God can do what ever he wants?

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uglygal

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I beg to differ. I have heard people say “God can do whatever he wants” particularly when they can’t explain something. I say thats a lie and not true.
Firstly. God can do whatever he wants by power and nature, because he is God and no-one can stop Him or tell Him otherwise.

But …
if God does whatever he wants without consideration for others or his own creation, than that God is selfish and God cannot be selfish because God is love and love is NOT and cannot be selfish. If God just does whatever he wants because He is more powerful than everyone else, than that God has no claim to being revered as love or even calling himself love. Talk is cheap. God cannot contradict Himself. If god does something, His very nature and essence - Holy Love - demands that he does what is beneficial and good for others (his creation) though we may not always understand his reasoning or his ways.

For this reason I do not believe God does and has done or can do whatever he wants. I have no book or theological saint / scholar to back this up other than what God spoke to me in prayer.

Is this view consistent with Catholic faith?
 
God by definition cannot be selfish - whatever He does He does for reasons other than mere self-interest.

But remember He has the needs and wants of all of creation as well as His own to consider - so when WE think He’s being selfish it’s merely our own misguided notions of love - which in many instances is extremely self-involved indeed - that make us think so.
 
God can and at times He does do what he wants.
Remember King Hezakhaia ( wrong spelling) and how the prophet told the king to make right for his death. The king cried out to God and God relented telling Isiaha that God was giving giving the king 15 more years. God knew that the king would have another son andthat the son would turn the people against God.
Remember how when Moses was to die, and Joshua take over God told Moses that the people would turn against Him in the promised land. Remember how God made man from the dust but he already knew how mankind would turn against Him with the life of Eve.

How whenGod made the angels God knew lucifer would turn against Him …
And yet God still created these beings.
But also remember how it is writen that theend of alltime in the human and sinful way is to come to an end (God has designed this tobe) God chose this that at the end as we know it ALL will be turned back to God . Why? Because God chose this to be becaus God can and is doing all He wishes to do. At the moment a lot of things are flawed but that is because of carnel use by man.

God can do all things however he in His omnipotent way CHOOSES not to because He made mankind to HIS likeness and that is not as a computer.
Godbless
 
LilyM said:
God by definition cannot be selfish - whatever He does He does for reasons other than mere self-interest.

But remember He has the needs and wants of all of creation as well as His own to consider - so when WE think He’s being selfish it’s merely our own misguided notions of love - which in many instances is extremely self-involved indeed - that make us think so.
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I wonder if part of that is He won’t rather than can’t?

Godbless
 
First, God is no dictator. Upon his creation he bestowed free will. For this very reason a rebellion occurred in heaven. We, humanity, share this gift. Unfortunately when we fail to secure ourselves, we turn our dissatisfaction towards God. In essence, we play the blame game with God.
 
I’ll let you wrestle with this . . .

Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased (Psa. 115:3).

He doeth whatsoever pleaseth him (Eccl. 8:3).

Thou, O Lord hast done as it pleased thee (Jonah 1:14).

Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and earth, and in the seas, and in all the deep places (Psa. 135:6).

He does all his pleasure (Isa. 46:10; Isa. 44:24-28; Eph. 1:5,9; Phillipians 2:13).

My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isa. 55:8,9)
 
uglygal said:
I beg to differ. I have heard people say “God can do whatever he wants” particularly when they can’t explain something. I say thats a lie and not true.
Firstly. God can do whatever he wants by power and nature, because he is God and no-one can stop Him or tell Him otherwise.

But …
if God does whatever he wants without consideration for others or his own creation, than that God is selfish and God cannot be selfish because God is love and love is NOT and cannot be selfish. If God just does whatever he wants because He is more powerful than everyone else, than that God has no claim to being revered as love or even calling himself love. Talk is cheap. God cannot contradict Himself. If god does something, His very nature and essence - Holy Love - demands that he does what is beneficial and good for others (his creation) though we may not always understand his reasoning or his ways.

For this reason I do not believe God does and has done or can do whatever he wants. I have no book or theological saint / scholar to back this up other than what God spoke to me in prayer.

Is this view consistent with Catholic faith?
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You are right about God as love. But I would challenge what you say and say that Gods love is not contrary to what He wants. He wants to love us. All things He does are because He loves us but at the same time they are what He wills.
 
God can and does do whatever he wants, but his desire is goodness and truth.

God can not choose to do evil for he is a perfect being.

“Freedom is not necessarily the privilege of choosing between good and evil, its the ability to chose only good.” Unknown author.

God has the ability to choose only what is good and therefor, is completely free.

Jim
 
I wonder how many of us try to impose our will onto GOD? Does God want there to be war? earthquakes? and disasters? I think not. Yet like any good Father, we His children, have lessons to learn. Can God do what ever He wants? Yes. Does He need to do certain things for our benefit? Yes.

