The Evangelical Universalist Forum

From another Forum

Thank you Cindy.

I’m not an artist, I don’t think like an artist, and the way you said some things leaves me with some questions, but what you said has been helpful–and I thank you.

I thank you very much for those prayers (and may God bless you.)

Hi Cindy.

I really appreciate your post here, and I’d like to explain what I was thinking when I said

I was thinking of what you wrote here

It’s because you started with that disclaimer that I thought it best to give someone else a chance to add something, but since no one has, these are some of the questions your way of approaching this subject left me with.

You said

“May not desire to,” and “don’t mean anything” are interesting comments (and I’d like to get back to them), but doesn’t the analogy of an artistic process that the finite time-bound artist lacks complete control over fall short when applied to God?

I think He can when He wills creatures to have wills of their own, and when they do things without seeing all the consequences.

I think some of that can be called “random,” at least in the sense of having “no specific purpose” (only the general purpose of having creatures that are more than automatons, and who have wiils of their own.)

But I’m concerned with coincidences that don’t seem to have anything to do with creaturely freewill.

With the exception of created beings, with wills of their own, I don’t see who or what else could actively control the landing spots.

If He wants the paint droplets to land somewhere, and there is nothing and no one else who’s gonna make them land anywhere, how can He avoid actively controlling the landing spots?

Now here is where you were very helpful

You actually said a lot here, and one thing I’ve been thinking about is the story of Joseph and his brothers (and Joseph’s dreams.)

Joseph had prophetic dreams, but was their purpose to let him know that he would rule over his brothers?

Was it to let them and his father know he would rule over them?

Or was it to do what they actually did (which was to raise the animosity of his brothers, get them to stage his death and sell him into slavery, and convince his poor father that he had lost his favorite son)?

When I think about this, it seems there might be some difference between saying that everything has some purpose, and saying that everything contains some message (even though, in this case, Joseph’s dreams did have a message.)

I thank you very much for your contribution to this thread Cindy, and now I’d like to try (for the benefit of any others who may have struggled with such things) to answer some of my own questions (with the help you’ve given me.)

Perhaps “random” would be a better word.

The free online dictionary defines “random” as

thefreedictionary.com/random

Perhaps “random” things serve the general purpose of what you call “background noise,” and perhaps it’s all a part of some tempering process, as you suggest (all of it having a general purpose, but not everything having some particular meaning or message for someone.)

I don’t think He can, but…maybe…He doesn’t desire every coincidence to contain some particular message for someone, and for some general purpose He wills that some things “don’t mean anything” (in particular.)

I think it does, because the whole thing wouldn’t be a process from God’s point of view, and there’d really be nothing to make anything happen unless God (or some derivative being He gave some limited freewill to) willed it to happen.

But again, maybe that leaves room for a kind of randomness if we define randomness as “Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective” (with an emphasis on the word “specific.”)

Of course, these are all just my thoughts, based on what you said, and I’d have much more faith in these “answers” if they had actually come from someone other than myself (and to the extant I owe them to you, I do have some faith in them, and I thank you.)

And if anyone here has been disturbed by my questions (or troubled by such questions themselves), I offer these answers for whatever they may be worth.

Hi, Michael

Don’t worry about it – I didn’t feel offended. Not everyone thinks the same way.

I agree that God certainly has the MEANS to control everything – but my question is whether He would want to. Sometimes I even close my eyes to AVOID controlling everything I do. Some artist’s brushes have long handles so that when gripping them by the end of the handle, the artist can have less control. Less control often equals a more pleasing result.

Regarding our omnipotent and omniscient Father, is it possible He might want to allow things to fall where they may, and then work with the results, in order to obtain the desired ends? In life generally (not just with art) I’ve had to learn to let go and be okay with things perhaps not being exactly as I had envisioned them.

An example with Father might be the scene in Genesis where He brings the animals to Adam to see what Adam will name them. I always thought that odd. He didn’t know? He would have allowed Adam to give the animal an unsuitable name?

