(About) the Divine Plan/Fate & Free Will (see also Prayer and Faith)
Verse Observations: Dt 32:34-35, 39, I Chr 14:14, II Chr 21:16, 30:12, Jb 23:14, Jer 24:7, Hg 1:14, Zec 12:10, Mt 20:23, Jn 7:30, 8:20, 12:39-40, Acts 17:26, Eph 3:9, 10, 11, 3-6, Rv 13:8, 10
*human effect on the divine plan - Prv 24:17-18
*the divine plan in potentiality - Jer 36:3, 7:27, 16, 11:14, 14:11, Ezk 12:3, Jl 2:14, Am 5:15
*the divine plan & prayer - Mt 24:20, Mk 13:18, 14:35-36
*God preparing evil - Zech 11:16-17 (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering)
*good & evil under God - Jb 12:16, Prv 15:3, Eccl 7:14 (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering)
*verses that point indirectly to fate - Ezk 30:12
*how God runs the show - Mt 12:27, Lk 11:48
*God's ideal will & manifested will - Lk 7:30
*God reversing the way of the world - I Cor 1:20-21, 24
If it is God’s desire that none should perish (Ezk 18:23, II Pt 3:9), and his will is always fulfilled, why do many perish? (Mt 7:13) Or to put it another way: Compare Ezk 6:9-10 vs Rv 9:20-21 Why is it that sometimes people repent and sometimes they don’t?
This is a good example of the "clash" between fate and free will, or the divine plan and individual (in this case, human) choice. I say "clash" because I'm sure from God's perspective, there is no clash -- it's just a clash to us because we don't understand it. It is indeed God's will that none should perish, but let's consider -- if it were true that none perish, then what would that mean for free will? Would it really be free? Unhelpfully, I can see it from both sides, the side that says "yes" and the side that says "no". "Yes" because even in this reality where some people choose for God and some against, even the ones who choose for him cannot do so except by the inspiration and conviction of the Holy Spirit, the grace and election of the Father, and the sacrifice of and forgiveness from the Son. However, this doesn't mean that God "overpowered" them or somehow manipulated their free will -- they really did choose. And God respects and graciously accepts their choice.
But I can also say that the answer is "no", because, by way of analogy, just as if you found a coin that always landed on heads, no matter what, no matter the conditions it's subjected to, would you think that that was normal? (Check out a scene from the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in which we see just how eerie this exact scenario is. It's as if they stepped into some kind of probability vortex. That's the feeling I get.) In the same way, if everyone went to heaven, would that not be a cause of some concern that there was some kind of divine manipulation involved? On one hand, I'm not sure that anyone would complain (in a sense, how could they, if it's true that they had been manipulated into it?), but on the other, could not a hypothetical outside observer complain that there had been a violation of free will, and even worse, that that actually rendered everyone's choice null and void, and that this in turn meant that we were not truly living spirits but rather automatons?
Now to play devil's advocate, I can actually think of a way around this problem. In The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, the author says that "in a random series of 10 to the power 1,000,007 zeroes and ones, you should expect at least 10 non-overlapping subsequences of a million consecutive zeroes." Well, that's an awful long string of 0s and 1s, a lot more than there's ever been humans on this earth, but it shows that given a large enough set, it seems that you can pull anything out of it. But even though it's unrealistic, let's assume for the sake of argument that the same mechanism can be applied by God to humans. Except he decides that the beginning of this string of humans destined for heaven will start with the very first human, and the end of the string will end with the very last human created. So he just conveniently snips off the fluff and then claims that he got everyone into heaven without violating anyone's free will.
Or could God even change the rules of randomness? That is, as I said earlier, even though I was trying to play devil's advocate, I had to admit that the above scenario is very contrived and doesn't actually match the parameters specified by the mathematician George Spencer-Brown, but who says that God couldn't "set up" randomness so that you could pull whatever you wanted out of it from a much smaller set? But am I going way too far here in playing devil's advocate? Now I'm starting to pose the daring question -- What is randomness? How do you determine what's random? Is anything truly random? And most importantly, while randomness exists to us, does it exist to God? Scary questions indeed. However, these questions more appropriately belong in the Math section (not the section on Randomness [I know, it's confusing]), so I'll address these later when I get to it. However, it was worth mentioning in order to get a true scope of this issue.
