Is God logical?

But, Scriptures gives us principles and not a complete code of divine law. This necessitates inference at every step. Inference can't be separated from a rational life, and God condescends to reason with His creatures, “Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1:18). The argument against reason in God's things has been carried to lengths that are as unscriptural as they are irrational. Scripture nowhere discredits any God-given faculty that man has. In speaking against what God has given, we necessarily speak against the Giver. God is honored as Creator when His creation is honored.

Sin has come in and perverted every faculty, but the work of God is to purify and not destroy. When one begins to realize his relation to God, reason becomes most reasonable in accepting the creature-limit, and rationality fills the life and character of the new man in Christ. One might as well say that, if we have light, we don't need our eyes, as to discredit reason in the things of God. It is only in the light that the eyes are of any use!

"For who among men hath known the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? So also the things of God has no one known, save the Spirit of God." How worse than empty then the speculations of the wisest men as to the things of God! The spirit of man is indeed a wonderful and most important gift of the Creator, and which, therefore, God who has given it will not set aside or minimise in its own sphere. It is that by which man is distinguished from the beast, and made in the image of God. He is by it according to his creation place a son of God, as the beast is not; for God is "the Father of spirits" only (Heb. 12:9). Thus he can recognize God, and has a God, in a way wholly different from the unknowing, and therefore unmoral, and so never immoral, beast. God never dishonors or degrades the creature He has made, as some wild modern theorists do. He never speaks of the mind of man as an evolution from bestial instincts or faculties. He appeals to reason, even with the wicked: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isa. 1:18). And the unbeliever, to refuse faith, has to refuse reason also. God never advocates credulity, or applauds the man who "believes because it is impossible," and thereby puts God in contradiction to the faculties that He has made. But there are two things which reason itself should make him aware of, and which fully recognized would set him on the path of divine wisdom. Neither of these can he possibly discredit, however much he may ignore them, or evade the consequences.

So it is — what seems to me to be so very plain — that we have not got merely the facts given and the commandment of the Lord, but good reason given. There is perfect wisdom, there is not such a thing as an arbitrary word in all the Bible. All the rules and regulations, commandments and precepts, are pregnant with divine wisdom.

It is just here that we touch the eternal purpose of God and, in that way, learn that He is not an arbitrary Being. His counsels are the fruit of His nature, and that glorious scheme of counsel was indeed the cause of creation. It is so blessed to see how all is worked out on the line of moral necessity, that necessity being the very nature of God.

But a little examination shows that all is in perfect order and God is, of course, always right. His wisdom shines, even in the way His communications are arranged.

But a little examination shows that all is in perfect order and God is, of course, always right. His wisdom shines, even in the way His communications are arranged.

You will see from what is already said that I in no wise despise the value of reason. Thus it is irrational and immoral to suppose that a Being good and holy, omniscient and omnipotent, made this world and man as they are now. But reason, unaided, cannot account for it. Revelation declares that God made all good, but suspended its continuance on the obedience of its head — that the head failed, and that the race and the world fell thereby. My reason bows to this as the only true and righteous and sufficient explanation.

But when we come to sin against an infinite Being, we have no measure to use except what is given us by that infinite Being. The problem is beyond our solving. Sin, which took none less than an infinite Sacrifice, cannot be measured by the justice of the law courts. We are thus shut up to what God says in His Word, and our wisdom is to refuse our own reason in this matter.

But when we come to sin against an infinite Being, we have no measure to use except what is given us by that infinite Being. The problem is beyond our solving. Sin, which took nothing less than an infinite Sacrifice, cannot be measured by the justice of the law courts. We are thus shut up to what God says in His Word and our wisdom is to refuse our own reason in this matter.

We must recognize what are plain facts, and bow to them. lf we do not understand how to reconcile God's righteousness and love with the fact of many having not been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, this simply illustrates the fact that God is greater than we are. His wisdom is far beyond man's ability to rationalize. lt is another reminder that God intends us to keep our place as simply creatures, being content to believe Him without understanding everything.