But I do that all the time. I’ll ask a student, “What do you think we should have here?” And whatever she says, that’s what we do, as long as it’s possible. The results are inevitably fresher and more imaginative and less contrived than I could ever have managed on my own. Not that Father NEEDS us in order to be fresh and original, but perhaps we are one of His chosen tools – to express Himself in the material world and to one another. Perhaps WE are that scraggly brush that makes such wonderful and unpredictable marks.

In handing the reigns of this earth to Adam and Eve, Father opened His hand and let His absolute control go to His children. Yes, He may have been able to do a better job – or maybe not. Maybe this is the WAY He did a better job. Maybe the random element, the working with mistakes, is more important than we know.

I’m sure there’s some of this – surely there are times when He wants a particular mark in a particular place. On the whole, though, I think He’s up to the challenge of getting the result He wants no matter what we, or the natural environment may do to stifle the end result He has in mind.

Wow! Great insights, Michael. I hadn’t thought of that, but I think you have a very good point. Thanks for sharing that!

Very deep, that. I will be thinking about this for a while. You know how it is when you hear something that you instinctively know is important. Again, thanks. This feels like a thought that opens doors.

Maybe they did come from Someone other than yourself, Michael. What kind of Father never speaks to His children? We often make ourselves unable to hear Him, but I feel He does get through at some point – when the child is ready to hear. What you’ve said here is going to be very helpful to me. Again, thanks!

Love you, Brother! Father loves you and never will forsake you.

Blessings, Cindy

Thank you Cindy.

I kinda think He did.

Kinda like when Jesus asked Philip where they were gonna get the food to feed the five thousand.

It says “He Himself knew what He would do” (John 6:6), and I’m sure God knew what name Adam would give each animal before he named them.

To the extent that derivative beings with wills of their own determine events, I think He does allow things to fall where they may, and works with the results, but I don’t think every coincidence can be explained by the freewill of His creatures (and in the absence of some will, I don’t think anything would happen.)

I can’t believe anything is “unpredictable” to Him, but I think I get what you’re saying here, and I agree that working with and around derivatives beings with wills of their own is an important part of what God is doing.

I think that may make some sense.

I think that might depend on how you define the word “random.”

What did you think of that definition from the free online dictionary?

What do you mean by “natural environment,” and how is it capable of “doing” anything (independent of God’s will)?

How could anything happen within the “natural environment” unless God or some derivative being willed it to happen?

Thank you sister.

God Bless you.

I thought that was a fine definition. But of course, as you may have surmised, I’m a somewhat imprecise person. :wink:

I think that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I have a sort of a picture in my mind of Him carefully crafting his seed – the quantum singularity seed of the universe. Amazing. Like a firework designed to explode into the likeness of, say, a magical dragon. Only this one exploded into the universe – full of color and energy – He flung the stars from His fingertips!

As long as His children chose to live by His life, everything was fine. His life would continue to fill them and their home. But death started when they chose the wrong tree. When we chose to live by our own natural, finite life, the infusion of divine energy into the universe s-t-o-p-p-e-d. And that was the beginning of death.

“But the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself also might be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”

So I guess, in your manner of speaking, God first acted on creation to set all in motion, but when His children rebelled, their action in cutting themselves off from the life of God to have their own independence also cut off creation, subjecting it to the bondage of corruption. So that what we see are not life forces but death throes.

The hope (above, from Romans 8) is that when Father publicly presents His elect sons (not necessarily male, btw, but mature offspring ready to stand in the office of family representatives), the creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption along with them – perhaps not instantaneously, but at the least, beginning with that event.

All that to say that the natural environment was, imo, started by God, but then allowed to decay and degrade on the rebellion of Adam. The agonies it goes through from time to time are the death pangs (and also the birth pangs) as the life of God, which was given to it in finite measure at the beginning, runs out. It has been made subject to futility and it must eventually die – but not before giving birth to the new creation! :smiley:

Love and prayers, Cindy

Oh yes . . . I did get your note. Thanks! :slight_smile:

Thank you Cindy.

Very poetic, but how long do you think God was crafting this quantum singularity seed of the universe, and how long do you imagine He waited before He flung the stars from His fingertps?

