We Can Thwart God's Work
How a lack of faith decreased the divine's action
We all believe that God is all-powerful and omnipotent, right? This is one of the defining characteristics we attribute to God. This is not just a Christian belief either. It is a key theological point for all monotheists. Jews, Muslims, and even the one God of classical theism has been known to be able to do all things. But what if we could find something that God couldn’t do?
And I’m not talking about can God make a rock so heavy that he can’t lift it, or can he make a square circle? These common rhetorical tricks often put forward by atheists is just a cute way of saying nothing. A thing with four equal sides and four 90-degree corners can’t also be an object with no corners. These kinds of challenges can sometimes be put forth as a proof that God is not omnipotent. But it misunderstands what the believer means when we talk about God’s power. A typical definition of God’s omnipotence is that He can do all things that are logically possible. This understanding of God’s power removes the questions that violate the definitions of things like the example with the shapes.
Instead, I’m going to suggest that Scripture itself provides us with the example of God being rendered limited in his ability to make something happen, and we find it in Mark 6:1-6 and Matthew 13:53-58. These two gospels tell us the story of Jesus preaching to the people of Nazareth, Jesus’s hometown, and the people’s lack of belief in his divine appointment. Both Mark and Matthew tell us that it is because of this unbelief that Jesus is unable to do many mighty wonders. Mark does mention that He is able to do a few healings by simply laying his hands on the sick (ya know the unimpressive tiny miracles types).
This is a very unique section of the gospel narratives that throws up some major red flags when it comes to squaring the message given to us by the gospel authors and our philosophical and theological understand of who God is. The text also does not leave a lot of wiggle room in the cause-and-effect relationship between the mighty works and unbelief. The passages leave us scratching our heads pondering whether the unbelief of a small town can really zap God of His power? On its face, it seems a bit overstated. But this is where I think the third synoptic gospel can help us out.
In Luke 4:16-30, we do not get a statement about Jesus’s ability to work miracles. Instead we get a much more detailed story about what Jesus preached to the people of Nazareth and what their response was to His message. SPOILER! It is WAY worse than what Mark and Matthew tell us. After Jesus tells that He has fulfilled a couple of Old Testament prophecies, He calls on them to repent of their sin, turn back to Him, and be forgiven. He cites to them two Old Testament examples of Gentiles repenting and being healed. When they hear that they are “below” even these Gentiles because they have not turned back to the LORD. What do the people do? Simply part ways as it seems from Mark’s and Matthew’s texts? No, they take him to the cliff on the edge of town and prepare to kill him. That escalated quickly!
This is the hostility towards the message of the Messiah that neutralizes much of God’s miracle powers. I don’t believe the Biblical authors are intending to communicate that the daily struggles in the Christian life or the doubts in times of extreme distress are equivalent to the lack of belief on display here by the Nazarenes. Instead, what I think these passages highlight quite well is that God works with those willing to work with Him. If you struggle to understand why the Church requires the fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, you don’t need to worry about rendering God impotent in your life. But, if you hear about and witness the teachings and wonders performed by Jesus, and you think, “Yeah, right, like the carpenter’s son has authority over us,” things are probably not going to go your way.
So, how do we synthesize the philosophical certainties we have about God and the Scripture laid before us? Might I suggest that it is not as provocative as the opening paragraphs make it out to be. While God is all-powerful, He is also simple and unchanging. God can do all things, and as one part of those things, He chose to create beings with free will. The most important choice we can make with our free will is to be obedient and faithful to God. The rejection of God’s power and authority over our lives puts God in a pickle. 1) He can override our free choice and force the miraculous upon us ensuring perfect Will. Or 2) He can restrict himself and allow our rejection to minimize the impact that Jesus could otherwise have on our lives.
I believe God’s nature causes Him to follow 2 every time. God created us so that He might love us, and we might come to love him. We can’t love Him if we don’t have a choice. We have the choice to love God and let His power be manifest in our lives. But, we can also choose to reject God’s gifts of healing, grace, love, and salvation resulting in a far more diminished relationship with the All-Mighty.
Don’t make the same mistake as the Nazarenes. Accept God in your life. Let Him do mighty works in your soul or maybe in the world around you!