?  It really doesnt seem to be as much of a stretch as it sounds.

As a teen, somebody asked me “Can God do anything?” I had been taught that He can and so I stated that He could if he wanted to. The person then asked if God coudl make a rock big enough that he cannot pick up.

Whether or not God could, He would display an incapacity to do one or the other. Therefore, logic says that there are some things that God cannot do. Yet this is not what I had been taught all my life. If anybody sat down and thought about it, very few people would come to that conclusion themselves. How did such an idea come to be then? What would cause a person to ignore logic and instead create a fantasy-like belief in this all-powerful God who can do anything He so chooses? Is it ignorance that builds such a mighty image of an already mighty God? Is it mere wishful thinking?

I agree that the question that there is a huge different between “can’t” and “won’t”. Yet, that seems like such a huge debate, and one that I may not ever be able to fully grasp, so I tend not to think about it. Your statement, “God must be God, and God cannot be otherwise” really hit me though. There must be some things that God cannot do in order to remain God. These limitations that you mention, the things that God is not able to do, are not things we thought God did in the first place. I always assumed God had never lied, but I never considered that it was because He could not lie. These limitations that are presented do not diminish my view of God in the least bit, but they do shift my ways of thinking about God’s actions and why He does or does not do certain things.  Most of the times when I start to think about complex issues such as this, I trail off because I am satisfied with knowing that I cannot possibly grasp everything because it is so beyond my comprehension. This is not an exception, however, I do enjoy that I am able to look at it in a new way now.

The can’ts of God used here, like you said, are not a worry. The very part of God that we put so much trust in is that he is love, so to say that God can’t lie goes with that. Is it possible that the can’ts of God is that product of what it means to be God? How could one say that God is love, goodness, and peace then turn around say that God can lie and give in to temptation? The two do not go hand in hand, so God has to be one or the other, and the evidence, to me, points more to the goodness than the evil.

You raise a great and very thought-provoking question, Dr. Oord.  Personally, I’ve never really given much thought to the concept of God not being able to do anything.  Whenever I’ve been faced with this question or ones with the same qualities, I’ve always just said to myself, “Well, he’s God.  It’s up to him.”  And ultimately left it at that point.

Yes, I have fallen into the category of believing God can do whatever, whenever, and however he wants, but what you’ve written about here as well as the biblical sources you’ve provided truly make us think about God’s limitations he has set for himself.  Also, could a person argue that God can do anything, but sets his own limitations for what he can and cannot do?  Therefore, God is the rule-maker, and he’s following his own rules (nobody else’s rules, HIS rules), in a sense.  Therefore using that logic we could perhaps say that God can in fact, do anything He wants, but the limitations he’s created himself cause him to not do so.

I agree that there is a big difference between saying God can’t and God won’t, and I don’t think the answer is that God can’t. I believe that God chooses to not do things and that is what makes Him seem even more amazing. Like with your first statement that came from Hebrew 6:18, which said that “it is impossible for God to Lie.” I don’t think that I would go to the extent to say that it is impossible for God to lie but that God would never choose to lie. Lying is a sin and God does not sin He chooses to stay away from sin, but if we decided to take the choice away from God, then God does not have free will. If He did not have free will then nothing about Him would be significant because a God or a person that does not have free will can’t really love, which is an attribute that is highly recognized about our God. Love cannot be forced. I believe the Bible and I normally take it word for word, but it has been said many times that we as Christians try to take scriptures to prove our own point of view. I believe that in this case “can’t” is a word that could be being used because all human kind has been given the choice to sin or not and so has the trinity but all mankind has failed where as none of the trinity has fallen to temptation and chosen to do wrong. It is easier for us to say that God can’t chose to sin when actually chooses to be perfect and He is the only one that has remained successful which is incomprehensive to our human minds.
This statement leads me to the next portion of your argument that it does not bug us to limit God to being omnipresent or everlasting, which does not give him the choice to be in only one place or to choose to have a beginning and an end. I have never seen omnipresent or everlasting as a limitation. If this is your argument, I believe that Jesus chose to give up his heavenly abilities to be born on earth so that he could live life day to day, traveling from one place to another in order to live a human life which would end in death. In this statement you should be able to see that I believe that God can chose to be in only one place
and can chose to have a beginning and a end, but the giving up of His heavenly abilities was still a choice.

The topic you have argued in your article was really interesting. I do not have much scriptural knowledge or any sort Biblical information. Along with your arguments about how God has a limits, I do not know if we could word,God literally can not do certain things. I think that God has the capability to do anything as taking away our freedom. It is his love that it makes him not take away our freedom. But as I read your article, your arguments seem to make sense how God can not not love us that it is part of his nature. He might have limits in a sense that he limits his own capabilities? I honestly do not know if I can even define what his abilities are or what are not or even there is one. we might be just trying to fit him in a box of our understanding.

