Christians Teach that God Can Do Anything
Do You Know What That Really Means?
We are all guilty of blurting out trite ditties without giving them much thought believing that these little sayings can end all discussion on a topic. The unfortunate aspect is that one does not take the time to fully explore the implications of such a saying. The phrase taught by Christians and sung in a chorus by children, “God Can Do Anything But Fail,” is such a trap of logic and belief.
The quick answer is, “If God can do anything then He can do absolutely anything, at anytime, as He pleases!” Fortunately, this is NOT the God of the Bible in either the Old or New Testaments. Our God cannot do anything for the simple reason that He is bounded by His very nature.
The above graphic quoting A. W. Tozer, a man esteemed for his faith gives one the impression that God does not have limitations. Given this “green light” by an esteemed of the faith, many have fallen into this logic trap without giving it any thought. “If he said it, it must be true,” mentality frequently prevails in many Christian circles.
To believe that God can do anything simply because He has the quality of omnipotence is to give too much weight to one aspect of God while ignoring His other aspects. Yet, this is frequently the case. Christians will quickly point out that God cannot sin, and they would be correct; however, this also means that God cannot do anything (Ja 1:13-18). As these verses from Jacob (his true name in the original Greek) reveal, God is limited by His Will or nature.
The Bible both implies and states this simple axiom. God produced order from chaos in Genesis chapter One: Creation. God established order both on earth and in the material universe He created. It is this order that guided both believers and those who acknowledged a god must exist even if they did not agree with His plan of salvation such as Isaac Newton. In fact, it was the orderliness of God that moved Newton to posit his “laws” that guided Western civilization through its Age of Discovery and are still in use today. Many of those who followed in his footsteps as natural philosophers, later labeled as scientists, were able to predict the workings of the world around them because of the orderliness of God.
God is the author of Law via His Mosaic Covenant with the Hebrew people at Mount Horeb (Sinai). This became the basis for teaching them in particular, and mankind in general, of His holiness, man’s sinfulness and the need for a sinless, innocent sacrifice for sin which He would provide in His Son: Jesus Christ. The very definition of sins gives man a reliable, unchanging guide as to what is right and what is wrong which was unknown before He gave Moses His Law. Everywhere this Law has gone has resulted in an elevation of civilizations so influenced. Christianity grew from this concept while exemplifying the grace of God in providing Himself as the sacrifice for sin rather than demanding sacrifices of sinful men that would have been futile in removing the stain of original sin. This underlying foundation of Western Civilization is the reason of the great accomplishments in learning and using that knowledge to improve the condition of sinful men who had sunk to the very depths of physical and moral depravity until being Enlightened by His orderliness.
Before God gave His Law, man operated with a distorted view of truth debased into arbitrary, unknowable forces at work in the world. Man predicated that these forces could do anything they desired. This meant that man did not understand nature to have a definite order, though the Greeks attempted to define a rudimentary order without the knowledge of God. Unfortunately, man only defines his religions based on his own understanding (Ro 1:18-25). This was both terrifying and empowering. They were terrified because of the arbitrariness of the forces they could neither understand nor control. They were empowered in their sin as their behavior had little influence on those forces except as they could be “bribed” to the “bribers” advantage. Today, Western Civilization is throwing off the knowledge of God for the arbitrariness of ignorance once again.
Much is made in Western Civilization today of the knowledge of the ancient Chinese centuries before the West stole it from Islam who preserved it from the Greeks and Romans. What did the Chinese do with that knowledge? Very little that benefited them to improve their health or raise their living standard out of medievalism. Why? Because their understanding of the world was based on arbitrariness of the gods who not only could not be controlled but who could not be depended upon. This is true of every sort of paganism. Their gods (goddesses) are not bound by their natures or any laws; thus, they can do anything making the world appear unstable. One could not depend on the sun to rise the next day if Apollo, or Ra, was interrupted in his duties. When there is uncertainty: there is FEAR. Western Civilization is in the process of rejecting the comfort of a knowable God for the FEAR of the unpredictable or unknowableness of atheism.
Islam gives one a practical view of a god who can do ANYTHING. Allah, according to their writings, is not bounded by Law. He can do anything at anytime. This unpredictableness means that according to their own writings a Muslim can never know if they are pleasing Allah until they stand before him in judgment. Only at that time will he decided their fate based upon nothing but his choice of the moment. This is one of the reasons the very faithful chase Jihad. Only in the death of Jihad are they reliably sure of being sent to Allah’s heaven. In other words, Islam requires the death of sinful people to demonstrate their faithfulness to obtain their heaven. This is the exact opposite of true Christianity.
God is bound by His nature. He has set forth the essence of His nature in the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) which are embedded in each person as a personal witness of His truthfulness. He has stated, and our history is witness to, our unstableness because of our sin nature. We, as Lucifer, would be as gods but we only produce arbitrariness and destruction. Death is our answer to all dissent and the prize of life cannot be assured. The truth is that man must believe in an arbitrary god so he can justify his own arbitrary behavior. The Talmudic Jew speaks of God but he worships a god not found in the Bible to justify his sinful appetites. These were transformed, via Mohamed, into Islam along with elements of gnostic Christendom compiling the same errors of arbitrary behavior. Now Western Civilization which rose from the reek of Roman Catholicism arbitrariness seeks to embrace these very elements that demonstrate that gods without limits breed people who believe they have no limits on behavior which results in ongoing violence and destruction.
Reason Man Wants a God Who Can Do Anything?
So He can do anything – No Limits on Behavior
The Bible says many times that God acts beyond our ability to understand but that does not mean He can do ANYTHING. It means He can do ANYTHING consistent with His nature which is beyond our ability to fully apprehend since He is our creator. The gods of the world demand man sacrifice himself with no hope of eternal life. God gave man a consist measure of truthfulness and rightness to guide man to accept the sacrifice of God for one’s sin to gain assurance of eternal life with Him. Make no mistake, everyone has eternal life: that is never the issue. The issue is righteousness: His or a vain, eternal search for self-righteousness in the Lake of Fire.