I was asked this question not long ago and thought it was worth sharing.
“Is God arbitrary?”
In other words, does God make decisions without any specific reason. Does He do things “just because” or does He always have a purpose/plan behind every action? I think it’s easy to think that some of God’s commands or decisions are arbitrary, but only when we look at them from our perspective. Humans have a very narrow and limited view of things. We’re bound by the constraints of time. God, however, is limitless. He has ultimate perspective. So while there may be actions or decisions that God makes that seem random or “arbitrary,” I don’t think they actually are.
In fact, I would go so far as to say God cannot be arbitrary. Such a quality implies apathy, and while there are some things that God has neither commanded nor prohibited, those things involve God’s silence on a subject. Being arbitrary, on the other hand, requires an action be undertaken. God has to do something AND do it with apathy for the reason He’s doing it in order for it to be arbitrary. I can’t think of a single time in Scripture when an action of God is described in that way.
In fact, even in those cases where God’s actions seem completely random, the phrase “that I may be glorified” (or something like it) is often used. In other words, God sometimes does things just because He wants to do them. He doesn’t do them for our glory, but for His own. I may not understand the particulars of that, but that doesn’t make it an arbitrary decision.
If God does a thing, He does it because it is important for Him to do it.
The danger in debating whether or not a command is “arbitrary” is we start to judge how “important” that command is to us, and if we deem it less important, we might find it easier not to obey it. We might say things like: “THIS command has a clear and obvious purpose behind it, so we must do it, but THAT command is arbitrary, so it’s not as important that we obey it…” We need to beware not to confuse our understanding of God’s will with the reality of God’s command.
The Lord is not arbitrary; if He commands a thing, we must obey, regardless of whether or not we understand the “thought process” behind it.
~Matthew