This is a continuation of what I said in Part 1. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do for context.
Did God put Adam and Eve in a “perfect” world? In the strictest sense, I don’t believe he did. He said repeatedly that his creation was “good,” even “very good.” But he never said it was perfect. A world with a toxic tree in the middle of it and a slimy serpent lurking about can’t very well be a perfect one. Thank God that in the perfect world, the one that’s on its way some glad day, noxious fruit and poisonous snakes will be conspicuously absent!
What I’m saying is, the world we’re in now is not the best of all possible worlds. (That would be the one to come.) Nevertheless, I do believe it is the best of all possible ways to that perfect world.God is not the sort to just throw a bunch of mud on the wall to see if any of it sticks. His freewill scheme was and is, to my mind, the best way he could share himself with all willing takers and ultimately usher them into a perfect eternal state with him.
Rather than make a practice of overpowering us in order to make us be good, his M.O. is to empower us to be better than we would be on our own. I have to admit that I’ve often secretly wished that he would take me out of the equation and just do my job for me. My wish notwithstanding, I have a job to do (in the sanctification process) and God has a job (empowering me to be more and more sanctified). I can’t do his job and he won’t do mine.
Like I said in the previous post, many will object to the idea that God’s short-run will is subject to being thwarted, and will appeal to his “sovereignty.” “God is sovereign,” they say, “and therefore always gets his way. Everything that happens is part of his plan.” Well, yes, God is absolutely sovereign. But in my view, for reasons stated before with reference to his freewill project, it was his sovereign prerogative to make a world in which we possess the frightful freedom to choose for or against his will. He sovereignly concocted the best way to bring about the best possible world. And eventually, when this free will age is over, he will bring with him at Jesus’ return the absolutely perfect world.
Of course, God has a plan and is in control. But the idea that as the Sovereign he controls everything (at least in the “particular” sense) is, in my opinion, not true to Scripture. I believe that he is in control but is not controlling. Not everything that happens now is part of some eternal blueprint God drew up to which he makes everything in this world conform. I refer you to my paper called “Loving An Unpredictable God.”
Am I saying that God doesn’t have unlimited power. No. I’m saying that for love’s sake he concocted a system in which he wields his power in a limited way (for the limited period of this age). That is, God is in charge of everything, but he doesn’t necessarily control everything that he’s in charge of.
Yet, there will be a day (initiated by what is often called “The Day of the Lord”) when he will conform all things to his glory. In the meantime, however (and believe me, some of these times can be pretty mean), he doesn’t always get his way. He doesn’t always intervene to prevent each natural or human-caused disaster. He does however, have a way of digging deep down into any pile of some very nasty smelling manure and growing something good in it! Though he doesn’t cause everything to happen the way he wants, he does work “in everything for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). And remember, the ultimate good awaits us in the ultimately good place.
No doubt he often supernaturally intervenes to alter the course of individual lives and of history. Yet at other times he doesn’t. It’s way above my pay grade and beyond the scope of this discussion to speculate about his intervention or non-intervention in particular events as they unfold in human history. But if we take Jesus Christ as our starting point, it’s a no-brainer to conclude that God does intervene in the world. After all, Jesus is “God with us!” He’s the supreme example of God inserting himself in human affairs. If that doesn’t constitute supernatural intervention, I don’t know what does!
So, if God is great, he can make a better world without evil and suffering. And if he’s good, he will do just that. The question the patriarchs, poets, and prophets of the Bible often ask is: “How long? How long do we have to wait until his Kingdom comes and his will to be perfectly done on earth as it is in heaven? As he is apt to do, he answers our question with with his own question: “How patient are you?”
So, can we say for sure that according to the Bible God orchestrated the election of Donald Trump or any other elected official for that matter? With what we have in Scripture, I don’t see how we, in good conscience, can.
Thoughts? Questions? (I will say there are some biblical references that some will use as proof of the alternative. And, if you’ll keep in mind what I’ve already said, I would be happy to address those if anyone wants to cite them.
barney wiget 