Question
Gramps,
I’ve heard a lot of people say god can do anything He wants. I truly know He has the power to do all. But does he do what He wants or is He bound by laws or rules as we are?
Mel
Answer
Mel,
One of the most common statements you’ll hear is, “God can do anything He wants.”
In one sense, that’s absolutely true. God possesses all power. He created worlds without number, commands the elements, knows the end from the beginning, and has power over life and death. There is nothing beyond His ability.
But according to the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there’s an important distinction between having unlimited power and using that power however He pleases.
The restored gospel teaches that God is not arbitrary. He doesn’t simply make up the rules as He goes. Instead, He governs the universe according to eternal laws, perfect justice, and absolute truth. That may sound limiting at first, but it’s actually one of the greatest reasons we can trust Him.
The scriptures repeatedly teach that God possesses all power, but they also emphasize that His character never changes. Moroni testified that God is “unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity” (Moroni 8:18), while the Apostle Paul declared that God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). Those passages don’t suggest that God lacks power. Rather, they teach that He is so perfectly righteous that He will never act contrary to His own divine nature. His inability to lie isn’t a weakness—it is evidence of His perfection.
One of the beautiful truths restored through Joseph Smith is that eternal laws are real and unchanging. Rather than teaching that blessings are handed out arbitrarily, the Lord revealed:
“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.”
He then explains that whenever we receive a blessing from God, it comes “by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20–21).
That tells us something important about God’s character. He doesn’t bless or withhold blessings based on changing emotions or favoritism. He governs according to eternal principles that are perfectly just and perfectly reliable.
Perhaps the clearest explanation of this principle comes from Alma. While teaching about the Atonement, he twice states that if justice were destroyed—or if mercy robbed justice—”God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13, 25).
Those are remarkable words.
Sometimes people wonder why Heavenly Father couldn’t simply forgive everyone without requiring the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Alma explains that justice is an eternal reality. Rather than setting justice aside, Heavenly Father provided a Savior who could satisfy the demands of justice while extending mercy to all who repent. God’s plan works because both justice and mercy are perfectly honored.
This principle also helps us understand why God values our agency so highly. Certainly, He has the power to force obedience, eliminate temptation, or prevent every wrong choice. But doing so would undermine the very purpose of mortality.
Our time on earth is meant to be a time of learning, growth, and choosing good over evil. If God removed our ability to choose, we could never truly become like Him. Although He sometimes intervenes through miracles, inspiration, or protection, He generally allows us to exercise our agency because that agency is an essential part of His eternal plan.
President Dallin H. Oaks expressed this principle beautifully:
“God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfected as He is. (Love and Law)
That statement reminds us that God’s laws are not arbitrary restrictions. They are expressions of His love. Every commandment He gives is intended to help us become more like Him and prepare us for eternal life.
The Bible reinforces this same truth when the Lord declares, “I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). Because His character never changes, we know exactly what kind of Being He is. He is perfectly loving, perfectly truthful, perfectly merciful, and perfectly just. His standards don’t shift with changing circumstances or popular opinion.
Some people ask whether this means God is somehow limited by laws that are greater than He is. Latter-day Saints generally see it differently. God isn’t subject to arbitrary rules imposed by someone else. Rather, eternal law is perfectly consistent with His own divine nature. He always chooses what is eternally true because He is perfectly true. He always acts justly because He is perfectly just. He always acts lovingly because He is perfectly loving.
That doesn’t diminish His power—it magnifies His perfection.
Understanding this changes the way we view Heavenly Father. When life seems unfair, we can trust that He isn’t making random decisions. When blessings don’t come as quickly as we hope, we can remember that He governs according to eternal laws we may not yet fully understand. And when He asks us to obey His commandments, we can know they are given out of perfect love rather than arbitrary authority.
The restored gospel teaches that God truly is all-powerful. Nothing can frustrate His ultimate purposes, and His knowledge and power are beyond our comprehension. Yet His power is always exercised in perfect harmony with truth, justice, mercy, agency, and love.
Perhaps that’s one of the most comforting doctrines of all. We worship a God whose power is infinite, whose character is perfect, and whose promises never fail. He doesn’t simply do whatever He wants. He always does what is right. And because His nature never changes, we can place complete confidence in Him, knowing that everything He does is motivated by perfect wisdom, perfect justice, and perfect love.
Gramps
