I can prove that God is limited using the Bible. It’s actually quite simple and no I don’t have to take anything out of context. All you need is Jesus teachings, and to interpret them in a straightforward fashion using basic reason and logic.

Let’s start with the first scripture that people like to misinterpret or take to an extreme:

Matthew 19:26 – Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Pretty straightforward right? Doesn’t that mean that God is literally “unlimited”, “all”-powerful? Well, not so fast there speedy. Perhaps there’s some fine print, some nuance, some caveat to this “all” Jesus is talking about. Let’s re-interpret this scripture in light of another.

Luke 17:5-6 – The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

So the apostles asked for faith and Jesus told them to have the faith of a mustard seed. What the heck? Why didn’t Jesus just give them what they asked for? Does this imply Jesus/God has “limitations” or “constraints”. I argue yes it does and those constraints are spelled out for us in scripture if we are willing to read between the lines. Let’s continue with more scripture.

Matthew 13:31-32 – He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

What is Jesus talking about here? The answer is absurdly simple once you understand it. Jesus is saying all things are possible, but they require a process… just like a seed requires time to grow into a tree, so do we require time to acquire great “faith”, which I would simply interpret as maturity.

That is God is limited by the constraints of time and process. Even Jesus could not give his disciples faith immediately, because even Jesus is limited by the constraints of process, but if we have patience and endurance, only then are all things possible. It all becomes clear when you become mature.

The traditional definition of God as defined by superlatives, e.g. all-this and all-that is a misunderstanding of God’s ability. Yes in relation to human capability God is incredibly powerful, and can do almost anything imaginable, but all the things that God does requires time and process.

Let’s consider why this is important to understand. If God could simply snap his fingers and give us all complete maturity in an instant, then why are we here suffering this painful process? That would mean that we are suffering according to the whims of God, and that our suffering really isn’t necessary. That would mean Jesus suffering on the cross wasn’t necessary either, and God killed his Son for no reason.

(Now I’m not a fundamentalist, and I don’t believe in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, but even so, my point still stands.)

When we suffer we might demand, “Just snap your fingers, God, and make all my sufferings go away!” If God could do that he would, but he simply can’t. God requires time and process to bring us into maturity.

Further, why did God (as the mythology states) create the world in six days? Why take so long? Why not in a microsecond or a nanosecond for that matter? Why draw it out? Why “work” at all if you can just have all that you want in an instant? But the scripture said that “God” “worked” for six days. “God” “worked”! Consider the profundity of that statement. It didn’t say, “God mused the world into existence.” It didn’t say, “God gamed the world into existence.” It didn’t say, “God rested the world into existence.”

God worked. Think about that. If God worked then it must have been necessary that he did. If God needed to work, to put time and effort, and perhaps even some sweat and blood into the creation, then God has a constraint and limitation. God can do “all things”, but time and effort is still required.

We are suffering because it is necessary and purposeful. This inherent constraint on God’s power, i.e. that he requires time and process, brings us to a more complete understanding of why we must put work i.e. time and effort into our life as well. It requires patience and endurance and this is not because of some divine whim. It is because God, although very powerful in relation to human capability, is, like us, constrained by the laws of the universe which require us to work and put time and effort into our life.

With this revelation, we can move beyond a naive understanding of divinity into a more realistic understanding of reality with actual explanatory power. “God” is now revealing himself to humanity more intimately, showing us even his constraints and limitations. This is a grand discovery and should evoke even more curiosity and study into the finer points of God’s nature.