Nothing is Impossible (Haas)

. . . nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them . . . 

From Genesis 11

I'm not sure we really fathom what happened when the Tower of Babel was built. Have we considered this assertion by God Himself?

Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Why?

Because humanity has innate power that it barely understands. When we are in agreement, when we're speaking the same language, we can do anything. What does "anything" mean? Think about it.

We've all heard about the power of positive thinking . . . the value of creativity . . . the leverage that comes in working collaboratively. And it turns out it's true. God agrees that it's true!! We can do anything. We just have to work together, and serve each other.

And that's without the spirit of God within us!

Or maybe that's what the Spirit of God is - - - a force that truly unifies us. But you have to put the needs of others first!

But then . . . on the other hand, absent the Spirit of God, human accord can go violently awry. The pattern repeats itself throughout history. The Serpent in Eden, by offering ultimate knowledge to humanity (which is ultimate power), committed a grave error that would have endangered humanity to an eternity of strife and evil. In a way, the Serpent has good intentions: "Let's give Man and Woman all the information they need, so that they can progress and prosper."

But the Serpent, and Adam, and Eve, were unable to separate those good intentions from a selfish motive at the root. Even Hitler professed "love" for the German people.

The Babel builders had a "good" motive. "Let's get to Heaven." Let's return to the place out of which God cast us! That's good, right? Work our way to God?

Oh wait . . . "work" our way? Doesn't that sound a little "religious"? So there you have one problem with Babel - it's method was works-oriented religiosity, rather than faith-based trust. Babel is like the serpent. Every adversary to God is like the serpent, and like the Babel builders.

And then Babel went on to be the seat of Babylon: an empire built on opposition to God.

With good intentions.

There's human-leveraged unity which is very powerful, but potentially evil.

And there's God-leveraged unity which is more powerful, but ultimately good.