Is an implied fact as authoritative as a direct statement?
Question:
All of the passages: Psalms 147:5; Romans 11:33-36; Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalms 145:3; Isaiah 40:28; Psalms 40:5; Psalms 92:5-6; Job 5:8-9; Job 11:7-9; Job 9:10-12; Job 26:14; and Psalms 106:2 imply that God is infinite except for Psalms 147:5 where it explicitly states God's understanding is infinite. Does this mean that the rest of the passages should be taken with a grain of salt because we are only implying that God is infinite from them or are these passages biblical truth we can bank on? I love the fact that God's word is absolute Truth but are implied Truths also absolute?
Answer:
An implication only means that the information is not directly stated. If I said, "I'll meet you at McDonald's on Friday at 2," there are several implications:
- I have my own means of getting to McDonald's, so I don't need you to pick me up.
- I don't plan to be at Taco Bell or a number of other locations at 2.
These are necessary inferences because the statement would become false if these implications were not true. Thus, the implications are as solid as the directly stated facts.
Still, some implications might carry some ambiguity. For example, did I mean 2 am or 2 pm? You could have good confidence that I meant 2 pm, and absolute certainty if you knew McDonald's closed at 11 pm.
As an example, Moses was told "Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals" (Numbers 20:8). Because Moses was told to bring Aaron's rod, he assumed that God meant for him to use it. But notice that nothing is said about what to do with the rod. The only direct commands are to bring the rod and to speak to the rock. Thus, to claim that striking the rock with the rod was implied in God's command would be false. The lack of instructions concerning the rod actually implied that God didn't want anything done with the rod beyond bringing it. And God held Moses accountable for not trusting His word.
The Sadducees wanted to argue that the Law of Moses did not claim there was life after death. Jesus' counter was not to cite a passage that directly dealt with the subject. "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:31-32). Jesus drew a necessary implication from the fact that God said "I am" instead of "I was." The truth he established was indisputable.
Therefore, even if something isn't directly stated, it is no less authoritative and true if the implication has to be true. The series of passages both directly and indirectly indicate that God is infinite and are equally valid and important in a discussion of the nature of God.
Question:
So take Psalms 145:3 for example, can I say that because God's greatness is unsearchable that no amount of searching can find out God; therefore, he must be infinite. If someone told me that all the passage means is God is greater then us, but He is finite and someday in eternity we will know all of him, I can then say the passage states that His greatness is unsearchable and if we could ever search Him out in eternity then the statement becomes false and God's word contains no false propositions. So there is no ambiguity in this passage about God being infinite. Correct? And I could follow the same logic with the other passages you stated.
Answer:
Yes. I believe you understand.
