God Isn’t the Author of Confusion?

Many years ago someone whipped out the “God is not the author of confusion” line on me to justify her position. In the moment I disagreed with her application of the principle, but I could not soundly refute it either. I failed to recognize the logical fallacy; she failed to consider the implications of her statement.

First and foremost, God must be understood to be sovereign and not bound by any parameters constructed by mortals. But I do agree that God does not play games with mortals and therefore would not be capriciously obtuse, deceitful, injurious, or cruel. That said, Scripture does record that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1 Cor 1:27 KJV).

There is an important difference between authoring confusion and introducing confusion. God’s sovereignty and infinite wisdom clearly allows for the introduction of confusion, if for no other reason that to teach us to cease our futile attempts to control our circumstances and teach us to trust God to coordinate our circumstances for our benefit.

When we mortals find ourselves in a state of confusion, rather than concluding that our confusion indicates that we have strayed from God’s guidance, we must not be so arrogant as to assume that our mortal minds are not the source of that confusion. In other words, before assuming that we have gone astray, we should first examine ourselves to be certain that the confusion we feel does not flow from our own inability to perceive God’s direction. For people of faith to conclude that circumstances are plainly apparent is the height of hubris, and if we flee all that confuses our mortal minds, we will never understand God’s mysterious ways.

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