If He had no beginning, and time has no beginning, He’d be waiting forever, wouldn’t He?

Think about that.

An infinity of time stretching endlessly back, and having no beginning, and God trapped back there in that endless infinity before creation.

He’d be forever waiting, or preparing, for that beginning (and there’d be no beginning, no creation.)

Now consider the one thing that Science and Western Theology seem perfectly agreed on.

custance.org/old/seed/ch31s.html

Now do you see why I have trouble seeing what you mean by “natural environment,” or understanding how it could be capable of “doing” anything (independent of God’s will)?

Do you understand why I ask how anything could happen within the “natural environment” unless God (or some derivative being) willed it to happen?

It makes no sense to say that time had no beginning. There can’t be an infinite number of past events. God is outside of time, and I expect that time began when He created the realm of time – that being the universe. Only I’m not sure what this has to do with the point, which was, if I remember, the question of how events should be able to occur in our known universe (nature, to me) without God or someone else directly controlling and causing them.

My conjecture is that God set the universe on course and would have continued to sustain it, had mankind not fallen. God withdrew His hand to a great extent at this point, and the top He had begun spinning continues to spin – but not forever. So while the energy He placed into the world at the beginning continues to keep things going, it is running down, and things happen as a result of this which no one actively caused.

Okay, so now I’ve read your quote. I’m so pleased to see that Einstein agrees with me. :laughing: Aren’t I the clever one? I find that so very amusing.

A brother in our group made a statement and then explained how hard he had studied to come to the understanding of this statement. I said, David I don’t understand all your reasons, but I agree with you. He asked why I would agree with him since I didn’t understand his reasons, and I told him that God had shown me the thing he said, months ago, in a dream. But David is miles smarter than me. God has to show me things directly – otherwise I’m sure I’d never know anything at all. David is capable of puzzling them out with a little less help than I would need.

No, I’m afraid I don’t understand. It seems a simple thing to me that God could create a world with energy and direction and natural processes – wind up the clock, so to speak – but an infinitely complex clock, with an infinite number of parts to break or stick or go spinning off into a location they weren’t intended for – and then, because of sin, withdraw His hand from it. As time goes by and the works begin to decay, things happen which God did not directly foreordain. Perhaps He knew precisely what they would be, but they’re an artifact of the decay process and not something He actively willed.

Does that make sense? I’m afraid I don’t see the problem here . . .

But I’m off to bed. Eyelids too heavy to stay up much longer, and I have a long busy day tomorrow.

Blessings!
Cindy

You mean as time goes by for us, right?

Key word “actively”?

That’s interesting.

Thank you.

But the important point is that Einstein the Scientist (and probably the most brilliant scientist the human race has produced) had a knowledge of physics that led him to agree with Theologians like Augustine and Philo–who came to the same conclusion he did by reasoning it out philosophically, without using calculus, over a thousand years ago (and in Philo’s case, over two thousand years ago.)

That’s the gist of what the great minds have said, and you said it as well as they did (and in fewer words.)

I doubt that Cindy.

I think you’re more of a philosopher than you realize (and much better at this than someone else I know.)

Even if David is smarter than you are (which I still doubt), you got the better part of that deal Cindy.

I’d much rather God spoke to me the way you say He speaks to you than have to try to puzzle things out the way David does.

But since I do seem to have to puzzle things out, I greatly appreciate your help (and you’ve been more help than anyone.)

Thank you (and if you could maybe ask God to drop me a line sometime, I’d appreciate it.)

It seemed to make sense last night, but it was late, and now I’m not sure what “they’re an artifact of the decay process and not something He actively willed” means.

Let me explain why.

You said

The fall of mankind was an act of creaturely freewill, so God didn’t actively cause it, He allowed it–I get that.

I understand saying that the consequences of such acts of creaturely freewill aren’t actively caused by God, but I’m not sure what it would mean to say that there are things that aren’t caused by creaturely freewill, aren’t willed by God, and which “no one actively caused.”

Take the 1989 world series as an example.

You could say that God didn’t actively choose the teams and players who took part in that series, because getting to the world series (or not getting there) has a lot to do with human freewill, hard work, and effort.

