Is God “In Control”?

This is something of a Part II to last week’s blog about whether God has “a perfect plan” for each of our lives. That article was questioning the assumptions underlying many standard evangelical sermons on Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Since it seemed to strike a chord for a few readers, I thought it worthy of further observations.

I won’t repeat everything from last week, so if you haven’t read it, it will probably be helpful to have done so before reading this one.

Last week was primarily focused on whether God has a meticulously detailed moment-by-moment life plan that he has written in advance for every single one of us, such that to be in “God’s perfect will” for us we would need to find it and obey it. My article suggested not. This was for both practical reasons—how would we ever really know if we were in it or not?—and theological reasons—is that the kind of God he is; is that the way he wants to relate to human creatures? I suggested that we should understand things in relationship terms not dictatorship terms. Not because God could not do things that way if he wanted to, being all-powerful, but because it’s not his nature and character to exercise his power in that way. I proposed that God chooses for relationship reasons to live life in real-time with us, but that will inevitably mean that he doesn’t get his way all the time—things happen that would not be in his will in an ideal world.

So the first question that flows out of this is whether—even if there is no divinely-authored, meticulously detailed, moment-by-moment plan for everyone’s life—that necessarily means there is no divine plan whatsoever; that God is merely a detached onlooker. In other words, does the absence of a detailed plan for our lives (like a set of architect’s technical drawings) mean there is no masterplan (no divinely-inspired grand vision at least)?

The second question is to do with the world at large. Might the extent and manner in which God is “in control” of the “big picture” of human affairs be different from his control of the minutiae of individual lives? Does a “no” to the latter obviate the possibility of a “yes” to the former? And if so, what about events and affairs that are not self-evidently either big picture or minutiae?   

Before we address those, let’s make some preliminary observations. I completely understand how, for Calvinists, the idea that God sovereignly controls absolutely everything is very comforting—rather as a convicted criminal might find it comforting that being detained at his Majesty’s pleasure means you never have to worry where the next meal is coming from or how you’re going to pay the rent. Perhaps something similar might be said of being in the armed forces. Not that I have been in either, so those may be ignorant observations, but as metaphors, they seem to have something to offer.

On the other hand, it seems inconceivable that many of the things that happen in this world could be authored by God; certainly the kind of God we see pictured in Jesus. And I don’t think that trying to make nuanced distinctions between “authored by” versus “permitted by”—including authorising Satan to do a limited range of evil things—gets the Calvinist God “off the hook” for every bad thing that happens. And I would caution against using Job as a proof text for that, by the way: that’s misreading the genre of Wisdom literature.

So, while on one level the Calvinistic view of meticulous sovereignty may be comforting, I don’t think it’s morally sustainable. Though God could do whatever he pleases if he pleased (omnipotence grants that power), he does not do things that would be the very antithesis of his nature and character; one thing he could not do would be to deny himself. That would be an abuse of his power. And as I said last time, it's surely impossible for human beings to truly be held accountable for their actions if a puppet-master God is actually pulling all the strings. Calvinists may think that theological verbal gymnastics can do the trick here; few non-Calvinists would be likely to agree.             

You may already perceive that where this is taking us is going to lead to some paradoxes. In fairness, Calvinists might say that’s precisely what they are arguing: that paradox is inevitable, whichever view we take of God’s degree of involvement and control. And I get that. The question is what framework for that paradox—what kind of nuance—works best in the light of the God we know through Jesus. I have often argued—most recently in Reading the Bible With Its Writers—that our best theological lens for answering challenging questions is not reaching for our favourite proof text but looking at it through the nature and character of God. Not the God we perceive to have authored such-and-such a verse, but the one revealed to us in Jesus: like Son, like Father. I think Calvinists actually do that—their understanding of God does lead them to their doctrines. It’s just not my understanding.  

In an article on his Desiring God website, the pre-eminent Calvinist John Piper said the following:

The question is, which world would you rather live in? One where humans or Satan or chance govern what happens to you? Or one where an infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful God works everything together for the good of those who trust him and for his glory?

As always, the first question is to “question the [validity of the] question”—in this case, to question the premises on offer. Must it be the case that the choices are living in a world whether either (a) humans, (b) Satan, or (c) chance governs what happens to us, or one in which God does? Good Christians must surely reject (a) through (c) as options, eh? Which is Piper’s “straw man” point. That being so, Piper concludes, good Christians must obviously take the Calvinist view (that whatever happens is 100% determined and controlled by God) and—notwithstanding any appearances to the contrary at times—we must accept that everything that happens is indeed the actions of an “infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful God.”

