Why God Is Not Logical

By Barnabas Piper

God doesn’t always make sense.

Those of us who believe in God credit him with being in control of “all things.” And we mean it. He is control of absolutely everything.
We run into trouble, though, when we start trying to piece that together logically. We try to add up the causes to equal the effect or lay out the events in sequence so that they make sense.
But God doesn’t always make sense.
He is a puzzling being who often leaves us baffled and frustrated.
God is good and loving. He doesn’t do bad things. But he’s in control of bad things.
So that means he is responsible for tragedies without being at fault for them. Huh? That doesn’t make any sort of logical sense. By our logic, 2+2=4, and anyone responsible for bad is guilty of it.
Those delightful debates over election and soteriology rest in the fact that God doesn’t make logical sense. God decides who will be saved and who won’t; He chooses His elect. Yet we’re all responsible for our own actions and face judgment for our sins.
It doesn’t seem particularly good to judge people for actions that were predetermined beforehand. Or is it that each of has free will and chooses our own way, and somehow God is sovereign over our liberty.
Logically, that doesn’t make sense either. It sort of lets God off the hook, but it sounds dumb.
Now I’m flustered. God makes no sense.
What if our seeking to “make sense” of God is based in the wrong place? What if 2+2=4 isn’t the right system of thought for understanding God? We seek to limit God to something we call logic, but what if that isn’t enough?
God is not logical because logic is for the finite and the fallible. It is a structure created and given by God so that beings with limited knowledge could solve problems and have a reasonable world.
Logic is a framework for understanding created beings and their doings, but God is not created. He is not finite. And He is not bound by logic. What we see as the ultimate basis of understanding is not ultimate at all. It is a created thing too.
To say God is not logical isn’t to say he is illogical. No, God is beyond logic.
He is, as the Bible puts it, “inscrutable.” He is outside our ability to understand. What we understand of God is but a sliver of who is, revealed to us out of kindness. He doesn’t fail to make sense. To accuse Him of such is blasphemous. We simply don’t have the limitless knowledge to understand him.
It is fair to say that God doesn’t make sense but not to say that God isn’t sensible.
It is never fair or right to make a judgment of God based on a lack of logic. Think of a father who can stay up late, drink caffeine and watch scary movies but doesn’t let his second grader do the same.
Why is that OK? What’s right for the parent isn’t always right for the child. The child won’t understand this, may get frustrated at it, but must abide by it. It’s what’s best.
In the same way (only infinitely more so), what’s right in the mind of the Creator won’t be understood by the created as right all the time. It’s not that He is playing us; we simply cannot understand.
It may be frustrating, but we must abide by it. It’s what’s best.