Biblical Contradiction: God can or cannot lie:

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Biblical Contradiction Explains: God can or cannot lie:

God can lie:

Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you.”

1 Kings 22:23

For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,

2 Thessalonians 2:11

God cannot lie:

so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

Hebrews 6:18

Explanation:

This is a case of confusing the two very different types of God’s will: God’s personal will and God’s permissive will.

God’s personal will:

God’s personal will is that which God directly causes. For example: God causes a person to die through divine intervention.

The fruition of God’s personal will is a relatively infrequent occurrence.

God’s permissive will:

God’s permissive will is that which God allows to occur by means of human freewill or simple random cause-and-effect. For example: An individual chooses to drive under the influence of alcohol and ultimately causes someone’s death. God did not directly cause this person’s death, he simply allowed it to happen.

The fruition of God’s permissive will is a constant occurrence.

God has chosen to give man freewill so that they may choose for themselves how they wish to conduct their lives. Therefore, God will not intervene by infringing upon any individuals freewill (see: How does prayer relate to freewill?).

Because God’s personal will is so infrequently mentioned within the Bible, the authors rarely make a distinction between God’s personal and God’s permissive will. Viewing it as a relatively irrelevant distinction (i.e. whether God caused it or allowed it to happen; it happened).

More than likely, the “deceiving spirits” described in 1 Kings 22:23 and 2 Thessalonians 2:11 are Fallen Angels who, like man, have freewill. When the Bible says God “sent them,” is very likely that they are not trying to say their arrival is in accordance with God’s personal will, but God’s permissive will. In other words, God didn’t send them, so much as he didn’t stop them.