Can we “limit” God by our own free will? : Baptist Bible Hour

Can we “limit” God by our own free will?

Posted by: Justin on June 5, 2008

“Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:41).

This passage has been misunderstood by some to support the idea that men and women have an autonomy which God cannot violate and that we, therefore, have the ability to “limit” God’s interactions with His creation. It is thought that we have a “sacred free will” which God can not, or will not, violate.

Ironically, however, the context of Psalm 78 makes it clear that the “limiting” of God of which Israel is being accused is actually in their perception of God and their challenges to Him.

For instance, we read in the nineteenth verse that Israel “spake against God; they said, can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Likewise, we read of their brazen questioning in verse twenty: “Behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can he give bread also? can he provide flesh for his people?”

Israel sinned by questioning God’s ability to provide for them and by limiting Him in their descriptions and perceptions of Him. As the following verse 42 (and, in fact, the rest of the chapter) reminds us, this came about because they had forgotten the great things that God had done for them in the past.

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