Perspective: God Is in Control?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

God Is in Control?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet...

Psalm 8:3-6 (NRSV)

This is the world we live in

And these are the hands we're given

Use them, and let's start trying

To make it a place worth living in

From "Land of Confusion" by Genesis

Lately, a lot of people have been saying that "God is in control."  I'm sure that many, especially pastors, have been saying this in order to comfort people in a time of fear and uncertainty.  Still, I suspect that others might be saying this as an excuse to shirk any personal responsibility they have right now.

I'm not so sure that, at this present moment, the most God-honoring thing a person could say is that "God is in control."  Consider the implications.  If God is indeed in control, as people say, then why have more than three hundred sixty-seven thousand people in the world died of COVID-19?  If God is in control, then God is either directly responsible for the pandemic or complicit for not preventing it.  According to St. John, "God is love,"¹ and according to St. Paul, "love is kind."²  Inflicting people with a deadly illness is neither loving nor kind.  As Greg Boyd recently pointed out, if Jesus Christ, "the image of the invisible God,"³ was in the business of healing people of their diseases, then God must not be in the business of inflicting people with diseases.⁴

I believe that God gave human beings free will.  We have the power to make choices, and the choices we make have serious consequences for ourselves and for the world around us.  At the very beginning of the Bible, we read that "God created humanity in God's own image" and then proceeded to give humanity charge over the world and over all of the other creatures that live therein.⁵  In other words, God made human beings like Godself by giving them the ability to shape the world God created.  Perhaps one could say that we are co-creators with God.

It is hard to reconcile the idea that God is in control with the idea the human beings have free will.  If God is really in control, then our choices are either illusory, since God is the one making them for us, or inconsequential, so that they do not interfere with God's will.  On the other hand, if God gave us free will, then God must have yielded some of God's control over the world to us.

I am not suggesting that God is inactive or that God does not have a plan for the world.  Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."⁶  He would not have taught us to pray that the Kingdom of God is made manifest on the earth if God has no intention of ever making such a request a reality.  Furthermore, God is able to use our choices and their consequences - be they good or bad - in order to bring about God's purposes.  According to St. Paul, "We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose."⁷  Though God has a plan for the world, God is not orchestrating everything that happens along the way; however, God is ready for every contingency.

There are plenty of other things that could be said about God to comfort people at this time.

God is love.

God is good.

God is with us.

God is trustworthy.

God is not unmoved by our pain.

God brings good out of evil.

As beings created in God's image, we have been given the power to make choices that have real consequences.  We must be mindful of how our choices affect other people.  We must not use God's sovereignty as a lazy answer or as an excuse to be irresponsible.  God has a plan for the world, and when we align our choices to God's will, we give God the opportunity to work through us and not in spite of us.

Notes:

1. 1 John 4:8
2. 1 Corinthians 13:4
3. Colossians 1:15
4. Greg Boyd.  "COVID-19: A Kingdom Perspective."  Woodland Hills Church, 03/15/2020.
5. Genesis 1:27-28 (CEB)
6. Matthew 6:10 (NRSV)
7. Romans 8:28 (CEB)

The photograph "The Blue Marble" was taken by an astronaut during the Apollo 17 mission.  It has been released to the public domain.