# Does God follow rules? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502 "2008-05-08T00:33:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/1 "2008-05-08T00:33:22Z")
In Christian mythology, does God follow rules? He lays down rules for humanity to follow, but can he himself be capricious or act randomly? Is this the same for other Abrahamic religions, such as Islam and Judaism? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/2 "2008-05-08T00:36:38Z")
In Christian **mythology** , God and Satan are at war, with a little angel sitting on your right shoulder and a little devil on your left, to tell you right from wrong. Perhaps you meant in Christian _theology_? Or perhaps you meant to put this bit of snark in GD or the Pit? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/3 "2008-05-08T00:40:28Z")
No, that was the correct word for GQ, wherein we deal with facts. ETA: although, one could argue that the two terms are, in fact, synonymous. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/4 "2008-05-08T01:03:23Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] In Christian **mythology** , God and Satan are at war, with a little angel sitting on your right shoulder and a little devil on your left, to tell you right from wrong. Perhaps you meant in Christian _theology_? Or perhaps you meant to put this bit of snark in GD or the Pit? [/QUOTE] I’m sorry, **Polycarp**. It was a serious question. No snark was intended. I understood ‘theology’ to be ‘the study of God’, and perhaps a subset of Christian beliefs about the whole world. I suppose both would boil down to the same thing for the purposes of the question. I certainly was not thinking of the little devil and angel, which I would call ‘popular mythology’. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/5 "2008-05-08T01:14:42Z")
See [Covenant Theology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_Theology). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/6 "2008-05-08T01:30:22Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] In Christian **mythology** , God and Satan are at war, with a little angel sitting on your right shoulder and a little devil on your left, to tell you right from wrong. Perhaps you meant in Christian _theology_? Or perhaps you meant to put this bit of snark in GD or the Pit? [/QUOTE] I agree that “theology” is a more accurate term for what the OP was asking about than “mythology,” based on the fact that (as per the [Wikipedia article on religion and mythology)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_mythology) > [@](#): > > It should be noted that most definitions of “myth” limit myths to stories. Thus, non-narrative elements of religion, such as ritual and theology, are not myths. But I think you’re being overly defensive; I didn’t get the impression that any snark at all was intended. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/7 "2008-05-08T01:35:37Z")
Myth is limited to stories? That’s a new one for me. I thought it applied to any body of explanatory belief. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/8 "2008-05-08T01:37:19Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Myth is limited to stories? That’s a new one for me. I thought it applied to any body of explanatory belief. [/QUOTE] I think it’s a body of explanatory belief that nobody any longer believes. ---
**Author:** ![Baffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/9 "2008-05-08T02:00:18Z")
A myth is any story involving the divine. It doesn’t imply that divinity doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/10 "2008-05-08T02:06:28Z")
[QUOTE=Baffle] A myth is any story involving the divine. [/QUOTE] Since when? ---
**Author:** ![MissMossie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@MissMossie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissMossie)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/11 "2008-05-08T02:28:34Z")
In the basic set of written Christian stories (I’m going with the Bible here), I cannot recall off the top of my head any set rules that God has to follow. If you traverse into oral tradition, which seems to be a valid form of mythology, then the Christian story of the world says that God is all-good. I think that could be a rule. God must act in such a way that all of God’s actions are good. That being said, oral Christian mythology also tends to put God as infinitely smarter than humans. Something that a human, with limited knowledge, might view as bad, might be seen by an infinitely smart being as good. IOW, even if we don’t think that God is playing by the all-good rule, God might still be doing so. I’m not entirely sure if there are biblical cites for the all-good or the all-knowing ideas. I imagine most Christians would agree with them, but Christians are a funny breed. They’re all different. ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/12 "2008-05-08T02:28:39Z")
If mythology includes stories about a god vomiting offspring then it can also include stories about a god creating human beings from dust. Christianity is not the default. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/13 "2008-05-08T02:55:31Z")
It’s taught (at least in Lutheran confirmation class) that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. He’s perfect. One would conclude that he can’t break any of his own laws, thus he would not be so perfect. Bad shit that happens that make God seem random or mean are explained away with the idea that everything God does is for a purpose. [Here’s a quick little explanation](http://www.netten.net/~kenn/omnipotn.htm) on a random site I found via Google of the “omni” ideas. It points out that humans can’t really grasp the idea of the perfectness of God. God sending Jesus to the world kind of made it easier for people to swallow the idea of “God” because, as far as I know, he was fallible because he WAS human, not just “God on earth.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/14 "2008-05-08T03:14:31Z")
There are actually two questions, here: First, does God follow rules? And second, must God follow rules? The first question is easy. Although God could, presumably, perform miracles whenever He wanted, He certainly doesn’t seem to do so very often. At least almost all of the time, He is content to let the Universe run under a set of consistent rules, so to that extent, He follows rules Himself. The second question veers into some deep philosophy. If, for instance, a being never does something in all of eternity, what does it mean to say that that being can do that thing? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/15 "2008-05-08T03:55:04Z")
Since there isn’t one single “Christian theology,” this question is too diffuse to permit a GQ answer. Off to GD. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/16 "2008-05-08T03:57:32Z")
Wait a minute; does He or does he not work in mysterious ways? The argument that he plays by rules, but they are hidden from us is a cop out. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/17 "2008-05-08T05:03:38Z")
Hmm. I thought that there might be some clear doctrine somewhere about this, but it seems that it’s more of a Great Debate than I expected. Thanks… I think I remember why I read religion and philosophy threads but seldom participate. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/18 "2008-05-08T05:06:05Z")
Did anyone click through the link at post #5 above? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/19 "2008-05-08T07:24:30Z")
Depends on what you mean by “rules”. In mainstream Christian theology, there is no other entity whose will can constrain God. God therefore does not follow “rules” in the sense of commandments given by another. In the sense that his behaviour might be predictable, however, he could (and, at least Thomas Aquinas would say, does) follow rules. God is loving, just, merciful, etc, and therefore will behave in loving, just, merciful, etc. ways. To generalize, according to Aquinas God will behave in ways consistent with his nature and his behaviour is to that extent predictable. (How well we can actually predict it, of course, depends on how good we are at discerning the nature of God.) Whether you want to call that predictability a “rule” is up to you. There is, however, a contrary view in Christian theology, advocated by William of Occam. For William, God’s superlative quality is his omnipotent and untrammeled will. God will do what he wills. William denied that God was necessarily by nature loving, just, etc, or at least he denied that these (or any other) qualities could constrain God’s will in any way. Hence God does exactly what he wants; he is not subject to any “rules”. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502/20 "2008-05-08T07:28:54Z")
Yes, I even bookmarked it for a more careful reading. I am a Presbyterian and need a refresher course. I studied some of this in college, but didn’t understand it then and don’t understand it now. But I tend not to worry about religious details anyway. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-god-follow-rules/448502.md?page=2)