Is God Behind It All?
13 February 2007 by Gil
We’ve had some interesting conversations in class over the past few days regarding the classic debate about God’s knowledge/control of the current and future events and the meaningful choices that we have to make. The conversation ultimate turns on two elements of the Bible’s presentation of how God runs the world: God is sovereign, human beings are free. Are those two elements contradictory, are they resolvable or do we have to somehow hold them in tension?
As we talked more about specifics we asked the question: Do the individual events or circumstances of our lives have individual meaning? This question becomes most acute during the negative experiences of life as we ask the eternal question, ‘Why?’. The Christian answer has often been to reassert that God is in control, God has a plan and that the events of our lives are contributing to that plan in ways that we can’t fully understand. I have become less satisfied with this answer as I have continued to ask the question.
As the conversation progressed I got some sense of why this question matters so much. We need to know that the bad stuff means something, that it serves some purpose. But the longer I ask this question the more I become convinced that God is not behind the bad stuff, that God is opposed to it just like we are, that God suffers with a suffering world. I realize that this raises questions of God’s sovereignty but I prefer to think that God’s sovereignty is expressed in his ultimate ability to bring good out of the bad, ultimately to bring resurrection out of death.
So what is the meaning of the bad stuff? I think that rather than looking for a individual purpose for every event that happens in my life (What does God mean by causing or allowing this particular circumstance?), I’m more inclined to see the Christian response as one that admits the difficulty of these circumstances, looks for God’s redemptive work within them, while humbly pointing toward an ultimate resolution. This response certainly does not answer all the questions (what response could?) but I think it avoids some important mistakes.
One of the classic approaches to this issue by many religions, including a long history of Christian mystical thought, emphasizes that we need to stop living an “about” life - where everything we engage in has to mean something. We get caught in the trap then of never simply living with mindful awareness in each moment - but rather living a life which is somehow detached from the here and now. To attempt to find meaning in every event, good or bad, risks making life abstract. Many Christian mystics (e.g. Anthony DeMello), as well as mystics from other religions (e.g. Thich Nhat Hanh) call us to live with awareness of the present moment and to be fully engaged in our current activities, thoughts and feelings.
My guess, is that this kind of life is too fearful for most of us to live. We are left with having to be aware of pain - and sometimes pain without meaning. And it is a terrifying journey to have to accept what resides within as opposed to finding a cosmic rationalization to explain why I feel the way I feel. But, my sense is that this is a fuller way to live and removes the trap of trying to find some kind of “God” explanation for why things go wrong sometimes.
Besides, the other side of that coin is that we then have to find reasons why sometimes things go right. Yet we never seem to struggle with finding those answers, do we? We tend to only question meaning when life doesn’t work the way I want it to. I believe we need to let all those questions go and begin to live a participatory life as opposed to an “about” life.
The question I would ask is why it might occur to human beings to think that their lives need to be “about” anything? To suggest that the human propensity to seek meaning in experience has no correspondence to reality is certainly possible, but I would want to hear a good explanation of its origins before I abandoned the notion that it is was intended to be so by a personal God.
I’m also curious about how mindful awareness of our pain represents a “fuller” way of living than seeking to find meaning in it (this meaning does not have to take the form “God did it for reason x”). It seems to me that seeking to live a “participatory life” as opposed to an “about life” still falls into the category of somehow attempting to deal with why things do not correspond to human expectation or desire. Instead of trying to fit suffering into some kind of coherent notion of God’s providence, the goal becomes learning how to somehow embrace or transcend the moment even when that moment is painful. In both cases the bare uninterpreted experience is intolerable. In both cases, measures have to be taken to deal with the pain of existence.
My favorite color is blue, and if I understand you guys correctly the answer is then yes i do like ponies!
Jer 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
nice Jeff
good work!
Just surfed in at random from Japan, but I like listening to you guys talk. And Andrew’s comment will run through my head for the next couple days I am sure. Fantastic comment. Andrew, do you have a blog too??
jj, I have not had a blog and have been swearing that, in my lifetime, I would never do anything as silly as that. I am ashamed to report that I have succumbed to the pressure of knowing the whole world has a blog except for me. This was my mark of distinction. Alas, I am normal after all. Don’t expect too much other than confused ramblings of an aging man - but you can find my blog by clicking my name.
Yes, we have free will, and yes God knows everything. If God made us do everything then He would be responsible for sin, because He made you sin. That alone should communicate to everyone that we have free will, because God would not make anyone sin.
If I were to try to simplify the basic reason that we are here I think it would be for us. God already knows everything so it can’t be so that He can learn anything. It is for our education. Even the oldest of us are mere children. If a father takes a child to a hospital for an operation would that child understand much of what transpired? There is pain and suffering even with a successful operation. The father knew there would be pain and he had the power not to take the child, but still he did right to take the child. I think that we do not, nor will we, understand what has happened here on earth until we mature, and we have eternity to do that. I have to admit that I enjoy trying to understand: even now.
I see that you do also.
astudent