From the Pastor's Desk

The Alpha and the Omega – Part 6: Divine Intervention
I often hear people talk about how they perceive God to have worked or done something in their lives. They say things like, “God put me here” or “God arranged my marriage by leading me to my spouse”. I get the impression from some people that what they are thinking is something more along the lines of determinism. They believe or suppose that God has a fixed schedule of events for their lives that cannot be changed or denied.

The question is: how can we reconcile divine intervention and human freedom? Can or does God still act in this world? Does God speak today? What do we mean when we say that something is God’s will? Does God have a plan for the world and history, and does that include God having a plan for each of us individually? If God has a specific plan for my life, such that it will certainly happen, then how are my choices real and freely made?

To begin with, both God and each individual human being have free will. Our choices are real, and we are responsible for them. Of course, there are instances of mitigating circumstances, but in terms of human nature, we are free to make choices between right and wrong, and how we will conduct ourselves and live our lives.

God is also, of course, free to make His decisions and to act in the world. So, if we consider each and every person, all those now living, all those who have ever lived, and those to come, all lined up, God is one of those persons who acts and chooses freely just like all the rest. Of this we can be certain: God will never compromise or cancel human free will. God is not moving each of us around like we were chess pieces. He did indeed give each of us gifts according to His will and pleasure, but what we do with them is entirely up to us. Did God create Michael Jordan and give him the gifts he needed to be a great basketball player? Yes, but Michael was free to choose otherwise. He could have chosen to be a banker. It is an incomprehensible thing, and a miraculous thing, that God can and does have a plan for our lives, and a plan for the course of human history, and act in human affairs, without at the same time cancelling our free will.

God, in a sense, “plays off” of our choices. He can see what’s coming from His vantage point things that we cannot see. And so He acts, and then the choice of how we respond is ours. When Moses was leading the people out of bondage to Pharaoh, it was God who parted the Red Sea. Technically, Moses could have chosen to forfeit and surrender to Pharaoh’s army, but instead he took advantage of God’s act and continued on through the Red Sea.

God does have a plan for our lives: it’s that we will come to faith in Jesus Christ and be saved. That is God’s plan for everyone’s life. He acts toward that end by calling us through His Holy Spirit, that “still, small voice”. We are free to choose how we respond to His call either by accepting or rejecting Him. He would prefer that we say yes, and receive His gift of redemption. We act and choose freely, and so does God. God the Father freely chose to give His Son Jesus to atone for the sins of the world, and Jesus, although it crossed His mind to seek another way, freely chose to comply with God’s plan for our salvation and to sacrifice Himself for us. To be continued . . .

In Jesus,
Fr. David