But what about the earthquake that interrupted the third game?

The timing of that earthquake had nothing to do with human freewill (or any creature’s freewill, unless angels and demons have some control over such things), and I don’t see how it could “just happen.”

You likened the universe to a top that God started spinning, and that’s running down, and you said that things happen as a result of this which no one actively caused.

I just don’t see how this spinning top running down can result in things like the world series earthquake, without anyone actively causing it.

If you’ve said something here (as it seemed you might have last night), I suspect “actively” is key, but I just don’t get it right now.

From a human point of view, the earthquake was caused by pressures that were building up on the San Andreas fault for hundreds and thousands of years, but if God is outside of time, isn’t that just another way of saying that the God above time is willing a certain amount of pressure on the San Andreas fault at every given point it exists in space/time, and that at the point we call Oct. 17, 1989 He is willing enough pressure to cause an earthquake during game three of that year’s world series?

How is that not actively causing it?

I think we agreed that whether such things are meant to have some particular meaning (or whether they serve a more general purpose) is separate issue , but isn’t it clear that God wills them?

What does it mean to say that this earthquake happened during the 1989 world series, but God didn’t “actively will” it to happen?

What does it mean to say that “no one actively caused it”?

That’s the part I have difficulty understanding.

Can you understand where my difficulty lies now (and if you still think that it makes some sense to say that nature does things that God doesn’t actively will, can you help me understand what you’re saying)?

Well, He might will them, Michael. And in some instances I expect that He does will for such things to happen, for reasons best known to Himself. Still, I don’t think that it’s a requirement in order for something like an earthquake or any other natural process to happen, that God or people actively willed it. Certainly God must permit it, but that’s not the same as having an earthquake as a goal – something on the to-do list to be provided for. Maybe it’s more like a lack of maintenance.

Let’s say that you built yourself a moped. You really liked it, and you gave it to your son, but your son didn’t take care of it and neither did he ask you to take care of it. You urged him to care for it, and offered to help him, but he refused and even got snarky about it, so you let him alone to learn his lesson. The poor little moped started to get rusty; the oil got all dirty and grungy, and finally the engine seized up, the pedals stopped pedaling, and the paint cracked and started flaking off.

You didn’t have to actively will for those things to happen. All you had to do was to take your hand away and allow bad things to happen. You have to give the moped an infusion of energy in the form of maintenance from time to time or it will decay and end up as a pile of junk. You might guess what will go wrong with your work, but you don’t choose what will go wrong.

Of course God doesn’t have to guess. He can know if He wants to – or maybe He can’t help knowing. But aside from taking away His hand, it doesn’t seem to me that it’s required that He actively CAUSE these “maintenance problems.” He may on occasion, but it seems likely to me that often He does not. He just allows things to break as is their natural wont. All things degrade if we don’t add energy to them; some more slowly than others.

I just bought some peaches today. They’re in the fridge because if I left them out they would decay more quickly. I’m adding energy to them to prolong their freshness. If I leave them out, that doesn’t mean I caused them to spoil. It only means that I’m not actively preventing the spoilage.

In a sense, you might say that the death throes of the universe ARE caused by creaturely free will, since we, having been given the dominion of the earth, decided we would do it “our way.” Like the boy who doesn’t take care of his moped, we don’t take care of the earth. There are a lot of things we CAN’T take care of for the earth, like preventing earthquakes, just as there are things the father might need to do for/with his son in caring for the moped. But we said “Get out” to our Father and so, to a certain extent, He did. Stuff happens. Things break – especially when they aren’t taken care of properly.

Well, to take the top metaphor a little bit further, I’m sure you’ve seen what a top does as it slows down. Maybe some tops don’t do this, but the ones I’ve used wobble a lot as they slow down . . . :wink:

Love and prayers,
Cindy

Thank you Cindy.

I’ve thought about what you said here.

May I ask what you think of the following?

nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43150/carroll3.htm

I find it hard to escape the logic of that.

Where is it flawed?

Is it wrong to say that “events that occur in the natural world are only occasions in which God acts”?

