Rules can’t cover all situations
God’s commandments cover all situations, but his rules can’t.2 God’s commandments are instructions indicating his will. His will in any situation is how Jesus would think, feel, and act in that situation. There is no situation where Jesus’ thoughts, feelings, and actions are undefined. However, there are many situations where you will not be aware of a rule from God that prescribes what your thoughts, feelings, and actions should be. A list of rules that covered every possible situation would need to be as infinite as reality itself to cover every circumstance.3 For example, what color would Jesus paint the walls of your living room? What kind of car would Jesus buy? What would Jesus eat for breakfast? These questions and a seeming infinity of others remain unanswered by the rules-based commandments found in the scriptures. However, they are covered by the principles provided there.
While God can prescribe ideal behavior to anyone in any situation and provide the solution to any problem, the specific nature of rules makes it impossible to provide a sufficiently large list of rules to describe all possible situations.
Footnotes
- 1. Who arose beyond the limits of dependence upon human rules or finite statements of God’s law—which both have circumstantial and chronological limits of applicability and which are both limited in content and context—to the endless flow and breadth of eternal life, which has no limit in applicability or duration or content or context. The law appoints men as high priests in spite of their weakness. However, the word of the oath improves you beyond your weaknesses, making you an everlasting Son. (Hebrews 7:16, 28, Author’s Reflection) ↩
- 2. Rules cannot describe what Jesus would think, feel, or do where the rules do not apply: “And by [Jesus Christ] all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:39) ↩
- 3. This is why King Benjamin gave the following disclaimer after his brief list of sins: “And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.” (Mosiah 4:29) ↩