For my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa
55:8-9)
Some often
take this text as a saying that God can be illogical and/or we can engage in
illogical argumentation. Notwithstanding, apart from being anti-intellectual,
it is eisegetical. As Eric L. Johnson (not to be confused with Eric Johnson,
the hack anti-Mormon activist and member of Bill McKeever’s organisation) noted:
The cause of this exclamation in context is
the “scandal” of God’s offering forgiveness to sinners (who humans might suppose God would simply destroy). The
argument moves from the particular to the general: God can forgive sinners (the
particular) because (in general) his ways and thoughts are not equal or
identical to ours. Thus, a useful principle is being stated: God’s understanding
transcends ours. We are being encouraged not to assume that just because
something makes sense to us, we necessarily have the fullest understanding. His
greater understanding brings in other considerations that may show our
perspective to be deficient. (Eric L. Johnson, “Can God Be Grasped By Our
Reason?” in Douglas S. Huffman and Eric L. Johnson, eds. God Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God [Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Zondervan, 2002], 71-103, here p. 77 n. 18)
