A very wise man once told me, ” The only way to measure your self-pride is through your dreams.” I know it may not look resonable to you, but give your mind a chance to digest it. Give it some thought and you will find out how deep this statement is… Really our dreams, including the spiritual ones, reflect our self-pride. I think that is why humble and modest people, of course the real ones not the fake ones, are always happy. They have simple dreams, they are satisfied with what they have… They are even free to let it go, if these dreams don’t come true… Now I started to understand why the church talks a lot about modesty and meekness… I think they are the real way of happiness and freedom….
The answer is surprisingly yes!! Here is the statement:
” God is limited by His infinite attributes”
Let me give you an example! If I say that God can’t lie, it is a limitation. But does it degrade from Him, absolutely not. God can’t lie beacause His infinite attributes do not agree with this.
Let me take another biblical example: if you read the Gospel according to St. Mark chaper 6 from 1 to 6:
(Quoted in English then Arabic)
” 1And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. 2And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. 4But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. 5And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. ”
1 وَغَادَرَ يَسُوعُ ذلِكَ الْمَكَانَ وَعَادَ إِلَى بَلْدَتِهِ، وَتَلاَمِيذُهُ يَتْبَعُونَهُ.
2 وَلَمَّا حَلَّ السَّبْتُ، أَخَذَ يُعَلِّمُ فِي الْمَجْمَعِ، فَدُهِشَ كَثِيرُونَ حِينَ سَمِعُوهُ، وَقَالُوا: «مِنْ أَيْنَ لَهُ هَذَا؟ وَمَا هَذِهِ الْحِكْمَةُ الْمَوْهُوبَةُ لَهُ، وَهَذِهِ الْمُعْجِزَاتُ الْجَارِيَةُ عَلَى يَدَيْهِ؟
3 أَلَيْسَ هَذَا هُوَ النَّجَّارَ ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ، وَأَخَا يَعْقُوبَ وَيُوسِي وَيَهُوذَا وَسِمْعَانَ؟ أَوَلَيْسَتْ أَخَوَاتُهُ عِنْدَنَا هُنَا؟» هكَذَا كَانُوا يَشُكُّونَ فِيهِ.
4 وَلكِنَّ يَسُوعَ قَالَ لَهُمْ: «لاَ يَكُونُ النَّبِيُّ بِلاَ كَرَامَةٍ إِلاَّ فِي بَلْدَتِهِ، وَبَيْنَ أَقْرِبَائِهِ، وَفِي بَيْتِهِ!»
5 وَلَمْ يَقْدِرْ أَنْ يَعْمَلَ هُنَاكَ أَيَّةَ مُعْجِزَةٍ، غَيْرَ أَنَّهُ لَمَسَ بِيَدَيْهِ عَدَداً قَلِيلاً مِنَ الْمَرْضَى فَشَفَاهُمْ.
6 وَتَعَجَّبَ مِنْ عَدَمِ إِيمَانِهِمْ. ثُمَّ أَخَذَ يَطُوفُ بِالْقُرَى الْمُجَاوِرَةِ وَهُوَ يُعَلِّمُ. >
I want you to focus on verses 5 and 6. Verse 5 said that He couldn’t do mighty works, it didn’t say He did not or He did not want to. It said literaly He couldn’t. How could not Jesus do a mircale??? Isn’t He God? Definitly He is. Then what is wrong?? The answer is, nothing is wrong. Verse 6 explains every thing right away: Jesus could not do a miracle because of their unbelieve… He is the one who set the rule… He can’t break it, not out of weakness, but, out of prefection… It is his infinite justice that limited Him…
God can’t do evil things not out of weakness but out of perfect righteousness.
I wanted to complete Tony’s idea about how we are limiting God by rules.. We will really limit God if you employ our own logic to make Him perfect.. BUT God revealed Himself to us in His Son. He showed us Himself in the bible. He told us about Himself… These things that He told us about are absolute facts.. They are not going to confine Him.. What will really confine HIM is our rejection to His clear statements that He repeated more than once…I d like to give another example here:
When He talked about Himself as the only way of salvation…. When He talked several times about the necessity of faith for our salvation….
But our self-righteousness does n’t accept it, our logic will start assuming postulates about different cases that doesn’t look fair if it were judged through Jesus words. Then what will do? We will act as Gods by twisting His words to others words that satisfy our sense of fairness.