God Is Not Rational

If there are two things that someone is never supposed to question, they are:

1.Democracy is the best form of government, and

2.God is rational

The second never-to-be-questioned statement must be questioned and scrutinized. Once it is, I believe the statement will fall apart into (of all things) irrationality, and will be seen as an inferior description of G-d.


The first problem is the assumption that rationality is superior to irrationality. In practical life that seems obvious. Rationality allows us to know not to drink poison, that speeding in an area that usually has cop cars may result in a ticket, and that the lights will turn on when you flip the switch.

But what about the Divine? G-d transcends our world. G-d is THE Form, the Form of all Forms, that Socrates speaks about in Phaedo. G-d is not rational, but neither is He irrational. If one just looks at the words relating to reason and rationality, one finds words that don't define G-d. "The thing that makes some fact intelligible" and "the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking" (Webster). G-d is not intelligible, comprehendible, or able to fit within the human thought (thinking). He is not reason itself, because to say such would limit G-d and imply that G-d must fit into rationality, that he is intelligible, comprehendible, and able to fit within the human thought.

"Good sir," some may say, "it is quite obvious that G-d is not rational in this sense. But the rationality that you refer to is human rationality. Of course G-d is not humanly rational. But true rationality, complete rationality, is G-d."

I respond that there is no other kind of rationality! G-d is obviously intelligible to Himself, but when we refer to G-d with a description, like rational, we mean it in human terms. We say G-d is all-powerful, and we think of power in human terms. To say "G-d is rational" we mean "G-d is comprehendible and intelligible by the human mind." G-d is not rational, because He transcends rationality and reason. When we get to Heaven, we can see He is beyond reason.

The second problem, intimately linked with the first, is that G-d does many things that are irrational (which is the same thing as saying humanly irrational, which is the only kind of irrationality). One simply needs to look at Genesis 22. G-d tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Some people force their interpretation onto the story (in an honorable attempt to reconcile G-d and reason). They say that G-d was simply testing Abraham's faith, or that G-d never intended for Abraham to sacrifice his son in the end. I think Kierkegaard accurately interpreted this story as irrational. To our human mind, it is irrational for G-d to ask us for such a horrible action, whether the action will actually occur or not. G-d never asks for someone to commit adultery, so that He can stop them at the last minute. Nor does G-d ask someone to steal someone's money and give it to the Church, all so He can test our faith!

To say that G-d was acting irrationally would be to fall into the same trap as saying that He is rational. Do I expect people to stop saying that G-d is rational? Not really. After all, aspects (or energies if your more Orthodox or Eastern Rite inclined) can be intelligibly understood and thereby rational. So one could say, for example, that Nature (created by G-d) is rational. Or that the Church, created by G-d, is rational. But G-d Himself transcends intelligibility, comprehensibility- in short, rationality.