By a Nose

You may have heard it said, "Your rights end where my nose begins." I'm sure you get the idea. As humans, we have lots of rights, but they do not extend to overriding the rights of others. That's the idea. Defining the limits of your rights by my nose. I've noticed, then, that when we go about defining God, it appears that we often have the same idea in mind.

The Bible refers to God as Sovereign (Acts 4:24; 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 6:10). It says He "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph 1:11), does whatever He pleases (Psa 115:3), and cannot be stopped from doing what He wills (Dan 4:35). The psalmist wrote of God, "All things are your servants" (Psa 119:91). Jesus claimed to possess "all authority" (Matt 28:18). Multiple references are given where God intervened in human will (Gen 20:6; Exo 34:24; Exo 4:21; Exo 11:3; Ezra 1:5; Acts 16:14; John 12:39-40; Phil 2:23; etc.). Biblically there appears to be no limits on God's Sovereignty. "Not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father" (Matt 10:29). But we've managed to redefine "sovereignty" of late. The Bible portrays it as absolute, but we've limited it ... to the ends of our noses. God has Sovereignly decreed that Man is sovereign in the affairs of Man and God cannot or will not intervene. God's sovereignty ends where my nose begins.

The Bible teaches the unlimited Sovereignty of God. We've redefined that to "somewhat limited". And it's not a heretical cult that believes this; it's mainstream Christians. And it's not just on God's Sovereignty that we've done this. It's other attributes as well. One very popular assault today is on God's Omniscience. Now, the Bible clearly says that God knows everything (1 John 3:20), that His "understanding has no limit" (Psa 147:5). He knows all that is occurring (Psa 139:2-3) even before it occurs (Psa 139:4; Acts 15:16-18; Isa 46:10; 1 Peter 1:1-2, 20; see also every prophecy in Scripture). But, like Sovereignty, there is a move to redefine "Omniscient" to mean "mostly omniscient". He knows what has happened, but cannot know what will happen. "Omniscient", traditionally defined as knowing everything -- past, present, and future -- is moved to knowing everything except the future. "Indeed," they argue, "God cannot know the future because it doesn't exist." They say He is "omniscient" because He does know every possible thing that could happen, but doesn't know the actual things until they happen. The limitation, they tell us, is Man's Free Will. Or, in terms of the theme here, God's knowledge ends where my nose begins.

These two -- Sovereignty and Omniscience -- are not alone in their redefinitions. In Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics he argued, "... all the limitations of man are God’s limitations, all his weaknesses, and more, all his perversities are His ..." (Church Dogmatics IV.1, 158). While Jesus claimed, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You," Man claims that God's abilities are limited. Given Man's Free Will, God cannot intervene in human events. Or, to put it in Jesus's terms, "Not all things are possible for You." God claims to be almighty (Gen 17:1; Rev 19:6). Job proclaims, "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." (Job 42:2). (Note the link between Omnipotence and Sovereignty in that verse.) But we're redefining "Omnipotent" to mean "somewhat omnipotent". He does have limitations, and those limitations find their core in Man's Free Will. You like to think that everything happens for a reason, which would be supported if God is actually Omnipotent, but you would be mistaken. God is limited by randomness -- specifically random evil. And we manage to redefine omnipotence so it ends where my nose begins.

And so it goes. "Sovereign" is supported in Scripture in absolute terms, but is redefined to "mostly sovereign" and hailed as a better sovereignty than actually Sovereign. "Omniscience" is demonstrated over and over in Scripture to include all things, past, present, and future, but is redefined as "mostly omniscient", limited to past and present, and is considered "better than Omniscience" because He knows all possibilities without actually knowing actualities. "Omnipotence" is explained in Scripture as "all things are possible for You", but moves to "mostly omnipotent" defined as "all things except those things where Man makes choices." And these are just a few examples. Step by step modern Christendom indulges itself in redefining God by the standard of Human Free Will. God stops where my nose begins.

Funny thing. Defining "Sovereign" as "not Sovereign", "Omniscient" as "not Omniscient", or "Omnipotent" as "not Omnipotent" is actually contradictory. So why is it hailed as "better"? And the question I always want to ask in cases like these: What took the Holy Spirit so long to get this across? Because traditional orthodoxy never understood any of these in this "new and improved" way ... which is neither improved nor good. I would suggest that defining God in terms of Man is not a safe thing to do. God warns, "You thought that I was one like yourself" (Psa 50:21) (followed by a rebuke). Letting God's Word define God as God sees fit seems like a wiser approach to me. Expecting that the Holy Spirit actually did His job of clarifying basic things like this seems like a more rational approach to me. But maybe that's just me.