Now before I continue, I just realized that I'm going on and on about randomness without really justifying why I see our original question in these terms. I first mentioned it by way of analogy, but I actually see it as much more than that. I know we didn't even define our terms (in this case, "randomness"), but leaving that aside (or rather, to the Math section), randomness, in the framework of the UQ (which is my framework for everything) is physical, and order/deliberation is spiritual. (Actually, this is one of those flippable dichotomies, but I won't go into that here. For the purposes of this discussion, random = physical, imposed order = spiritual.) So in God's respect for our free will (which in this case is physical, ie, human will is physical [though this is also a flippable dichotomy], God's will being spiritual, he must also respect nature (which is physical), and that means he must respect randomness. However, this randomness imposes no constraint on his own will. "What?!" you say. "That's a contradiction!" Not so. As with all things in the UQ (and that's everything), we know that the physical and spiritual perfectly overlap, without doing any violence to each other. So God can still work his sovereign will while still respecting natural forces, such as randomness.
So why do I believe this? How did I reach this conclusion? Just look at the world, at how natural it is. Think of human generation. Surely, God has planned each individual and designed them personally. But look at how he does it! Through randomness! Why do you think that men produce and ejaculate so much sperm? Because you need that many (naturally speaking) in order to impregnate a woman. Could God make it so that the man only needs one spermatozoon to hazard a treacherous voyage to the awaiting egg? Sure, divinely speaking. But that would be what we call a miracle. And we know that God, in his own wisdom, for reasons known only to himself, has reserved such things for only special occasions. The rest of the time, God works with and through nature. But does that mean that we're all accidents? By no means! God creates every spermatozoon, and he directs each one, including the lucky one that hits the jackpot.
Then does this mean that it's all a show, all the other millions of sperm, just to make it look like God's respecting nature and randomness, but actually, they're all just props and he really only cares about that one that makes it all the way? But then God would be a liar, a deceiver! No, God really does use randomness for his own purposes. Of course, this is all a mystery, this interface between the physical and spiritual, but then, it wouldn't be the Ultimate Question, would it?
So now to refute my earlier argument when I was playing devil's advocate (if I haven't already done so). It seems to me that while Spencer-Brown may be right about all these paradoxical consecutive 0s, I'm only willing to concede that he's right in the abstract. In the real world, if we were to test this empirically (which is humanly impossible given the enormity of 10 to the 1,000,007th power, unless, perhaps, they came up with quantum computing, which I somehow doubt) I posit that there's a limit to how long a consecutive string could get. Now this in itself is somewhat audacious to claim, since the natural question to ask next is "OK, how do we determine that number?", which is an interesting question in itself, especially given that I think that would have to be determined mathematically/rationally, when I just said that the whole point of this would be to perform an empirical test. So given that it's my hunch that such a method and its resulting answer can probably only be determined mathematically, and since I'm no mathematician, I'm going to have to leave it at that. You say, "How convenient", but not so fast. While I realize that coming up with such a number is one step away from grappling with questions of infinity (since we have no idea, as of now, where to put an end to this supposedly finite string of 0s (so I'm saying it does have an end, I just don't know where, which in some people's estimation might be no better than conceding infinity [never mind that we were talking about 10 to the power 1,000,007, which is definitely not infinite], though mathematicians would definitely disagree with these people, since they're always talking in this sort of very unhelpful and frustrating abstract manner [ie, say some mathematical object exists, but give no other specifics]), I do have my reasons for making this audacious claim.
First, I'd like to clarify this distinction between the abstract and empirical. Something may very well exist in the abstract, and yet not in the real world. For example (and there are many), you can divide anything infinitely (mathematically, that is, abstractly), but in the real (physical) world, since nothing physical can be infinite, we must start with some kind of finite building block (the atoms of Democritus). Right away, some people are going to totally disagree with this, which made me hesitant to use this as an example, but I still think it's the example par excellence, so if you'd like to argue, I'll cover this elsewhere (I think a good place would be in the Epistemology/Faith section).
