- Can G-d Do Anything?
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- Moshe Ben-Chaim
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- How would you answer someone who asks the
question, "can G-d do anything"? Would you immediately
defend that notion, and feel obliged to answer "yes" without
consideration? Many do exactly this. But as in all areas, wisdom must
be employed if one desires to arrive at a correct conclusion.
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- If we say G-d can do "anything", we
find ourselves in endless contradictions. For in truth, G-d cannot be
unjust, He cannot punish someone if they haven't sinned, He cannot
destroy himself, He cannot make Himself physical and many other such
absurdities. In other words, G-d being limited is a truth. Most people
feel limitation in respect to G-d is impossible.
- What is impossible is for G-d to be imperfect.
"Perfection" then is the main category which we attribute to
G-d, under which all other attributes must fall. We do not start with
the "superman"' notion of G-d, and force all other traits to
be subsumed thereunder. This I believe is the source of the error. One
must switch the main category regarding G-d.
- This superman notion is carried over from
youth and has gone unchecked. But realizing the above mentioned
contradiction, one must now ascribe limit to G-d, this limit in
actuality being attributed to His perfection.
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- Imagine a judge who can never accuse wrongly,
and in each and every one of his cases he proves the innocent as
innocent, and finds the guilt in the guilty. Would we not attest to
the greatness of such a judge, as he is flawless in his judgments?
Would we not say, that although he is limited to finding the truth in
every case, and cannot err, that this is better, more perfect than a
judge who does make mistakes?
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- The same applies to G-d.
- G-d cannot make Himself physical, nor kill
Himself, nor judge falsely, nor punish the righteous, and we say in
all these cases that this attests to His perfection.
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- Limitations like these prove G-d's perfection.
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