"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and His ways past finding out!" Ro.11.3
Some think this means that God is inherently mysterious; or that He is beyond reason. Many quote this scripture as an attempt to cover for what they secretly feel is a conflict between what men thinks is reasonable, and what they think God might be doing; For instance, killing a man for doing a good deed.
""And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God." 2Sam.6.-7
Men may believe God is good, but still they want to make an excuse for God, because they think what they see in the Bible cannot be reconciled to what they consider is reasonable. I maintain, the fault does not lay with God, who is, 'the same yesterday, today, and forever' (Heb.13.8), but It lay with our adhering more to popular doctrine than to our God, who does all things because He loves mankind.
Specifically, many Church systems believe, that every utterance made by the 'prophets' about God is completely accurate about his actions and nature. So if the writer of the book of Samuel said God killed Uzzah, then God killed Uzzah! But check out the following verse:
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isa.1.18
Yes, God is reasonable! Not only is He reasonable; apparently we can reason with Him! This implies that there is some level of mutual understanding that we can come to with God.
For instance, the Apostle Paul uses the word, 'therefore'; (excluding Hebrews) 104 times! Almost always, it is a word that comes after a comment he uses to make his primary point. For example:
"Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?“ Rom.2.26
I cannot wander too far from the point I'm trying to make: God is reasonable. His teachers: Paul, Peter and others use reason to explain their views. Read the New Testament, watch for the similes; illustrations; the reasoning; the appeals to the Old Testament patterns. We can see the Christian religion should be one where there is a harmony of truth, logic and reason. But as I have already pointed out, many believe God really did kill Uzzah. But it is more likely, this is what the bystanders at the event thought had happened. Why? Because, up to the point of the Uzzah incident, every culture thought 'this is the way God acts.' If you broke your leg God was chastening you. If a flood took out a city, it was God's judgment on that entire city.
God is also Logical
As someone once said, "Jesus is the only normal person in the universe"; It is also true, God is the most logical being in the universe. This is not to say, that God's ways can be wholly understood, they can't. But why?
Not being good at math, this illustration comes easy for me: If you write out for me, even the most simple calculus formula, it will be beyond my understanding. Yet, (so I hear) math is totally logical. Again, imagine a professor of theoretical physics, teaching his class the math of Quantum mechanics. He's got a blackboard behind him and the board is almost white with symbols, arrows, lines, letters, and numbers. To the advanced class it all makes sense; or at least, the professor believes he can teach them the sense of it. Sense is logic.
If math were not logical, how then could you expect an astronaut to risk his life, shooting out into space, leaving a revolving planet, at a particular angle, at a particular speed, with particular coordinates. Then meet the moon; which is also revolving. After the mission is complete, he then uses that moon's gravitational pull; but at the precise angle, to slingshot the space capsule back towards earth. The reason this can be done is because of math. It’s not mysterious, or beyond comprehension, but is simply, dependable logic. Just imagine how many factors one has to consider to get a successful rover on Mars!
When I see that blackboard behind the professor, I see only questions. It makes me want to give up before I start; I have to learn all that geometry and calculus? Just tell me the sum of it!” Most people are that way about God. They say they want to understand, but they don't even want to learn the basics necessary to build and learn more about God.
Like math, God is never arbitrary; one plus one always equals two. If it only equaled two, ninety nine out of a hundred times, you couldn’t depend on it. It's humans who, either cannot, or refuse to learn the logic. So it is with our relationship with God. God and math are the only constants in the universe. He is utterly dependable, utterly rational, utterly reasonable; completely logical. If this were not so how can we believe any insight gained from scripture. For instance, I've actually know several people who said, 'I'm probably predestined for hell, so why bother trying to be good?' These people are honest; you see, many theologians tell us some are predestined to hell, yet they say 'God loves the whole world, and God is love.' How is this logical? How can we 'reason' with a God like that? There is no way!
Yes, like advanced math, God is like a teacher, He would not communicate with us unless we were capable of understanding His logic. It is only theologians that do that. But just because we only know in part, it does not mean what we can know about God is illogical. We can always have a sense of truth, in that, all His ways work within the framework of reason, logic and love. He never violates the principles of his character; especially the core of who He is, Love.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” Jam.1.17
Christians must admit, there are beliefs within our faith we feel are unreasonable. I am not speaking of miracles, as these can be considered reasonable if we factor the supernatural. Since this book is primarily for Christians; and only a lesser argument to the half convinced, I am addressing people who already accept the supernatural event of Jesus Himself; ie; ‘The Virgin Birth’. Therefore, the supernatural point is already settled. What is unreasonable in Christian faith, are ideas, like our God seems to say one thing, and does something entirely different. We may ask, what makes the difference when we see something illogical with God? I think the answer is very simple, where there are illogical doctrines, it is because of what men say about God, and the Logic of God becomes illogical.
We actually teach our children and witness to our society these abhorrent beliefs. Christians believe doctrines of men until they come back to bite them in real life situations. What if someone has done all things right to secure their child’s salvation, but their child wanders from God, then lives a life of self destruction, and subsequently dies of an overdose in the bed of a prostitute? What then? Did God preordain your grandchild to Hell? Nonsense! This is just one of the worst example of the ‘unreasonableness of God’. I once heard a man teach on “limited atonement” (the belief how Jesus only shed His blood for His “elect”; sinners of His own choosing); This man’s homiletics were perfect. Obviously brilliant, he was able to communicate in a way I could only dream of. But when he taught on the idea that God limits His “irresistible grace” it reminded me of a politician explaining how beneficial raising taxes would be, and why we should love the idea. Setting aside his perfect eloquence, you’ve never heard so much gobbledygook in all your life! He went on and on trying to explain the unexplainable; speaking of how “Glorious” God’s Sovereignty is; and however we might feel about it, the doctrine is actually wonderful!”
Think about the doctrine of sovereignty in light of this following verse.
“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” 2Co.11.3
When we forsake rational Christianity, we forsake our authority to argue, to counsel, to warn, to console, to explain and teach. Everything we do, from teaching our children not to lie, to providing assurance to those who are dying, requires reasons for the hope that is within us. At every point of faith, there is a reason. All argument, discussion, and reasoning are based on the logic of patterns and principles. Without logic we have no basis for rational discussion on any subject.*
*Certainly there is teachings in the New Testament which are hard to understand. Hell is one of these, however, I feel there's a logical answers for why this is taught in the New Testament. Basically when men fabricate beyond what little information the original scriptures give us. B the way, all sciences do this, especially dark age translators from church traditions. Some truth is found, then somewhere that truth goes beyond what is known, into speculation. Here is our problem: The scholars of these sciences seldom tell us where that line was crossed, and usually teach theory as fact. Finally, these always become fact in the incorporated organized church systems.