Theological Journal - April 29: Whqy God is Not in Control - And it's a Good Thing too! (1)

When we say “God is in control” we usually mean something like “God has either (pre)planned or exercises such rule over human affairs that nothing happens that God is not ultimately responsible for.” There are lots of different variations and shades of meaning that have been developed around the discussion of this matter, complicated and learned discussions. I’m going to stick with the usual, rather straightforward expression of it noted above in these reflections.

We all seem to have some sense over a larger power or force at work in human affairs. Some call this power God (of one variety or another), some do not. But instinctively when something bad happens we almost inevitably wonder

-“Why did God/other power let this happen?”

-“Why didn’t he/it prevent that catastrophe and loss of life?”

-“Why did he/it do this to me?”

In one Calvin and Hobbes comic strip Hobbes asks Calvin if he believes in God. Calvin replies that he guesses he does and adds, “It sure seems like somebody’s out to get me.”

Despite our bravado and bluster that we are the masters of our destiny and self-made people, such experiences remind us that such pretentions are simply hot air and vain imaginings. We want someone/something to be in control. Hopefully, a someone/something that controls things in our favor and not against us. When bad things happen, though, or our lives seem to spin out of our control, we wonder and those wonderings easily turn dark and often accusatory toward that someone/something we imagine in control.

But is God, the Christian God, the Bible’s God, will or exercise the kind of control that might make him vulnerable to our accusatory charges?

I believe not.

The Bible declare the God is the sovereign king and Lord of all, supreme over all creation, including humanity and its history. But as creation’s sovereign Lord God delegates or mediates his sovereignty through equipped and commissioned representatives. Biblical scholar Tim Gombis writes,

“God created the world as his temple, his dwelling place, and he created humans as his image-bearers within creation. His rule over the world was to be manifested by humans overseeing the spread of shalom and blessing. God charged humanity to rule over creation, subduing it, bringing about its flourishing and enjoying its rich abundance.”

              (Tim Gombis, “God Is Not In Control,” https://timgombis.com/2020/03/26/god-is-not-in-control/?fbclid=IwAR3qwf3t8hE2bOnW7SBRX4h6eaRb8sZ5JFDnSDGwNeRI__dBqRD62geHonk)

God wills not to be God without us (Karl Barth). He will do his God-work in, through, and with us.  We are royal priests in God’s creational temple (according to Gen.1-2). And like the later priests appointed to serve the tabernacle and temple, God put the running of this creational temple into our hands. He wants to dwell here with his people (that’s part of what Sabbath is about). The priests keep the order and integrity of the dwelling and God dwells there. If the priests failed to keep the order and maintain the integrity of God’s dwelling, God could no longer dwell there. At the time of the exile the people’s and priests’ infidelities toward God had crossed a point of no return and God removed his presence from the temple (Ez.10:18ff.). Humanity’s privileged duty and glorious destiny is to so serve God and the creation in this capacity under his watch care.

But what if humanity defaults on this duty and rejects this destiny? Well, that is exactly what happened! And humanity was removed from God’s presence in Eden. And creation continuously unraveled descending into chaos and destruction. Humanity no longer mediated God’s sovereignty. Sin and Death entered creation as destructive powers haunting and corrupting our lives together.

The take away from all this for today is that when bad things happen or life seems to spin out of control and its hurts and harms unmanageable and unlimited, the Bible’s account of this is not that God has somehow failed or is inattentive to what is happening or does not care or has malignant intentions toward us. Rather, we have failed on our end and brought all this upon ourselves.

We could, I suppose, lodge our complaint about God’s wisdom in delegating such responsibility to us instead of causing the bad things that happen to us. And in a sense that is the very question the Bible addresses from cover to cover. While humanity’s fall into sin admits of no rational explanation because it is inexplicably absurd. Once fallen, however, humanity regularly questions God’s wisdom in the way he chooses to deal with this catastrophe. This is a question we will have to deal with in some detail later on.  

Our failure is not just that of moral agents who fail to measure up to an abstract law that can be adequately dealt with in a forensic matter. Rather,

-it is a betrayal of a relationship with a sovereign Creator who has generously and graciously charged and equipped us to administer God’s sovereign rule over his creation. 

-it is a betrayal of the creation (God’s temple) in which and over which we have been appointed to serve as God’s royal priests.

-it a betrayal that can finally only be healed by God himself taking personal action to reclaim and restore his rebellious erstwhile royal priests to relation and in service to him. Their sin is a breach of God’s law that must be dealt with forensically, to be sure, but the restoration to priestly service and even friendship with God requires more. A more God is quite willing and desirous to provide.

God, the biblical God, then neither intends or allows (through inattention or lack of power) the bad things we and our world experience. Starting with a general notion of God or some power that sovereignly orders our lives and experiences in a way that cannot be resisted, a power that is our (fallen) human notion of power raised to the n^th degree, the question of God’s ultimate responsibility/culpability in human and natural evils must be faced.

If, however, we stick to the narrative we have in scripture and let our understanding follow it, such questions do not appear to rise organically from it but are asked from outside its frame of reference. God is not out to get us by bringing or even standing by and allowing bad things to befall us. I realize there are a myriad of issues and a number of biblical texts that complicate and complexify this discussion and we will touch on a few them in this series. We’ll forge ahead tomorrow “where angels fear to tread.”

But for now, God is not in control (at least as we usually understand control). And we’ve seen enough even in the first post this series to say “and that’s a good thing too!”