It’s one thing to shoot down Piper’s proposition, but—and this is true of other Calvinist doctrines that seem incompatible with an “infinitely good” God, even if they can otherwise be shoehorned into an “infinitely wise, infinitely powerful” God—we must offer something credible as the alternative (we will come on to that).

Calvinists are at least consistent, however unpalatable most people (Christians or not) would find their doctrines. Here’s another gem from that same website concerning the Old Testament “Canaanite massacre” assumed to be commanded by God:

It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.

Taking Piper’s three divine traits in turn, it may be argued that these are the actions of an “infinitely powerful” God. They may also be the actions of an “infinitely wise” God (whose wisdom exceeds human comprehension). But can they also be said to be the actions of an “infinitely good” God? If not, perhaps it’s the doctrine—the way of reading Scripture, and certainly the way of reading the nature and character of God—that is flawed. It can be argued that our human definition of “good” may not be God’s definition, but if that’s the case, where do we stop? Presumably, that would make his definition of “love” potentially different from ours, too (even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking Calvinists will respond, “Yes, exactly!”). In which case can we take anything we read about God in Scripture to correspond to the obvious meaning of apparently straightforward language? That would certainly undermine the conservative Reformed doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture (the self-evidently clear meaning of plain texts to the ordinary reader, ensured by divine design) that Calvinists would surely affirm!   

So, let's go back to offering a credible alternative. First off, let’s remind ourselves there is no “paradox-free” way of understanding the interaction in human affairs of—taking Piper’s categories as our base—human actions, Satan’s actions, and what Piper calls “chance,” alongside God’s actions. What I think we can say is that we see all of these featured in human life, and so too in the stories in Scripture. Calvinists would say that all of these are the actions of God, at least vicariously: nothing happens unless he expressly wills it or permits it. Perhaps it’s because Calvinism (along with evangelicalism more generally) was shaped and formed in the Age of the Machine that it concludes the imagery of God as the divine Machine Operator of the Universe (pressing all the buttons, pulling all the levers) should control our perspective. But I would suggest that things are more nuanced. 

Perhaps it’s their metaphor that’s primarily at fault here. No metaphor perfectly corresponds to something in all respects (that’s not how they work—any metaphor pressed too hard becomes false at some point) but what if instead of the Machine Operator we looked at, say, parenting a teenager? Controlling a teenager is far from controlling a dog (though even a dog gets to run around of its own free will some of the time). Or maybe, coaching a rugby team, where there is only so much the coach can control once the match is underway? Or perhaps a metaphor of human life being like rugby itself, where there is a framework of inalienable rules (in rugby they’re called laws) but within that framework there is freedom to play as you wish, to play what you see in front of you? We note that having a framework of rules does not prevent some injuries. Warming to my rugby theme, there’s the role of the referee. Ideally, we hardly notice them. No one like a whistle-happy referee—even if we say “rules are rules,” that generally spoils everyone’s enjoyment—and yet no one questions that there is a non-negotiable framework within which the game will be played: such as 40 minutes per half, 80 minutes in all. Rugby’s rules are fixed points, set in advance, in which the referee’s decision is final and player freedom does not come into it.

Switching to another metaphor, if the human story is a journey, then perhaps we can say that God has most definitely chosen to determine certain major waypoints on that journey—past, present, and future—both in relation to the big picture human story and our own stories as well. These will most definitely come about because he has determined that they will. A good example is Jesus’ first coming, which Romans 5:6 tells us was “just at the right time.” But within that framework—aside from those major waypoints (we can debate “major” separately)—we also see the actions of humans, and yes, Satan, and yes, chance. Along with, at times, divine interventions in response to prayer and/or to ensure that the next waypoint is not ultimately thwarted (with Romans 8:28 being a feature of that). When I say “we see” that, I mean both in biblical stories and our own stories.                      

At the end of the day, the view we take will especially depend on how highly we value (and by inference, how highly God values) human free will as a feature inbuilt to his creation (notwithstanding the propensity of freedom to go wrong). Calvinism suggests that human free will can only be a bad thing—or at least, an inferior thing when set alongside an omniscient God’s will. And that would inevitably be true. God would always know best. But the question is to what extent he imposes that “I know best” on us. About the major waypoints, we can easily say, “Yes, he does.” Beyond that, I am not so sure.

Which still leaves us plenty of room to discuss how many waypoints and how often—whether that’s in our story or humanity’s story.