So something a bit less controversial: imaginary and complex numbers (although no longer controversial [except among the minority of intuitionists], they were once controversial, as were irrational numbers, negative numbers, higher dimensions, infinity (according to Wittgenstein), and I suppose even the number 0, which was actually discovered, unlike the number 1). However, it turns out, somewhat disturbingly (I can actually partially see things from the intuitionist's point-of-view), that so many calculations come out so nicely, and even more amazingly, are actually manifested and corroborated in the real world. So real life vindicates abstract truth. (I'll cover this issue in more detail in the Math section.)
So that's the background to my claim. Indeed, since, as I said earlier, it's impossible to empirically test such a claim given the enormity of the numbers involved, I guess I have to concede that such a claim ultimately rests on faith (and empirical experience, which I'll go into in just a bit). But is that so bad? Not really, given that everything is based on faith (more on this in the Epistemology/Faith section). This is like when they say that given an infinite (or enough) amount of time, a monkey could type out the complete works of Shakespeare on a typewriter, and not only the complete works of Shakespeare, but everything else that has ever been written, ever been said, and that could possibly be written or said. Again, I think I can concede this in some kind of abstract, pure, probabilistic world, but not in this world. Likewise, if you were to flip a coin an infinite number of times, no, I don't think you'd get huge, monster strings of heads (or tails). It seems to me that some kind of entropic force would keep this from happening. After all, that's why miracles are miracles -- because while in the abstract world, miracles can happen, in the real world under entropy, they just don't, except by supernatural cause (which is the definition of a miracle.) A very simple textbook example is a partitioned box filled with a gas (in one compartment). (diagram here) There's a little slit in the partition so that the gas in the one compartment can seep into the other. So what happens? The box (or rather the gas) reaches a state of equilibrium in which the gas molecules are pretty much evenly divided between the 2 compartments. This is all due to entropy, in which systems "try", or rather naturally like to fall into a more disordered and less energetic state. So in this case, that's exactly what the gas is doing. Being on just one side of the box requires too much effort (energy) and too much "planning" (order). It just wants to be lazy so the molecules will float off in a random fashion to take up as much space as it can. Kind of like the parting of the Red Sea. The Red Sea wants to fill up as much space as it can. The only way it's going to stand up like a wall on either side of a path right through the middle of it is if God puts in the effort and planning to make that happen. We call that a miracle. Likewise with our classic textbook example, the molecules are not going to decide that they want to stay on just one side of the box. If they did, well, the probability of that happening would be so minute that lacking any other kind of naturalistic example, we'd have to call that a miracle. So you see that in the abstract, the configuration in which all the gas molecules just happen to all be on one side of the box and stay on one side of the box can happen -- it is indeed one of the configurations of all the possible configurations, but it's just never going to happen in real life.
I think the same mechanism is at work with coin flipping. In the abstract world, sure, you can calculate the probability of getting monster strings out of some ridiculously gigantic number, but in the real world, entropy is going to dramatically cut down on those monster strings, in fact, I think to the point that they just wouldn't exist. So there you have it -- my refutation of my argument as devil's advocate. And so I think it stands that God must (or chooses to) respect nature and randomness, and all that this entails, including allowing free will full rein to run its course.
So I thought that's all I had to say on this, but I'll pick up this question because I was discussing this with a philosophy buddy and we came across some good thought experiments, and some conclusions (or rather, more mysteries) therefrom.
