God… Almighty
Whether you are Catholic or not, if you were in church as a child one of the first things you learned was that God is all knowing, all powerful and everywhere all at once. In short, almighty. To put it in plain, blunt 21st century English, he can do whatever he wants because he is God. And he does.
Usually God works through the normal scientific laws he has set up for the universe. Usually. But sometimes he likes to do things a little differently. Things that make our brains spin trying to explain them. That’s because as humans we like things to be consistent. We have our little boxes to put everything into. Including God. We like for him to work in ways that make sense to us. So every once in a while he likes to do things to show us how foolish and limiting those boxes are.
Like using a murderer (Moses) to lead his people out of slavery. And using a donkey to get his message across to a stubborn human. (Balaam’s donkey Numbers 22: 5-35 cool story.) Or the Son of God and Son of Man being born of a virgin. Jesus calling the man who would betray him three times a rock and building his church on him. (St. Peter) Saul killing Christian one day and, as St. Paul, using him to start churches all over the known world and write most of the New Testament the next. Lots of things like that.
God does these things to remind us that he is almighty. And boxes don’t appeal to him. When we put God in a box we are essentially saying, “This is the way God works. It’s the only way God works. It is the way he has always worked and the way he will always work.” He doesn’t like that because it doesn’t recognize him as God Almighty. It says we know better. Which is totally impossible because we see from the perspective of here and now. He sees from the eternal perspective.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways - oracle of the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55: 8-9 NABRE)
We can’t box in God Almighty, because, quite simply, no one can build a big enough box.
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