Picture Quotes – Page 8 God is infinitely beyond us. We can only know Him by what He has chosen to reveal to us. As God is infinitely beyond all things, we depend on Him for all knowledge. Apart from His revelation, one person’s speculation about God is no better than another’s. As the entire universe bears the fingerprints of God’s power and genius, so logic reflects the rational and coherent mind of God. He does not contradict Himself and in Him are no contradictions. We may not understand all God has revealed to us about Himself and His world, but our human limitations do not imply contradictions in God. Our relationship to God determines how we use logic to interpret God and His world. Believers use logic to affirm God’s existence and attributes while unbelievers use logic to deny them. Mystery concerning God and His universe reflect the infinite gap between God and His creatures, not irrationality in God. Our inability to fully understand understand how evil can exist in a universe created and sustained by a good and all powerful God merely exhibits our human limitations. God cannot be limited by the properties of that which He created, orders, and sustains. Objections to the miracles of Scripture can be dismissed easily by acknowledging God’s infinite power and the limits of our understanding. People who deny Christ because they cannot solve a mystery have yet to view God and themselves correctly. The fault lies not with the greatness of God that surpasses understanding, but with our refusal to acknowledge it. When we begin with the infinite Creator and Sustainer of everything as the starting point of knowledge and reasoning about the universe, nothing makes more sense than Christianity. To legitimately deny the existence of God one must know about everything in the universe and beyond. Is that scientific and reasonable? When we lack answers in the midst of great troubles, peace comes from resting in the perfect goodness of the One who knows all. When we are weak we are strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10 In our fallen desire for independence from God and everyone else, we often view dependence on God as an undesirable weakness. Yet, to embrace our total dependence on a God of perfect knowledge, power, wisdom, and love embraces His infinite resources on our behalf. Wisdom knows its limitations and accepts silence beyond the boundaries of God’s revelation: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever” Deuteronomy 29:29 The highest love and reverence necessarily belong to a God of infinite excellence. As created by God, we bear the responsibility and obligation appropriate to His greatness. All suffering must be seen in light of the brevity of life and endless eternity, the excellence of God displayed in Christ and the extent to which He went to remedy evil, and our profoundly limited human perspective. As the essence of unbelief, the requirement for eternal life, and the need of salvation remain the same in any age or culture, salvation through faith in Christ alone remains the same in any age or culture. While we cannot fully grasp how evil can exist in a world created, ordered, and sustained by a good and omnipotent God, our limited understanding does not constitute the final authority of what is possible and impossible with an infinite God. God needs no defense that elevates human reason over His authority, subjects Him to the limits of His universe, reduces His infinite excellence to suit our limited minds, or compromises what He has told us in Scripture about His nature and works. Why would we rely on our limited understanding when we can lean on the One who perfectly knows us and the world in which we live? When we accept our smallness and trust our God of infinite resources, our weakness becomes our greatest strength. Do limitations in the clay imply limitations in the Potter? Unbelief may answer yes, but finite people can never know that God has limitations. To know our weakness before God comprises our greatest strength, for we are strongest, wisest, and most blessed when we walk in trust and dependence on Him. Picture Quotes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10