Whether one is reading scripture passages or hearing the Word proclaimed at Mass, sometimes human logic and God logic seem to be polar opposites. Is there really a difference? And if there is, how can mere mortals come to know and understand the logic of God?

In this past Sunday’s Gospel, (Lk 20:27-38) the Sadducees pose a perfect (albeit exaggerated) logical question to Jesus. This group of high priests and religious leaders are explained in Luke’s account as not believing in the resurrection, but they also did not believe in any sort of life after death. I can imagine them having theological discussions with the Pharisees, who did believe in some sort of afterlife. How many what-if examples did they debate? I find it interesting they used the number seven as the total number of brothers. Perhaps they were using it as a comparison of the number of days in a week, and they were expecting that the seventh brother would be blessed, since that number is a holy number. Jesus’ response is not a parable to reflect on, but rather the straight Truth which can be summed up as: you don’t understand since you are using the logic of the material world. Ironically the passage just before this reading in Luke’s Gospel is the question of paying taxes to Caesar (Lk 20:20-26). This, too, was a perfectly logical question to ask. Jesus’ response to this question shows a bit more of the God logic: “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” This answer, especially for those of us who have heard it over the course of many years, seems so obvious we wonder why there is any question at all! 

There is definitely God logic that we can understand. We can understand gravity, two hydrogen atoms joining with an oxygen atom forming a drop of water, and the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. All these parts of creation are able to be studied. They do not change and flex, so there is order to God’s logic. But all of creation makes up the material world, and so we try to apply the same material logic to God and His divinity, which uses spiritual logic instead. God did create the material world for good, however it is still an incomplete reflection of the divine life. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit live in the unity of love. It is this spiritual logic that we need to use to understand and apply it to the questions we have. The tax is a material requirement and to pay it such requires a material object, in this case a coin. But in the love of God, we need to repay God by loving not just Him, but all that reflect Him: all of creation, all creatures, and all peoples. Marriage is the incomplete example of what it is to live in divine love. It is the full emptying of self, willing the good of the other as other. It is a life of communication between spouses and God. Here in the material realm we practice it on a limited scale, since our human nature is not yet equipped to live such a life as to be in communion with creation past, present, and future. 

However, for the parable of the lost sheep (Mat 18:12-14) we can only understand it if we view it with spiritual logic. From a material and economic perspective, no shepherd would leave 99 sheep to look for one lost sheep; it would be chalked up the same way retail stores do for merchandise that is broken or goes missing. But in spiritual logic, when one is giving their whole self, it is of great importance to not just find the missing sheep but to bring it home and celebrate. Love craves unity where the material world likes categorization and organizing through separation.

The logic God uses may seem odd and incomprehensible to us, but Jesus teaches both in parables as well as straight answers the spiritual nature of logic. Through scripture study and prayer we too can begin to know and apply spiritual logic to our lives, preparing us to live in the Divine Love that is God for all eternity.