Is it true to say that when paper is burning, God is the real agent of the burning (and the fire is just an instrument)?

In the analogy you used, the boy’s neglect would not cause the moped to rust without the presence of moisture and oxygen in the atmosphere, but is the moisture and oxygen or God’s will the real agent of the rusting?

Is it true that “events that occur in the natural world are only occasions in which God acts”?

Hi, Michael

I’ll think on this and get back with you – probably on Monday.

Blessings, Cindy

Hi, Michael

I wouldn’t say that nature is autonomous any more than a helium balloon that’s slowly losing its lift is autonomous. It floats here and there as the wind takes it, and the variables that dictate where it will end up are so complex that only God could be expected to figure it out. The rest of us haven’t got enough information to do better than a wild guess.

Part of it depends on the balloon; what is its mass? its shape? its size? rate of loss of helium? Part depends on the wind direction, velocity, variables. Part depends on obstacles. Part will depend on heat, humidity, barometric pressure . . . and all these things can change from one square meter to another and from one moment to another. Then someone steps in and jumps up and snatches the string of the balloon and it all goes out the window.

I’m not saying God can’t direct all that or even that He doesn’t direct it from time to time, if He has a reason to do so. But I don’t believe that He usually does direct it. He set the earth in motion – wound up the clock, so to speak. The balloon goes where it goes, depending on what route it happens to stumble into. I don’t believe that God takes an active part in deciding that.

Let me try another analogy. I mix up a glaze from 25% kaolin, 25%silica, and a boron frit; 50%. I add some cobalt and some rutile in precise weights and approximately the right amount of water, and I mix it all together and dip a piece of pottery into it. I place it in the kiln with lots of other pots and set the computer to the firing program I’ve chosen.

Up until this point I’m controlling pretty much everything. But once I push start, I take my hands off. The heat does what it will, and I will get slightly different results depending on where the pot is in the kiln, how it relates to the location of other pots, how the air flows through the patterns I’ve set up (without giving it any thought) of pottery and shelves in the kiln. Other things that may affect the firing; barometric pressure, atmospheric temperature, mass of articles in the kiln. And the pot itself will have small dark blotches and places where the glaze is thinner and thicker, caused by the chance location of particles in the glaze, thickness of the walls, any carving I’ve done, etc.

This is all part of the beauty of the piece, and the beauty is in no small part enhanced by the randomness of the process. If I could control every tiny detail, I wouldn’t. While I take a chance that something won’t turn out as I would have liked, if I refuse to take that chance, I will also lose the chance of surprising beauty. If a piece turns out badly I can usually make some modifications and fire it another time or two.

I could use very stable, regular glazes that would produce flat and solid and perfect colors, but that’s not what I want. I want the wild organic randomness that is, to me, suggestive of nature.

I don’t believe that God dictates the location of each twig in a tree or how many grains of pollen a rose will have or the precise pattern of spots on a giraffe. He could, but does He? I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem consistent with the character of the God who turned the earth over to a fallible man (who He knew would fail) to govern it.

I think our God is wild and dangerous and free, and that He is dangerous enough to put many things into our own hands. He’s willing to take the chance, to take the loss when we fail, and He knows that He can work it all together into something spectacular – whatever kind off mess we might make of it. And what’s more, He’ll use us to do it.

So . . . I’m not sure why all this matters so much to you. You hinted that you saw disturbing patterns or signs or something and maybe you were worried that God was predicting some fearful thing to you? Maybe I misunderstood what you meant. It was just an aside and maybe I read too much into it. But what is it about this idea of randomness vs control that interests you so much?

I guess I see God exercising a sort of controlled randomness. He sets up laws of nature; He infuses energy; He pushes “start” and steps back. Things will happen more or less according to the parameters He’s set, but He doesn’t design every single cloud pattern, every dream a man has on his bed or every place a seed falls and sprouts and produces a tree.

Maybe He does, once in a while for some reason of His own, orchestrate some pictures in the clouds. I know He occasionally gives people dreams specifically to communicate something to us, and it’s certainly conceivable that He might choose a particular spot to plant a tree. But to do it every time? He’s creating something alive, not an automaton.

