Divine Providence
Being a bit of a Wesleyan extremist i tend to play down those things that point towards a got that actually manipulates minor events in our lives. You know what I am talking about... like when you don't have any money for the train and a Metro Card just appears on the ground in front of you. Like Neo (Reference from the Matrix Trilogy) i like to believe that I am responsible for my own destiny, that the choices i make legitimately matter.
Also if God manipulates minor events it raises some legitimate questions about whey he doesn't manipulate much larger events. like the current genocide taking place in Darfur. I don't go as far as my friends and say that God Can't manipulate anything he wants (open Theology, Process Theology and Relational Theology all of which have something significant to teach us if we can learn to open up to something new) I simply avoid or play down those incidences, choosing to accept that God is bigger than me and there is a lot that confuses me.
But sometimes... The coincidences are just a little too much to chalk up to chance. At My church we have a youth drop in center. A place that provides a safe place video games and the Gospel to neighborhood teens. one of the teens had his Ipod stolen there about 3 weeks ago and it was not recovered. last night we took as many of our teens as we could coerce to a youth program up the street at another church. We had about 20 by the time the program started there were probably 200 in attendance.
They stared by picking three students to take part in a game that involved keys and whipped cream and Rayray the kid who had his Ipod Stolen won the game and a new Ipod. Ray ray also responded to the alter call at the end of the meeting.
I could chalk it up to coincedence or o could say that God manipulated the game results as part of a divine plan or I could simply accept that I have a wonderful God who does wonderful things and that i will never fully grasp his greatness. But... I will keep exploring it.
posted by Steve Carroll @ 3:54 AM
3 Comments:
Maybe it's more fun for God to manipulate the smaller things of life. he is, after all, a relational God. But, I see the implications of not manipulating the larger things, like Darfur, as you said. But maybe he is manipulating that, maybe it could be worse, maybe it will work together for good. Explore that and you inevitably lead back to the problem of evil.
Anyway, I am always moved by the coincidences of life. One of my favorite movies is I Heart Huckabees if only for the plot. The main character hires detectives to explain a coincidence in his life.
As to whether or not God is involved in these things (not the movie, your example), it's hard to say. It's certainly not wrong to think and pray that he is. And so I think I'll go with that. Like my dad says, sometimes it's just a good thing to be reassured that God is in control, and, at other times, know that your choices are your own.
I guess, my point is that sometimes it's extremely reassuring to my faith and my relationship with God to think that me slipping and falling on the ice before I got in the car may have kept me from an accident 10 minutes later. In that, it proves God cares about every individual life and has a stake in every individual soul. That he is a relational, immanent Creater who sent his Son to become Man.
The problem is if God can prevent genuine evil and doesn't than he is indirectly (but still legitmitely) cuplable for that eveil. that is a god who is not worthy of my love of devotion.
I can accept mystery. i can't accept and answer that says that god simply chooses to alow evil and suffering in some cases because that comprimises God's very nature.
A converstion you and i have had many times.
Tyhe fact is that the Calvanist answer to the problem of eveil is sound even if we don't like it.
The Arminian/ Weslyan answer does not because most weslyans are simply unwilling to comprimise God's sovergnty and if they doen't Their their answer falls a part.
That's why i argue that the Relational, Openness and yes even the process people have something the teach the more mainstream Free will camp
But i am more and more faling into a more organic comtempltive/ mystical outlook that says non of the boxes we have created to understand God work and many aren't even helpful because they force us to approach God with preconcieved formulasae
maybe that's fodder for a new blog i haven't gotten heavy for a while
I'm with you on the mystical viewpoints I too have developed.
And you're right, the boxes we've created don't help us understand God -- perhaps that's why I'm becoming more post-modernist in my outlook (of course, please don't misunderstand this view as being that of a few French thinkers on the fringe of the movement who believe in relativism -- post-modernism is much bigger than that).
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