Before you read this story about my 5 year old kid and difficult theological questions, you need to know that I play contemporary worship music in my car. All the time.
The kids hear songs like My Lighthouse whenever we drive somewhere. It's kind of awesome.
This means, though, that sometimes my kids pick up on song lyrics and turn them into mind-bending theological questions.
Like this one: Can God turn into a scary monster?
On the surface of it, this question maybe isn't so mind-bending that it would strike fear into the heart of most mothers. Of course God can't turn into a scary monster.
Can he?
If all things are possible with God, then how do we rule out things like scary monsters?
That's the key: With God, all things are possible (Matt. 19:26).
And so, my 5-year-old asks: Can God do anything?
Yes, I answer.
Even turn into a scary monster?
Umm....
This preschool theology quiz calls to minds two things: first, the problem of evil. What about scary monsters? What about all those horrible things that happen in the world that God seems to just let happen?
And second, the question of omnipotence. I've heard this asked, by people older than my 5-year-old, this way: Can God create a rock big enough that even He can't lift it?
Lessons Learned about God from Parenthood
It turns out that reflecting on parenthood is actually really good for answering this kid-sized question.
We might hesitate to say that God can't turn into a scary monster. If we put restrictions on what God can do, then we start to get into theological hot water.
But we can say that what God does do is in accordance with his nature.
This is where I find thinking about God as Father incredibly helpful.
In Matthew 7:11, Jesus asks, if we know how to give good gifts to our children, then how much more would our Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
God is like us. Could I, being a loving and devoted mother to two small human beings (who occasionally morph into wild animals), who would literally lay down her life for them, do some hideous thing like turn into the Bogeyman who feasts on the bones of small children?
Well....no. Granted, this analogy isn't perfect, since human beings can do awful things that are not in accordance with their nature.
--
But to my 5-year-old, my nature is one of love. And although I will sometimes ask him to do awful and hateful things, like eat all his broccoli before he gets a cookie, I would never do something that is not for his good.
With God too, it is not some external standard that restricts what he can do, but his very nature.
--
If God is love, then this means that no, he cannot turn into a scary monster. (Of course, this means that we need to read the Old Testament in more than just a superficial fashion, but perhaps that is a task for next year, when the kids turn 6....)
And as to the rock heavier than he can lift question, C.S. Lewis once very cleverly said that we can attribute the impossible to God, but we cannot attribute to him nonsense.