Live things behave of their own volition, influenced by what they are and by their environments and by their choices. But as they develop, they become more free. A trained pet dog may seem less free than a wild dog, but I think really, that the pet dog is more free. It can choose to obey or disobey. The wild dog can only follow its instincts. The pet dog could follow its instincts, but it chooses to have a relationship. It trusts its master and chooses to obey him. (Or sometimes not to obey, of course!) It can even learn so much that it begins to care for other animals – sheep or cows, maybe – and teach them to follow its lead.

I think that is God’s goal with us. He wants us free. No longer enslaved to instinct and digestion and hormones and fear and automatic reactions. We are being developed and trained and taught to be free.

Maybe people with more challenges than others are making a great deal more progress than they appear to be making. Let’s take a man with bad digestion (to follow CS Lewis). He may seem like a mean, cranky person, but because he has to work so very hard just to keep civil, perhaps he’s really miles ahead of the healthy man with a naturally friendly personality who doesn’t even have to try to be gregarious.

Or a woman suffering from borderline bi-polar disorder. Any rationality from her may be a tremendous accomplishment in the face of great odds – while another woman blessed with a sharp mind and a balanced personality may seem far ahead of her afflicted friend, but she in fact may be the weaker of the two. Things aren’t always what they seem.

So . . . I beseech the Father that I have, by some accident, said something that will speak to your heart and soothe your fears and help you to trust Father’s good plans for your health and joy and freedom.

Love in Jesus, Cindy

The question of God is what interests me Cindy.

The worse thing that could happen to me in this mortal life has already happened.

Now I’m just “hanging in,” "“carrying on,” and “counting time.”

The only one who can ever make things right again is God, and the only reason I can see for hanging in is that He might want me to–so the question of whether the idea of God is logically coherent has become rather important to me.

But unlike you, God would know how the air would flow though the patterns He set up when he closed the door and pushed the button.

If time and space are of His making, He’d know how the air would flow through the pattern He was creating even as He created it by placing the pots in their relation to one another–and not only that, but it would be Him making the air flow the way it did once He closed the door and pushed the button.

I mean, without Him, how could anything really happen in the kiln?

I guess I still don’t see where the randomness would come from (until contingent beings with wills of their own enter the picture and start doing things.)

I’d still appreciate any thoughts you (or others reading along) might have on that, but I did think of something else recently.

When I first started asking questions about “coincidence,” one of the first things I asked was “does everything mean something”?

The way I phrased that question was influenced by a particular web site, and a teacher who sees personal messages (for himself and “the Church”) in street names, signs, devotional calenders, news articles, and even whether forecasts.

One thing I noticed the other day is what the disciples, the Pharisees, and Our Lord said about a man who was born blind.

The disciples asked whether the man was born blind because of some sin his parents committed, or because (God foresaw that) he committed some sin.

And the Pharisees said he was altogether born in sin (apparently with the same ideas in mind that the disciples had.)

But Our Lord said (before He went on to heal him) that it was not because the man or his parents had sinned that He was born blind, but to bring glory to God.

In other words, both the disciples and the Pharisees read a meaning (a message) into the man’s being born blind (i.e. either the man or his parents, or both, were sinners), but Jesus said “no”–there’s no meaning (or message) here, only a purpose (and the purpose is that I heal him.)

So maybe saying that everything has a reason or a purpose isn’t the same as saying that everything has a meaning (or conveys some message)?

Still, a lot of children that are born blind aren’t healed, so I’d be interested in any thoughts you have.

Thank you Cindy.

Hi, Michael

I absolutely agree that God can know what will come of every minute detail in this earth. My contention is that a) we don’t know that He chooses to know these things (He may so choose, but we don’t know that), and b) even if He does choose to know, whether He set it up to happen in just that way, or whether many happenings are mere side-effects of setting up OTHER things that He does want to control and cause to happen.

