What God Can, May, Cannot or May Not Do

God, being infinite power, can do all things.  He cannot, however,  perform some absurd illogical and silly operation like create a square circle. He can however cure someone of a toothache, heal instantaneously a cancer sickness, affirm someone from their emotional problems over night, get rid of depression and alcoholism in a second, make someone a saint in a few hours, etc. He has the power to do all this.

God's power, however, is governed by His wisdom and goodness. Though He can do all things, He will not do them. God does not do anything alone, but shares His power with His creation. If God were to do everything, what need would we have of doctors, dentists, psychologists, priests and pastors, architects, musicians, engineers, artists, etc? We might as well all retire and sit in the park, twittling our thumbs from mere boredom. No, God has distributed His gifts amongst us and expects everyone to do His part in building up harmoniously His reign.

Even our salvation involved and revolved around, all of humanity. Though the work is principally of the Holy Trinity and mainly of Christ, nonetheless, God wished to have everyone take part, in a more or less degree. Jesus could have come from heaven alone and realized our redemption by Himself, without the help of anyone. He did not want it this way, but invited everyone to be get involved. In this Divine scenario and play, we see how important was the role of Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, the Holy Women, the shepherds, three kings, Simeon, etc and even the Roman emperor (who, in establishing the pax Romana, indirectly was collaborating with God's plans). Would we have been saved if these people had not done their part? I do not think so, because God takes seriously the plans He establishes to realize His projects.

I do not disagree with the Evangelicals that Jesus is the only way to the Father. It is true, that He, the innocent lamb of God is the only one that could  take away our sins. This does not mean, however, that He is the only one that needs to distribute the graces He has won for us. He can, if He so wishes, give them to others (like Mary) to give them to us. He is not obligated to do things as we would like Him to work His plans out. He has no obligations except to Himself. If God has chosen a  humble virgin to channel His graces, that is His right and pleasure, even if He could do it differently. Why is it so hard to accept such a simple truth? Or are we jealous of the fact that God loves to exalt the humble by having them share in His power?

God, therefore, will not answer a prayer to cure a toothache if He knows there are plenty of dentists to take care of the problem. He will not cure me of a stomach ache if there are plenty of herbs to deal with the suffering. He will not answer my prayer to give me more money until I spend the quantity I have secretly stashed away in the bank. God, also will not affirm me if He knows that He wants affirmation to be something realized through each one of us.

The Evangelicals would love to have God do everything, and dispense of human science once and for all. That is what I call a real cop out religion. God, however, is not a naive being to allow Himself to be overburdened with problems that He knows could be easily resolved by those to whom He had already given His gifts. He will literally allow someone to die unaffrimed in order to honor the ways He has established for humanity. God respects highly the nature He has created. It is no use, therefore to scream, pray and holler for God to affirm us of our emotional problems. He simply will not do it, because He knows darn well that we can and must do it ourselves. Does that mean, then, that it is useless for us to pray to God in regard to emotional suffering? No, we can pray to God for affirmation, yet He won't realize it Himself personally, but send us an affirmer who will perform this miracle in our lives. It is the way God wants things to be done, and it is the way He will truly do it.

 Anthony Mellace