The end of my mental rope

At a retreat recently, I was confronted with my own mental limitations. The discussion centered on the aspects of God and the logical consequences of those. Let me try to convey it here.

Let's consider four key attributes of God: Sovereign, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Good. It has been said (and I won't try to prove it here) that if God were not perfect in all these attributes then he would be something less than God – i.e., not God at all. One example is that if God were not sovereign, then that would mean someone or something could limit his decisions. God, by the definition I am using, is the top and so, by definition, he has no one or nothing above him. He is totally able to decide to do anything - no limits.

Once you add that he is Omnipotent, then you see that God is totally capable of doing anything. Nothing can stop him.

Now, if we are talking about a being that is capable of doing anything he sets his mind to, then what do we say when bad things happen? If God is good (which he is), then how do bad things happen? Well, it must be because he "allows" it!

Sidestepping the question of why God would allow bad things, lets press on and we'll come back to that. So, God "allows" bad things to happen.

Vexing question: if God is all powerful and chooses not to act to prevent bad things, isn't this semantically the same as saying he willed the bad thing to happen?

Think about that for a second. God is totally capable of stopping bad things. He could have stopped 9/11. In fact, he knew (because he is omniscient) that it was going to happen. So, we have to conclude that God willed 9/11 to happen. He willed Innocent people to die.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound "good" to me. And yet, although God is good, he invented evil.

This is where I begin to run out of mental rope. I would be much more satisfied in defining God as something less than perfect in one of his attributes so that I could reconcile these two things:

God is good
God wills that evil will happen

I find myself with a dichotomy. I am convinced that God is good and that he created evil. Semantically, you could say that God caused 9/11. However, here I think you need to be careful. Although God invented evil, nothing he does is evil. So, in every situation, any good that can be seen is from God but any evil is from someone or something other than God. Another way to say this is that God is held accountable for all good but people or things are held accountable for the bad they do.

So, the people flying the plane into the twin towers are responsible for the evil they inflicted on the Innocent people they killed and the even greater number of people who were adversely affected by it.

But God can be blamed for the heroic attempts at rescue, the ground swell of prayer and any other good things that resulted from this evil act.

And that's where my mind runs out of steam. I can't reconcile the dichotomy. I realize that, as you would expect, my finite mind is limited and cannot fathom how God can create evil and then use it to spread love and good.

Lately, I've begun to see my mental limitations in lots of ways. I've always been pretty keen to see it in others but now I can't escape recognizing my own limits.

The good news is that I realize that, of course, this is expected. How could a finite, imperfect being understand the infinite and perfect? I'm struck with how arrogant the ungodly are. Or perhaps they are uncomfortable with an infinite and perfect God. If they reduce God to human terms then I'm sure they can neatly reconcile many of these issues. It is mentally satisfying but not the truth.

So, I'll just persist in my belief that God is perfect and that I am not. It means I have to live with not ever being able to fully understand everything. But the alternative is a God who is not God and that is much less satisfying to me.