The world is so complex that no one can possibly figure out all the possibilities. God can, but even He often has to take the best compromise. I’m thinking of a thing I heard about the human eye, and I wish I could remember it better – but it had to do with a purported design flaw in the eye. Later it was discovered that the “flaw” was necessary in order for some other part of the eye to work correctly. So I guess you could say the “flaw” wasn’t really a flaw at all, but more of a compromise. It was necessary in order to get the eye to work correctly under the natural laws of this world (which God set up, of course, and could have set up differently – but He had to set them up SOME way, and this is what He decided on).

So we look at this thing which seems to us a flaw or an anomaly and say, "Why did God do/allow that? But God knows that the “anomaly” was necessary. It played an important part in His plan. Or it allowed or facilitated something else that played an important part. Or maybe it was a by-product of some important thing God was/is doing, and will later play its own role.

The blind man was born blind so that God could be revealed by Jesus’ healing of him. But perhaps another man is blinded so that he can stop depending on his own natural fleshly strengths and rely completely on God’s life within him. Or perhaps someone looses her eyesight simply because she lives in a place where this is a danger. God wanted her there, the child of these particular parents, because it was necessary in order to craft her into just the person He is creating. The blindness is a part of that – it has to be, whether it was a primary objective or not.

I agree with Talbott that God likely had a limited number of choices in creating a world populated by free agents that meets His finished criterion. Just guessing, but let’s speculate that His criterion include that the world must a) eventually deliver each and every person as a redeemed child of God, b) reach this goal as quickly as possible for as many people as possible, c) produce the right mix of people to completely express God’s attributes through the natural world, d) deliver the least possible dose of human suffering, and e) produce mature offspring to Abraham who cannot be numbered (by Abraham, at any rate) and who shine like the stars in the skies.

How many possible worlds will meet these requirements? Many might come close, but only one will be the best. It will be a compromise, though, because in order to get the best outcome for everyone, Abba will have to allow a degree of suffering and sometimes rather horrendous suffering. We can’t know how much better or worse it could have been if He had chosen a different world to create, but if we trust Him, if we know that He is good, it makes sense to assume that He chose the best possible option.

Now a person could get all fatalistic and say that “Whatever I do, that’s what God planned,” but I think that’s seeing things from the wrong angle. We are free (more or less) moral agents, and while what we do may be foreknown, that doesn’t mean that what we do doesn’t matter. We have to struggle to mature, and we have to learn to obey Jesus’ commandments. We do it in His strength, but we also must choose whether to do it at all. Eventually, we will become mature, but it will take longer (maybe far, far longer) if we refuse whatever situations Father has placed us in to develop us into His grown-up, competent, magnificent sons and daughters.

He has given us certain commandments and He’s commanded us to obey them. That used to discourage me no end because I knew I couldn’t do that – just couldn’t, and that’s that. But I think I’ve begun to understand. When He gives a commandment, it’s like in the beginning, when He said, “Light, Be!” And the light was. The power to obey is in the command. The light has no ability to resist God’s command, but we do have that ability. So we choose to resist, or we choose to appropriate that power that came in the commandment, and to obey.

It’s not like we have no input, no effect. Otherwise, there’d be no point in Him giving us commands. He means for us to obey them. If we don’t obey, He’ll work around that (it’s not like He’s surprised), but we miss the blessing of growing through obeying that command, and perhaps someone else, someone we were supposed to bless, also suffers from our lack of obedience. Yeah, God knew that would happen, but it didn’t have to happen, and we genuinely made it happen by our bad choices. God just worked around it.

Okay, I feel like I’m rambling here – sorry; I think I got off the topic.

Coincidences . . . sometimes I do think they mean something. I tried to post an e-mail the other day and three times it refused to go through. Was God telling me not to talk to the person about that subject? Maybe; maybe not – but it wasn’t an essential communication, so I deleted it.

Often I’ll be researching a subject and I’ll notice an on-line friend posting about it, someone else in my circle brings it up, I click on a book I bought months ago and promptly forgot about, and find it’s just what I need. You could easily (and possibly rightly) ascribe natural causes to that, but I can’t help thinking that things like this are a nudge from God that He does want me to be searching out that subject.