I really like what you have said about God not being able to do somethings, yes he can do pretty much whatever he wants, but when it comes to free will and love, the control is more of our own. We make the choice to let God take control of our life or we take advantage of what God has given us out of love.

The most striking verse you have cited in this entry is James 1:17. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

It is so cathartic to exclaim how God can do anything, and suggesting any sort of limitation, even in the reasonable sense that you have outlined, seems blasphemous to some. But it seems more insulting to God’s nature to think that He is constantly engaged in the act of patching the holes that (if you follow the logic) He himself is creating.

It’s true that “we know in part.” But this much seems clear to me: whether God can’t or won’t is less important than the fact that we can. Reflect a minute on the absurdity of a universe where God constantly prevents all evil from occurring. Humans would never know anything but perfection, and have no reason to worship. It’s the dark that gives definition to the light. It’s the evil that lets us truly see God. The idea that God acts sometimes, cures some diseases, prevents some earthquakes, is so problematic that I can’t imagine building a faith upon it. I think it’s very important to arrive at the conclusion that there are situations where God doesn’t (or can’t) act. Don’t despair about it—that’s the reason we can perceive a God at all.

I am persuaded by your argument, and by the argument of my life, that God is not in control of human beings.  Human beings are free (within their contextual constraints).  For that to be true, however, I must disagree that God has even partial control or influence.  Many who make the argument for free will, including Wesley, still hold to some notion of “wooing” or loving that somehow, though less explicitly, affects human decisions.  Is this not also control?  Am I—are we—not determined by the strongest argument?  If God presents the strongest argument, is not God determining my decisions?  I suggest that God does not “play dice” rather we make our world what it is. 

I am curious, now, for someone to delineate the consequences of such a belief.  It seems to me that a God that “can’t” is pretty unorthodox. How does that belief shake out?

Thank you for this post and the ideas that it presented to me. I agree with you that we should seek out discovering the definite qualities and characteristics of God’s nature. My question though pertains not to what God can and can’t do. Rather, I am wondering how we are to reconcile the nature of the God of the Old and New Testaments; they seem sometimes to portray to different natures at times, but we believe that God remained and remains the same/unchanging.

Dr. Oord thank you for your intent to question all. The degree to which we find ourselves questioning or skirting from such discussions is at times disconcerting. I find more time is spent disagreeing over whether or not discourse is appropriate, rather than seeking truth in the knowledge of God.

The argument you have presented was both logical and respectful to the Christian faith. I must admit when I first read the heading “God Can’t” I was put off. Knowing the limitations of the human mind causes one to question such absolute assumptions. I will therefore leave it at this. God is perfect in his love. He cannot refrain from loving. Thus I would agree He is limited, but within those constraints He is still the model of perfection.

I think you’re right that there are things God can’t do. The Bible says that and we can’t say otherwise. I also like your point that we shouldn’t be scared about the word can’t. It doesn’t necessarily shatter our faith of God. We all have a theology of God, whether we know it or not, and I agree with you that there are some things can’t do, and my theology would be way different if that statement wasn’t true.

I agree on the lines of God can not deny himself. It is found in the Bible, therefore arguing it is a waste of breath. I still do find it confusing that God and Jesus were one, and Jesus was tempted in the dessert, by evil. I know that Jesus had taken man form while he was here on earth, but how is it that he is God too, and tempted, but God can not be tempted?

I agree with Blake’s post earlier. Although I do not doubt God or the Bible, I do find it difficult to comprehend that since God does not always attribute or is the cause of “genuine evil” he can be solely responsible for acts of love. I believe that God does not necessarily cause evil to happen. We are humans and one of the gifts that God has given us is free will. I believe that people are the cause of genuine evil and through those terrible situations, God can bring good from them. I do not believe that everything happens for a reason. I do not think that God CAUSES destruction and devastation, but that he can take terrible situations and make something amazing come as a result.

This blog brings up some very interesting points.  Personally, I think it is kind of ridiculous to say that we “should not speculate about the attributes of God’s nature.”  Why, as Christians, wouldn’t we speculate about God’s nature?  If we claim to believe in God then I think it is absolutely necessary to strive to understand God’s attributes better.  If we don’t, then we are simply believing in God out of “blind faith.”  I agree that there is always an element of mystery and that being a Christian requires some faith, but I do not believe that we should stop trying to better understand God’s nature.

If God was unable to lie because of an inability of his nature then his honesty would not be any more virtuous than a calculator giving the correct answer.

God’s love must be a voluntary state of his character rather than an involuntary attribute of his nature. Love that is involuntarily produced by one’s nature is mere affection. True love, Agape, Altruism, Benevolence, etc. are all voluntary. They are virtuous. Natural affection is not virtuous. Therefore, any inability of God to lie, deny himself, be tempted, etc. that results from his love must ultimately be something he “won’t” do rather than something he “cannot” do. That is because the good tree (character) which produces the good fruit (behavior) is ultimately a choice God makes. Even little George Washington supposedly could not lie.