A long time Stewing

About a month ago I read "Is God to Blame?" a book about suffering in the world and how we often believe/say/act as though God has placed difficult circumstances in our lives to "teach us something" or it's all part of his ultimate plan.....it's just that this one part of this ultimate plan is horrible to endure (death, natural disaster, divorce).

In some ways this book adds to the plethora of writing on the predestination/free will debate; however, it doesn't present itself as mostly trying to challenge predestination as much as challenging comments that would state God would purposely cause suffering and destruction.

For awhile, having strongly adhered to presdestination-like thinking, this book has really started to change a lot of the way I think and approach people in the world.....or at least serving as the catalyst for some of the things I've been learning over the past couple of years.

It seems easy, well at least acceptable when life doesn't go well, a relationship isn't working, an event isn't coming together....to state "well it must not be what God wants." As though we have this idea of God's plan and purpose as a large mosaic that every problem must be God's design. This is often posed to me by others as "you must be pushing God"....obviously what you're doing isn't God's will.

This book challenges the idea that we could ever really know God's will.....as though its a zero-sum game.....if something works out, bam, we're in God's will.......if it seemingly isn't working....well, of course we must be not doing what God wants. Instead the author suggests that God's will is massive, encompassing the entirety of human existence and history....for us to assume any kind of understand of that, why God made a person die for instance, is crazy.

Theological thinking of this sort doesn't come easy for me....and well, of course turning over things about God and faith you believed to be true and reconsidering them can be even more difficult, willingness to change a worldview even.


So if we're to drop this kind of fatalistic, blueprint worldview that "God causes problems because he wants to, we can't understand the great plan of God" kind of thinking....where are we to turn?

This author suggests understanding God and his purposes to resemble more of a battle-mentality. To imagine that God is out fighting for and looking for the good of those who love him. God WILL work all together for the good of those who love him....doesn't mean he necessarily caused the problem in life, but he's out to fix it and make it right. God is against, not behind, all the evil in the world. Under the blueprint worldview we learn to accept evil things as coming from God.

The author cites several instances when Jesus challenges the blueprint worldview of those around him. Jesus' ministry shows that God's will is not uniformly being carried out in the world "on it's own power"--he must intervene and heal someone, give someone back their dignity. He shows we shouldn't accept infirmies and afflictions as coming from the hand of God.

Jesus instead opperates under the warfare worldview, seeking to go out and do the father's will in the world, to literally bring the kingdom to earth. God will work on the behalf of those who love him.


There are huge implications for social action and social justice in this, instead of excusing the passivity of the church or individuals to get involved in a cause or in helping someone in trouble because "God will take care of it"--we should ACT on behalf of the oppressed, the poor, the widow. God desperately wants for their best, we should too. We are the Lord's coworkers in this battle against those who oppose him.


It also has implications for prayer. Some people believe prayer is only done to change ourselves,not change the will of God--what if this was true? Why would Jesus then say that with prayer we can move mountains? Why would Jesus then teach us to ask God for things? This shows us an urgency instead in prayer.

I haven't totally digested the portion about individual salvation--it is difficult to believe there is anything at all we can do to make a holy God "choose" us. This isn't what the author suggests, I'm just still a bit fuzz on what his arugment in this section actually is.


But this book has changed a lot of how I've viewed the world in the past month--when the house here wasn't coming together, when I was nervous about moving in--well to assume it was God obviously telling us no......just couldn't be. Sometimes good things require a wait. And conversly we could say that maybe Satan was working to not bring us together as a community here. It is difficult to fully extend and attempt to divine God's will in this situation as well. But regardless, I continue to be challenged by this book.