Is God logical?
God does invite people to reason — the call to "reason together" is a real appeal to the mind, not a demand for blind agreement. But the same Bible says His thoughts run higher than ours, and commentators handle that tension in noticeably different ways.
God Reasons With People
The invitation in Isaiah is addressed to those who have gone furthest wrong, and one writer draws a sharp conclusion from that: God never asks anyone to switch off the mind He gave them.
Numerical Bible NotesHe never speaks of the mind of man as an evolution from animal instincts or faculties. He appeals to reason, even with the wicked: "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD" (Isa. 1:18). And the unbeliever, in order to refuse faith, has to refuse reason as well. God never recommends credulity, or applauds the man who "believes because it is impossible," and so puts God in contradiction to the faculties He Himself has made.
The Gospel Has An Order To It
The same writer traces the argument God actually makes. Sin has damaged the mind, so the first step of the reasoning is diagnosis, not debate.
Numerical Bible NotesSin has morally damaged him, to an extent he can hardly estimate; and this must stand in the way of all right understanding until he has found a remedy for it. The gospel is therefore truly logical in treating him first of all as a sinner, and inviting him at the very start to accept a remedy for that condition. Once this is done, he is brought into the right attitude toward God, which alone will let him make progress in the things of God.
So the subject matter of the discussion is not left open. Another writer notes that God sets the agenda for the very reasoning He invites:
Leslie M. GrantConscience must first be awakened before anyone can realise that God is a God of truth, who requires that man's guilt before Him must be faced and met before he can possibly understand the greatness and wisdom of what God does. If someone wants to reason, then God tells him what to reason about.
God Is Consistent With Himself
If "logical" means never contradicting yourself, then the cross is the test case — and one commentator argues that this is exactly where everything that seems to clash in God's character is resolved.
William KellyIn the mighty work of redemption, all that God is shone out as nowhere else in the past or the future. There He vindicated His own nature in everlasting hatred of sin; there He demonstrated His love, rising above the worst evil of the creature. Did He compromise His word? He fulfilled it, letter and spirit, to the full. Did He abandon His holiness? Never was His absolute separation from evil so displayed... And as in the work which is its ground, so in the preaching, there is no inconsistency. On the contrary, every fact and thought, otherwise irreconcilable, are there brought into harmony.
Where Logic Runs Out
Commentators differ in emphasis here. Some hold that reason works properly but only within limits, since an infinite God cannot be squeezed into a finite mind.
Leslie M. GrantGod is infinitely greater, infinitely wiser, infinitely more true and faithful, infinitely more gracious and loving than man can conceive. Therefore, since He has given a true revelation of Himself in His precious Word and in the person of His beloved Son, we must expect that this revelation will hold mysteries that cannot be rationalised by the most profound human intellects.
Others put it far more bluntly, and locate the failure not in the difficulty of the subject but in the instrument:
J. N. DarbyI can understand an unbeliever not knowing what God's mind is, and reasoning about what is written; but man never got faith by reasoning at all, and man's reason is completely incompetent to judge about God and His words.
Reason Under Revelation, Not Over It
The distinction that holds these views together is one of order. Reason is a tool for receiving what God says, never a court that rules on whether He may say it.
Numerical Bible NotesReason is not a revelation, and must be subject to revelation; but it will throw light on revelation, not contradict it... The outcry against the mind, so often raised by assumed spirituality, is thoroughly contrary to God, who has made us altogether for Himself and claims us altogether. Mind is not a product of the fall, though the fall has darkened and weakened it.
Once a person accepts the place of a creature, thinking clearly and believing God stop pulling against each other.
Frederick W GrantWhen someone begins to realise 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. You might as well say that if we have light we don't need our eyes, as discredit reason in the things of God. It is only in the light that the eyes are any use at all!
Summary
- Invites — God opens with an appeal to the mind, not a demand for blind belief; He "never recommends credulity."
- Orders — His argument follows a sequence: face the guilt first, then understanding becomes possible. The gospel is "truly logical" in starting with the sinner.
- Harmonises — At the cross, love and hatred of sin, mercy and holiness, meet without contradiction; "every fact and thought, otherwise irreconcilable, are there brought into harmony."
- Exceeds — Because He is infinite, His revelation will always hold mysteries no intellect can fully rationalise. Commentators differ on how far reason can go, but not on the ceiling.
- Serves — The mind is God's gift, damaged but not discarded; it works like eyes, useful only in light already given. Put reason above revelation and it stops reasoning and starts judging.