Is God logical?
This question touches something deep — and the answer is both yes and no, depending on what we mean by "logical." God is supremely intelligent, perfectly consistent, and utterly orderly. But His wisdom operates on a plane so far above human reasoning that it often appears as foolishness to the natural mind.
God as the Logos — the Source of All Reason
The question begins at the very beginning: "In the beginning was the Word." The Greek term is λόγος (logos), from which we get our word "logic." Morrish's Bible Dictionary explains what this title of Christ means:
A designation of the Lord Jesus, employed by John in the opening of his gospel... The word is λόγος, which occurs constantly in the N.T. and is translated 'word, saying, speech,' etc. In John 1 it is 'the Word who is in view,' and what is stated asserts clearly three things concerning the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. His eternal existence: "in the beginning was the Word;" "all things were made by him." 2. His true deity: "the Word was God." 3. His distinct personality: "the Word was with God."
As the Word, the Lord Jesus is the substance and expression of the mind of God in regard of man; and the term covers what He was on earth for man — life, light, and love.
It has been said that λόγος presents "the intelligent and the intelligible."
That final phrase is remarkable: Christ as the Logos is both "the intelligent" (He possesses perfect reason) and "the intelligible" (He makes God knowable). Logic, in its deepest sense, flows from the very Person of God.
God's Attributes Are Perfectly Consistent
J. N. Darby, in his essay God in His Essence and Attributes, reasons about what God must be:
J. N. Darby"Goodness or love, omniscience and omnipotence, involve in them perfect wisdom; only all this supposes a God, with a free will to exist, before any attribute can be assigned to Him."
And further:
"We have thus one personal God — 'I am,' supreme, absolutely free, omniscient, omnipotent, wise, the Creator. These are, so to speak, natural attributes; moral ones are righteous, holy, good; known to man not by ideas or thinking, which is impossible, for then man's mind would be at least the equal of God, that is, He would not be God at all."
Darby's point is crucial: God possesses perfect wisdom, but that wisdom cannot be fully grasped by human logic, because the finite cannot contain the infinite. If our minds could fully comprehend God, He would cease to be God.
God Is Not the Author of Confusion
J. A. Von Poseck, writing on church order, draws out the implication that God's character demands order:
J. A. Von Poseck"God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." But He can admit of no human order in His house. Human order in divine things, especially in the church, is but disorder producing disorder and increasing that which exists. God owns as order only that which He has ordained in His own word.
And:
"Divine truth must necessarily be absolute, eternal and unchangeable, i.e. valid for every age and all cases. 'The word of the Lord endures for ever.'"
God is not chaotic, random, or contradictory. He is perfectly orderly — but His order is His own, not one we impose upon Him.
Human Reason Cannot Find God by Searching
Here is where the question deepens. Hamilton Smith writes plainly:
Hamilton Smith"The light of nature will not reveal the heart of God. The light of reason cannot find out God by searching. It is only the light of the life in the Word become flesh that can declare God."
Arthur Pridham, commenting on 1 Corinthians 1:21, elaborates:
Arthur Pridham"This statement amounts to an inspired declaration, that reasoners of the highest natural intelligence and the most extended mental culture had both exercised their powers and achieved their ultimate results in a vain attempt to find out God by search."
And on the paradox of God's "foolishness":
"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men... Yet in its foolishness it has compassed that of which man's wisdom could but vainly dream; for it has both solved the problem of humanity, and offered to the world a view of its Creator such as no natural imagination had conceived. God's foolishness excels the wit of man."
Pridham also defines God's wisdom in strikingly logical terms:
"Wisdom is proved by a successful adjustment of means to an end; and if (as it needs must be) His own glory be God's end, then must Christ crucified be confessed to be His wisdom: for by the cross of the Son of God it is that the nullity of all creature-claims is demonstrated, as well as the abundant glory of His grace in the triumphant manifestation of His own righteousness."
God's Thoughts Infinitely Surpass Ours
G. V. Wigram takes up Isaiah 55:8-11 directly:
G. V. Wigram"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Then He brings in the word of God as corrective, and as that which replaces these thoughts of man. "The word of God is given instead of the thoughts of men."
God's Wisdom Is Deep Beyond Tracing
Hamilton Smith, commenting on Romans 11:33-36:
Hamilton Smith"If the sovereign purposes of God in blessing are worked out, not only in spite of man's failure, but through the very failure of men, we can only say, 'O the depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.' Both the judgments of God in regard to the failure of man, and the ways of God in carrying out His purposes for the blessing of men, make manifest that there are depths of riches in His wisdom and knowledge that are unsearchable, and therefore past finding out by man. If they are to be known, in any measure, it can only be by revelation."
The Faithfulness of God — Perfect Self-Consistency
F. B. Hole draws out what God's faithfulness really means:
F. B. Hole"The faithfulness of God! What a glorious fact this is, and how little have we grasped it. He must ever be faithful to all that He is, and to all that He has said. He cannot deny Himself, nor can He deny the one who stakes everything upon Him and the truth of His Word."
"God is faithful to all that He has revealed Himself to be, to all that He has spoken. If we have His word for it, we can rely upon it."
The Internal Coherence of Scripture
William Kelly argues that the coherence of Scripture itself testifies to a divine intelligence behind it:
William Kelly"There is no book in existence to be compared to the New Testament scriptures. Nothing in the least degree approaches its simplicity, power, moral depth and moral purity, profound knowledge of God, adaptation of His love to the heart of man; none that displays God so much, brings Him forward so constantly, without ever committing itself by anything unworthy of Him, brings Him down so near man, and yet only more fully to show Him always to be God."
Synthesis
Yes, God is supremely logical — He is perfectly wise, perfectly consistent, perfectly orderly. He never contradicts Himself. His faithfulness means He is always true to His own nature and His own word. His very Son is called the Logos — "the intelligent and the intelligible" — the One in whom all reason has its source and in whom all truth becomes knowable.
But God's logic infinitely transcends human logic. The natural mind, unaided by revelation, cannot find God by reasoning. The cross — the supreme act of God's wisdom — looks like foolishness to human logic, yet it "solved the problem of humanity" in a way no philosopher ever dreamed of. God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. His wisdom has "depths of riches" that are "unsearchable and past finding out."
So the real question is not whether God is logical, but whether we have the capacity to trace His logic. What seems paradoxical to us — strength made perfect in weakness, life through death, glory through a cross — is not illogical. It is logic of an infinitely higher order, which we could never have discovered by reasoning, but which, once revealed, we recognise as the most beautiful coherence imaginable.