Theological Journal - May 7: Wht God is Not in Control - And It's a Good Thing too! (7)

If God is not in control, that is, does not determine in advance what is going to happen, that there is no “plan” or script unfolding in all the ups and downs of every life and event, how might we best envision his governance of the world (as far as we are able to do so)?

I would suggest we think in terms of fixed goals and open routes. What does that mean?

-God’s plans and purposes for his creation are sure and certain and, as God, is able and willing to achieve them.

-He achieves them by being true to himself.

-God desires real relationships with his creatures and real relationships are open-ended ever-changing.

-God’s power to achieve his purposes in such a world constituted by real relationships is his love. He does not coerce, manipulate, or force. He woos, guides, directs, and acts in the best interests of his creatures toward their fulfilment and his good ends by the quality, intensity, and relentlessness of his love. Even in discipline, judgment, defeat, and exile he is moving his creatures toward their best and his best for them.

-While God’s best for his creatures is the fixed goal, there is no doubt that he will achieve this best for them, the routes by which he does all this for them is varied, changeable, and dynamic. One person’s route is not the same as any other’s. God deals with each of us personally. In sum, we will all reach God’s good end for us though how we get there is almost infinitely variable and open.

If we require an image for this, and remembering all such images are inadequate, think of God as the Grand Master beyond all human Grand Masters of chess. He is playing chess with each of us, and each of our boards are part of a massive game God is playing with all of us at once. Each of our moves, which are made of our own volition and wisdom, impact not only our game but other players in the large game God is playing with us all. All these games, and this one game, are going on simultaneously. We lose – though unfathomably, God lets us win and think we have triumphed - and are nevertheless thereby included and implicated in the outcome of the larger game. And that outcome will render us all victors.

Like I said, this image is not adequate but it may illustrate the notion of a fixed goal with open routes toward it. And I believe such a notion, grounded in God’s sovereign love for each of us and all of us and desire for relationship with us all rather than an outworking of some abstract divine decree or plan reflects the character of our God and of the world he has created for our fellowship together forever.

If we rethink control in terms of divine love with fixed goals and open routes rather than a fixed plan with invariable fixed routes we have the chance to relate to God in ways appropriate to our nature as human beings and develop more healthy and healing images of God in the process. We’ll look at some more about that anon.