I applied the coin flipping analogy to a wider context -- in fact, as wide as you can get -- it was the most extreme case imaginable. I did this on the pretext that true freedom would require that people have absolutely no reasons, preferences or biases when making a decision. For example, if you come from a family of gangsters, you are quite likely to become a gangster yourself. If you come from a family of priests and religious, than you are more likely than average to become a priest or religious. If you prefer vanilla over chocolate, this is probably due more to genetic factors than because of environmental ones. There's many kinds of preferences and biases out there, all leading to one having reasons for what one chooses to do, think and believe. Well, let's imagine a world where there are no pre-set or pre-programmed preferences or influences -- you're just completely, really free to create yourself into whatever you want. Now I realize this in itself presents problems, which we'll get to, but for right now just hold on and assume that this is even possible. What I want you to do is to imagine the world works just like a coin, a perfectly unbiased coin. So, for example, in this world (the real world) most people get married, and most people get married because they feel they have reasons and a preference to do so. But in the 50/50 World (which is what I christened my thought experiment, not that everything in it is really 50/50, but rather 1/n, n being the number of possibilities for any particular "free will" [or not] decision), in the 50/50 World, since in this case we're talking about a the free will decision to get married or not, that's 2 choices, so 1/2, half the people are going to go one way and half the people the other, so half the people would get married, and half the people would remain single. After all, if the world and free will really functioned like a coin, since there would be no preferences, everything would be random, every decision would be truly unshackled, truly free, and so there would be no bias towards marriage, as we see in this world.
Now even though I haven't unpacked all the ramifications of the 50/50 World, I'm going to unload another thought experiment on you, what I call the 100% World. The 100% World means that there's absolutely no impediments, limitations or restrictions on what you can attain. (100% here means you get 100% of everything you want, and whenever you want.) This is necessary to consider because as I was discussing with my philosophy buddy, free will consists of 2 components, the inner and the outer, or the subjective and objective, or desire and attainability. Take a poor, uneducated immigrant. Can they become a successful lawyer? It's possible. It's not on the same level of impossibility as a pig flying (and I'm not talking about taking a pig on board a plane). But it's unlikely. In fact, it's so unlikely that it's practically impossible. I'm not saying poor, uneducated immigrants never become successful lawyers -- undoubtedly in a world of 7.4 billion people, it's bound to happen, but if we take our immigrant, the one under consideration, it's close to impossible. This is sad but true. Likewise, not every woman can be married to a billionaire, nor can every man be married to a supermodel. It's sad but true. That's our world. But in the 100% World, there's no such barriers or impossibilities. Whatever you want is attainable, and immediately so. It's truly God-like. Yes, I'm taking the argument to the extreme. So we've taken the ability to desire to the limit (the 50/50 World), and we've taken attainability to the limit (the 100% World, where there are no limits). Again, there's problems with this thought experiment as well, but we'll get to that later.
First I want to explain this inner/outer, subjective/objective, desire/attainability dichotomy. If a man wants to commit adultery but finds that he is unable to do so, can we say that this man is not an adulterer? Though he hasn't actually committed adultery, could he not be considered an adulterer? So we find free will works the same way. There's the actual volition part, and then there's the ability to carry out your wish. Though on paper we can make this kind of clear-cut separation, in real-life things are unfortunately not so simple. Let's go back to the would-be gangster from the gangster family. Why does the would-be gangster feel that he must be a gangster? Because that's all he's ever seen and so the world of what's possible (in his mind) is quite narrow. In this sense, if this person becomes a gangster, we can't blame them, because you can't control what kind of family or socioeconomic background you're born into. Nevertheless, in the case of this poor unfortunate soul, attainability has impinged itself on volition. People take what they can get, and they do what (they think) is the best for themselves. Here the issue of relativity is introduced, an important component in (the real-world) of free will decision-making, but you can read more about this on the Relativity page. Suffice it to say for now that most people with more options would not willingly choose to be a gangster. Rich people have more options and more freedom than poor people. This is sad but true.
However, I wonder if this disparity is of any real consequence. I say this from a Christian perspective. Is it harder for a poor person to reach heaven, or a rich person? From a worldly perspective, it would seem that the poor person has it harder. Poor people live in environments rife with crime, lack of resources, leading to all sorts of temptations to fight, cut corners, do shady things, and basically act like a dog in a dog-eat-dog world. But Jesus actually said that it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (Mt 19:24). And indeed, wealth, and the desire for it, comes with its own temptations, which Jesus is implying are nearly insurmountable to resist. And though I'm going a bit off topic here, I wonder if the same goes for any other kind of (material) blessing, be it good looks, intelligence, fame, connections, etc.
