God’s ways/thoughts are above our ways/thoughts

In Isaiah 55:8-9 we read the word of YHWH: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

In my experience, this Scripture is usually quoted in two contexts: (1) when we are ignorant of some knowledge; (2) when our position is being decimated by our opponent’s evidence, and we lack a sufficient response. Neither use is legitimate because both are taking the passage out of its context.

Verse 7 reads, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” The Lord’s way/thoughts are contrasted to the ways/thoughts of the wicked, not the righteous. The Lord’s point is that His ways/thoughts are superior to the ways/thought of the wicked, not that His ways/thoughts are incomprehensible to mankind in general. That’s not to say we can fully understand God and His ways, but it is to say that this passage is not teaching divine incomprehensibility, but rather divine superiority.

Darren Worlow Says:

April 22, 2010 at 4:19 pm

Right on preacher!

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michaelwbryant Says:

April 29, 2010 at 7:43 am

Jason,

I will admit that I NOW realize I have used this scripture many times out of context according to both examples you have shared. Thank you for the clarification.

I have a question about divine incomprehensibility. What are your thoughts on this passage:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!
(Romans 11:33 – NRSV)

Unsearcheable -not searchable; not lending itself to research or exploration; not to be understood by searching; hidden; unfathomable; mysterious

Inscrutable – incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized;impenetrable;not easily understood; mysterious; unfathomable

*The Stongest Strong’s concordance also uses “incomprehensible” in it’s definition*

Jason, do you think that the Romans passage teachines Divine Incomprehensibility to some degree?

Perhaps Romans 11:33 is the passage we should use when mankind is ignorant of some knowledge as it relates to how God thinks and acts….? (Although, the immediate context of the passage was dealing with God’s mercy and providence).

I am thinking this passage teaches divine superiority AND divine incomprehensibilty…

And least I think that for now, LOL

Your thoughts…?

Michael W. Bryant

jasondulle Says:

April 29, 2010 at 10:09 am

Michael,

I don’t think anyone doubts that God is not fully comprehensible to man. I think that’s what Romans 11:33 reveals. But some people act as though God is not at all understandable to man. If that was the case, then we could not know anything about God, including how many gods there are, what his characters is like, etc. Clearly there are truths about God that we can know, even if we cannot know them exhaustively.

The idea that God is so “Other” that nothing can be known about him destroys the possibility of divine revelation, which destroys the Jewish and Christian religions since they are founded on the concept of divine revelation. If God is revealing Himself, then God is knowable to one degree or another.

If there is no congruity between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of man, so that whatever we know cannot be the same as what God knows, then two very strange things follow:

(1) It follows that God cannot know He exists (since that is something we know). But surely any conscious being must be aware of jis own existence.

(2) We can’t know anything. Why? Because God knows everything. If there is no overlap between what God knows and what we know, then humans cannot know anything at all. Pure rubbish.

Jason