Remember Christ’s prayer in the garden, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” How God must cry for all of us!

May God grant us all strength.
 
I still don’t cede that God does whatever He wants. God is perfect and he is love. He cannot contradict Himself. Everything He does has its origin and end in love.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” - and what is heaven? perfect love because that is the will of God. God is love in His essence and nature and will not contradict Himself because hypocrisy is not love. God’s will and His love are not separate things.
 
tabcom said:
I’ll let you wrestle with this . . .

Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased (Psa. 115:3).

The only thing that pleases Him is Love
He doeth whatsoever pleaseth him (Eccl. 8:3).
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Because God’s thought and ways are all love - man’s thoughts and ways are not love. They are selfish, hypocritical, power-hungry, blood-thirsty, wicked, oriented at self - God’s ways are love for all.
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uglygal said:
I still don’t cede that God does whatever He wants. God is perfect and he is love. He cannot contradict Himself. Everything He does has its origin and end in love.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” - and what is heaven? perfect love because that is the will of God. God is love in His essence and nature and will not contradict Himself because hypocrisy is not love. God’s will and His love are not separate things.
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God, remember, really has no desire to act that is incompatible with action and that is not acted on.

He’s not like humans, who can fail to do what they desire either because of physical incapability or a divided desire as to what to do. So in as far as our free will doesn’t impede His, everything that He wants to do He does.

Are you suggesting that He doesn’t bring about earthquakes, floods etc? Of course He does, who else? It’s just a question of what His motive is in so doing. That, not being God, we don’t know, we can only trust that He who IS love and mercy has good reasons.
 
uglygal said:
I still don’t cede that God does whatever He wants. God is perfect and he is love. He cannot contradict Himself. Everything He does has its origin and end in love.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” - and what is heaven? perfect love because that is the will of God. God is love in His essence and nature and will not contradict Himself because hypocrisy is not love. God’s will and His love are not separate things.
Click to expand...
We essentially agree. The part that I emphasized is exactly what I have been saying. God loves and He wills the same thing. When I say He wills I mean both in the sense that He desires and in the sense that He causes to be. He desires love and He causes love to be. God is love. All He does is that we might be brought closer into union with Him. That was the reason for the incarnation of Christ. He became man that He might live in us and that we might live in Him. He took what is ours and gave us what is His. He died on the cross that this might be completed in us. This was accomplished for the sake of all. There is no amount of exclusion. God came to call all. The only ones who are excluded are those who exclude themselves.
 
Yes God is love! And His actions are always for the best. We, sometimes, in our finite minds can not comprehend His actions. We question how they can be for good. Yet, the Lord sees all and knows all, Trust in His actions.

Lord, open my heart so I may know and do Your will
 
The only thing God CANNOT do is, LIE!

Outside of that, IMHO, God’s Will has no boundary. Trying to ‘bring Him’ to within reason is folly, for eventually, we will run into an unanswerable question because everything known and / or written are insufficient to study and ‘base’ conclusions upon.

John tells us that * if they were to write down everything Jesus taught, the whole world would not be big enough to hold the books* And Jesus (God) only revealed what is sufficient for us to believe that the God of Abraham is as real as the heart that beats within our chest.

That suggests that all creation and every thing that can POSSIBLY be known, will still fall short of knowing God.

:cool:
 
uglygal said:
I still don’t cede that God does whatever He wants. God is perfect and he is love. He cannot contradict Himself. Everything He does has its origin and end in love.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” - and what is heaven? perfect love because that is the will of God. God is love in His essence and nature and will not contradict Himself because hypocrisy is not love. God’s will and His love are not separate things.
Click to expand...
Hey I guess I agree to a point, because God does want us to love Him. However at times we say we love Him and want Him to teach us and go against His will.
Well as a good farmer does he prunes the tree and that may not be what He wants to do but He knows that for better fruit He has to.
So in God knowing ALL things he knows that at times it will hurt us or our pride or humanness. For God to get what is best for His will He prunes us and that is going against the grain of our humanness. yes that hurts but God goes against His will that we enjoy life at times. But He will allow some things to happen for the better, even though He knows it will hurt for a while.

But then again God also could say… I want what is best for His weill to be done, so it could also be God’s will or what God want’s.

Whew! but I guess God knows what we all mean.

Godbless
 
Sure God can - He is God.

Bud God is Goodness and Love and what He does is always BEST for us. This is why the Perfect Prayer is “Not my will by Thine be Done”

Before we can pray this prayer, we must believer that
  • God created us and know more than we can ever know ourselves
  • God loves us more than we can ever love ourselves
  • God cares for our happiness more than we can ever want for ourselves.
Only when we believe in the 3 facts above…can we pray
LET THY WILL BE DONE…AMEN.
 
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