Is GOD involved in daily events?

[gskern]

This is kind of akin to the "personal relationship" thread that we had going for awhile...

I read a quote from a pastor in the New Orleans area the other day, saying that they went back to check on their church building and it -- as well as the house next door, which the church owns -- had hardly any damage done to it by Katrina. He remarked, "We're so thankful for God's grace in preserving our church!"...

I have a hard time with talk like this. Imagine a school bus full of kids, with two little girls in a particular seat, both from Christian familes... the bus is in a pile-up on the freeway, and oddly, one of the pair dies and the other lives...

That night, one family would be praising God for "sparing" their daughter while the other would be devastated by grief, asking God why "He" took their precious girl from them...

SAME event, SAME God, different outcomes... What kind of a sick, demented "God" would (at worst) cause an event like this, and (at best), allow an event like this, and allow people to believe He had anything to do with it??

This thread is NOT about the Problem of Pain (Lewis' book by that title is one of my all-time favorites)... I'm not wondering why there is Suffering; I'm wondering how one Christian credits God for "sparing" his girl while the other asks God "Why??" and sincerely believes God has some kind of "plan" in all this... ???

Hundreds of years ago, people believed that "God" -- or "the gods" -- were behind LOTS of things: Wind, Rain, Famine, Disease, etc. etc. But over the years, Science has discovered most of the much less myth-inspiring, Natural causes for these things...

And just how far can a Believer take the whole "God did it" thing? If I pray for the sun to come up tomorrow morning, and it does, has God "answered" my prayer? Was the tree that missed that church in New Orleans but flew the other way and smashed the house across the street sent on its trajectory by GOD??

One might say, "Oh, don't be ridiculous." Not so fast! Who's to say where the line is? And does "believing it" make it true?

For my part, I reject ALL that phoney-baloney. I believe God woos, influences, whispers to (inaudibly, of course!), and impresses Himself on the HEARTS of Humans (and our Minds, too!), but I don't believe we can ever say with confidence, "God did THIS or God caused THAT..."

What puzzles me then is how so many Christians DO talk like that. Me, I accept the world much as I did when I was an Atheist/Agnostic/Skeptic, that it just IS what it IS, things mostly just HAPPEN for no apparent Reason, and that God Himself is waiting for us at the END of this life, not "moving the gears" of our day-to-day experiences...

OK, so hit me with your thoughts. I can take it.
:)

[Ian]

Will yes, Time and our lives are like a moive to him and History is like a book to him if that makes since ....

[hana]

Hope some of these verses read in context will help.

Amos 3:6 (NAS)
If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble?
If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? (Lamentations 3:38, NIV)

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7, NASB)

Gen. 18:25 (NAS) Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?

[gskern]

Thanks for the interesting verses, though I'm not exactly looking for "help"... I come to these forums to discuss ideas, not to seek counsel...

To put a sharp point on the question... How can we ever be certain whether event "X" occurred because God acted OR because "X" would have happened anyway??

There are only three positions to take on this question:

Either a) God makes ALL events occur
OR b) God makes NO events occur
OR c) God makes SOME events occur

Some people believe a), lots of people believe b), and I wonder if most Christians don't generally believe c) to be the right answer... I just don't see what grounds we have to ever assert that "X" was God's doing, when "X" just may well have happened anyway...

Are we prepared to say, then, that I can type this sentence because God is right now at work in my body and mind, giving my fingers the physical energy to type and my mind the proper neuro firings to construct the sentence? Will we say that a stone falls to the ground when I release it from my hand because God is actively "moving the gears" that Scientists have named "Gravity"?

And what kind of God causes Calamity?? Did God CAUSE Katrina? Did He KILL the people who have drowned in that tragedy? You mention the passage from Isaiah; what about 1 Cor 14:33, which notes that "God is not the author of confusion"? (there are many others)...

We have to square what we believe with what can be known, and so the question is simple: How can we KNOW God did "X"? What do the observable Facts bear out?

[Melodee]

I always think of Matthew 5:35 "...He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

I think we are all tried by joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, comfort and want, in this life. God is there in it all and He desires us to learn to grow closer to Him through the sometimes terrible things that happen. Does God make awful things happen? It seems to me that He doesn't have to do a thing to bring trouble into our lives -- nature, humankind, and our own failures, do a wonderful job of that. I believe that God can and does intervene between us and circumstances but I think it's important to recognize this for the grace that it is. It denotes no special greatness in the recipient.

[Ian]

LOL, Then way did you ask us gskern........

[Adam]

Modern sensibilities approach God's omnipotence as a matter of cause and effect, interfering with both our free will and His benevolence.

It's best, however, to approach these things as a matter of allegory. The question is not, must we blame God for these events, or must we blame ourselves for deserving these events at His hand, but rather is there something to be learned from all things, an allegorical level of meaning in the slightest event, from stumbling over a rock to gazing upon a blooming flower.

The question, then, is not "Has God placed this here to teach us a lesson?" but rather "from this can a lesson be taught us?" Thus the issue no longer becomes a theoretical matter of theodicy, or a philosophical debate about God's character or our free will, but a practical matter of whether or not we can look to all things for a sign or message of the divine will. In that case my answer would have to be affirmative without question.

[John Anthony]

[Adam Linton]

C.S. Lewis' essay "The Efficacy of Prayer," avalable in the collection, The World's Last Night, engages with this issue.

[John Anthony]

[gskern]

Yes, I've read "Efficacy of Prayer" (I've read nearly everything Lewis ever wrote, a number of those many dozens of times...); in fact, I've got my copy of "World's Last Night" (and all my Lewis books) right here on my bookshelf by the desk...

My trouble with "Efficacy..." was that its conclusion was, well, inconclusive. Lewis basically said that those who "know God best" will "know" whether or not God takes action in our daily lives...

And most (if not all) of Lewis' illustrations in that essay have to do with the actions of this person or that person, relative to prayers said BY them or ABOUT them; I've already noted that I do believe God "influences" our minds and hearts in mysterious ways that we don't quite understand...

But it's occurrences OUTSIDE the scope of human thought and emotion that I'm pondering... Why would a Christian suppose that it was GOD who physically and on purpose "guided" the tree that missed the church but smashed the house across the street? Why inject God into the circumstances of everyday life??

And to follow that logic all the way out, a person could easily get utterly ridiculous with the things they would claim "God did"... It's cute when it's a 4 year old talking about how his "imaginary friend" knocked over the cookie jar and ate 5 of the cookies inside, but it's not cute at all to hear a grown man say that "God" stepped in and sent that tree in the other direction...

More at www.kernworld.net -- follow the BLOG link...

[Adam Linton]

[Adam]

[Áthas]

[magpie]

Athas has touched on the importance of the human component which has too been often ignored in such treatments of the question of theodicy.

For me, the most helpful analysis of this question as been The Will of God by Leslie Weatherhead. He points out that God's "Intentional Will" is often thwarted by just such human interference brought about by our misuse of our free will, and such thwarting brings about God's "Circumstantial Will" which both uses and bypasses this human action in order to achieve God's "Ultimate Will." It is a very short and highly readable book which I would recommend strongly.