Theological Journal - May 14: Why God is Not in Control - And It's a Good Thing Too! (P.S.)

In this Post Script to my posts on God in Control I share a piece I ran across last night. In it Cameron Combs excerpts and comments on the thought of one of the best Pentecostal theologians working, Chris E. W. Green on the theme we have been considering. Worth pondering in tandem with those earlier posts in my estimation.

What we think of God matters. When we have this faulty conception of God as just the strongest agent or being in existence we end up speaking of God’s action (or seemingly non-action) in the world wrongly.

Green argues that we need to stop saying “God is in control” and rather start to understand that God is sovereign. Control and sovereignty are not the same thing. To say that “God is not in control” doesn’t mean that he is just as surprised at the events that take place as we are and it’s not to say that God is at “the mercy of what happens in the world.”

The difference between control and sovereignty is important. Green writes, “Sovereignty is utterly other than what we have known as control. Control makes something act in ways false to itself. It violates, oversees, coerces, and masters. Control takes away freedom, forcing someone or something to do what is against its own nature or will.”

When we say things like “God is in control” what we are implying is that our freedom to act and God’s freedom to act are in competition with one another. That it’s a zero-sum game. A car only has one steering wheel and if two different people are trying to steer at the same time they will be in competition to have more control. This isn’t how it works. It’s not as if I have 10% control and that means I’ve left 90% to God, or something. Because God is wholly other, because he is infinitely qualitatively different than we are, his freedom is not in competition with ours. But God’s sovereignty is precisely what makes our freedom free. Or as Green puts it: “Creatures overpower; God reigns.”

Hopefully it’s starting to become clear why saying “God is in control” can be so damaging to someone who is suffering. At worst that sounds like God is actively controlling the evil they are experiencing, perhaps to punish them. At best it makes it sound like God is allowing/using the evil and the suffering in that person’s life in order to bring about the good.

But once again, we have to recognize that God is wholly other than we are. He is completely free from all restrictions and needs. And that means God does not need evil or suffering to bring about good. He’s not reliant on it and so it’s misleading to speak of God “using” our suffering.

This brings up the question of “senseless evils.” What about childhood cancer? What about the emaciated child starving to death from a famine? Are these all part of God’s big plan to do some good? Green has me convinced: I don’t think so.

Green argues that it is best to say that these evils happen “not as the will of God, but within the unfolding of that will of God. Difficult as it is for us to imagine, that moment, like every moment, remains open to the will of God—God even now is still active then and there, in a time closed to us as past.”

Scripture attests that God is the God who “was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 1:8). And the consistent hope of the New Testament authors is that Christ will one day come again. We shouldn’t think of this coming as some long, cosmic journey that Jesus will have to make from heaven, which is a long way off from earth. If we pay attention to the New Testament we will find that it attests that Jesus will someday “appear” or “be revealed.” Colossians 3:4 “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will share in his glory.”

The idea is that Christ is not currently a long way off, but that he is quite near. Nearer to us than we are to ourselves. And one day he will “reveal” himself to be the one who was near all along, even in the midst of our suffering. Like a curtain being yanked back to show what had been hidden all along.

What this means, Green suggests, is that God has not fully acted in our moments of suffering yet. Even though these events are in the past for us, he hasn’t finished with them yet. God is not bound by time as we are. And he is the God who is still “yet to come” in those moments. He has not yet fully revealed himself to the evils and suffering we have endured.

But that raises the question: how can we trust him? If he is still yet to fully act in these moments, how can we know what he will do when he does? Because, Green argues, there is one moment in history where God has fully acted: in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is no stranger to suffering. He was a “man of sorrows.” But in his death and resurrection God unmasked the powers and the authorities for the falsities that they are (Col. 2:15).

And Paul tells us that Christ is the first fruits of our resurrection and the restoration of the entire cosmos. What God did in Christ Jesus, he will also do for us and the rest of human history.

Although we don’t see it yet, as the book of Hebrews puts it, “we do see Jesus.” And we are called to put our trust in him in the midst of our suffering and in the face of evil. We are called to trust that he will “appear” to each moment of our suffering and finish the work of unmasking the powers and authorities there in the heart of our darknesses. “God has acted and is acting, but there’s still more for God to do that hasn’t been done yet.”

God is not in control. He is not causing or even using the evil that we go through. But he is the one who will put everything to rights. He is the one who will wipe away every tear. He is the one who is still “yet to come” in all those moments.

As Green puts it, when Christians use the call and response saying “God is good… All the time!” we are not confessing our experience of life right now so much as making a defiant claim of faith about our future over against our present experience of the world.

https://cameronlcombs.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/god-is-not-in-control/?fbclid=IwAR3lTn0hkPulnNmy8T_p-GlJv5ZMRZ0D_WgLjHLqrZDTjyFnr05WagNgsa8