I read a story yesterday about a couple of native church planters whose bike died a mile from a village they seriously didn’t want to stop in, but by the next day they had met with a group of “freedom fighters” (whom they would NEVER have talked to) and planted a fellowship. When they were ready to order parts for their bike, they tried it again and it started right up, so they went on their way, but since that time the gospel has spread throughout that area like yeast.

So yes, I absolutely think God sometimes causes coincidences. On the other hand, sometimes they’re just coincidences. I think it’s possible and desirable to see God’s hand in nature and in civilization. I don’t necessarily think that seeing a sign that says “no left turn” means the pastor should caution his congregation about liberalism, though. It may be that God WOULD speak to a person through a street sign, but I’d expect that to be a fairly infrequent occurrence. I guess I’m saying I wouldn’t make a doctrine out of it. The important thing is to know Jesus’ voice and be able to tell when He’s talking to you and when it’s just one of those things. You can explain it any way you like, but if God is trying to talk to you through it, and you’re trying to listen, He’ll get through.

I like what you said about meaning vs. purpose. It’s a good point. Sometimes things do have a meaning, and sometimes a purpose. Other times maybe any meaning or purpose will be so obscure that we wouldn’t know about them until God told us. Maybe the meaning/purpose is for someone else, or maybe the occurrence is just a side effect of something else that does have a meaning/purpose.

So . . . I’m going to quit now and go to bed, before I paint myself into a corner. :wink:

Praying for you and your folks,

Love, Cindy

Thank you Cindy.

What you said on this thread was very helpful to me (and more helpful than anything said on this subject by others from whom I might have expected more), but I’d like to add some observations from C.S. Lewis that I’ve also found helpful.

I’ve been reading his book on “Miracles” and it occurs to me that one way of looking at my question is “why isn’t every circumstance or coincidence a miraculous communication of the Divine will?”

To that, I think Lewis would reply “A miracle is by definition an exception” (page 72.)

He had this to say about quantum physics:

One great threat against strict Naturalism has recently been launched on which I myself will base no argument…the old scientists believed that the smallest particles of matter moved according to strict laws: in other words, that the movements of each particle were “interlocked” with the total system of Nature. Some modern scientists seem to think–if I understand them–that this is not so. They seem to think that the individual unit of matter (it would be rash to call it any longer a ‘particle’) moves in an independent or random fashion…Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the scientists really mean what they seem to be saying. I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of individual units are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are themselves random or lawless.
(Page 18,20.)

But he speaks of Nature (or the Universe) as an orderly system (or sub-system) we all share in common, and he also says “everything is connected with everything else: but not all things are by the short and straight roads…”(page 97.)

I’ve found his thoughts and observations helpful (and mention them here because they may be helpful to anyone asking themselves the same kind of questions I’ve asked.)

Perhaps an event can be meaningfully called “random” (or “coincidental”) if it has no “specific” God-intended meaning, purpose, or objective (except to provide the background for more meaningful “exceptions” to the rules of the sub-system we share in common.)

Does that make any sense?

That’s very interesting Michael – I have that book, but long ago I tried to read it and found it too difficult for me. I’ve read a great deal since then, though, and maybe I should try to find it and see if I understand it any better now.

I wanted to dash off a quick reply to you here and will try to write more later. What you say is definitely intriguing but I’m so sleepy for some reason. I was just scooting through my e-mails before going to bed and wanted to let you know I saw this. I’ve been praying for you and yours and hoping you all are carrying on and that God is continuing to conform you to the image of His Son, however hard that can be – and of course He is – but I have been thinking about you and hoping you’re getting along all right.

TTYL . . . Blessings, Cindy

Thank you Cindy.

I also found this interesting.

community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay02.asp

It’s an opportune time, Michael, as I find myself drawn into an interest in quantum physics (whatever that actually IS) :laughing:

In all frankness, I’m probably not smart enough to gain a deep understanding of that field. I’m going to have to re-read your quoted material above a couple of times before I’ll be able to (hopefully) follow it . . . .

Okay, I think I understand now what’s being said. That strikes a chord with me. It’s beautiful and it seems right. (FWIW) What do you think?