So as I was saying, to me, what I really care about is the volition part of this equation, since what you desire is far more open (wider) than what you can actually attain, even than what you admit to yourself that you can realistically attain. It's this wider world that I think is more important and of greater consequence than the world of limitations and set-backs. In this sense, what's in your head and heart is more real than the contingencies you face. This is the real self.
So now back to the 50/50 World. First, it seems artificial. In fact, there's something eerie about it. I can't help but think of the movie Coraline (if you've seen it, great -- you know what I'm talking about, if not, don't worry -- I could link to the trailer, but it doesn't really do justice to what I'm trying to get at here.) The 50/50 World is the true existentialist's paradise -- the ability to create your own reality any way you see fit. But isn't that kind of creepy if everyone did everything based on randomness, which in this case, means the same thing as nothing? So 2 things here: 1)it seems that in our attempt make a more free world, a completely free world, by getting rid of all biases, preferences and "pre-programming", we've actually made the world less free, in fact, completely unfree. If you were to ask the people in this world why they decided on anything, they'd just say, "Cuz I felt like it", and then you'd ask, "Well, why did you feel like it?" and they would just keep saying, "Cuz I felt like it." Biologically, these people would be alive, but it would seem that their souls were gone. 2)it also seems that in our attempt to understand free will by imaging this alternate world, we've actually come full circle, that is, we can only settle on the conclusion that we can't really even say what free will is. Might this be one of those indefinables (see the first question on the Metaphysics page) -- you recognize it when you see it, but can't describe or articulate exactly what it is? I say this because whether it's the real world or the 50/50 World, you hit rock bottom at some point and can't say why someone has chosen one way or the other. In this world, we say, "I did such and such because of blah, blah, blah." But if you keep asking, "And why did you do that?" eventually you'll come to something similar or equivalent to "Cuz I felt like it." So the only real difference between the real world and our experimental one is that in this world you have a bunch of intervening reasons before you get to the mysterious "Cuz I felt like it", whereas in the 50/50 World you just cut to the chase. What you're left with is merely the feeling that this world is the free one, and the 50/50 World, though ostensibly freer, is actually not. Philosophically and intellectually speaking however, a mere feeling isn't very satisfying. But I'm afraid that's the best we can do.
As a side note, but of great interest, this reminds me of faith, because everything we believe, we believe on faith. Sure, ask people why they believe blah, blah, blah, but in the end, it all comes down to faith. A more salient example of this is our belief in cause and effect, a particularly relevant example because we must all admit defeat and say that if we believe in cause and effect, we do so on faith. And yet the belief is unshakable. Even if you say you don't believe in cause and effect, you're a hypocrite, because no one can live a normal life without it. Likewise, we can't live without the belief in free will. How else could we hold people responsible for their actions, whether it's in a relationship, keeping order in society, encouraging or dissuading people from following certain courses of action, etc?
Now onto other considerations, not cutting so close to the very nature of free will, but quite damning, nonetheless.
Take the 50/50 World. Since everything in it is as meaningful as a coin flip, everything would be random, and all possibilities would be equally distributed. So we could say that 1/3 would be heterosexual, 1/3 homosexual, and 1/3 bisexual. Not only that, but the period of time that someone would identify with a certain sexual orientation could either be constant, constantly change (either every day, or with each new partner), or fall somewhere else on this spectrum. So that's a problem right there because now we have a classification problem. If you have a hard time understanding why, perhaps my next objection will be helpful. Again, it's a classification problem. Not only is the division between 3 sexual orientations really not enough, now we can't be sure what kind of classifications to use. There's all kinds of bizarre "orientations" out there (though at this point, they get so bizarre that they're generally not called "orientations" but paraphilias -- wow, Wikipedia even has a whole list of them, but I'm not sure if I want to link to that), but it's really amazing how many of them are out there (paraphilias, not paraphiliacs, though I'm sure there's plenty of those too), so in the 50/50 World, they'd all have to be equally represented. But again, you could have a paraphilia for anything, so all possible paraphilias would have to be represented. The 50/50 World was already untenable, but now it's ridiculous, but I'm afraid this is the inevitable conclusion we must draw, if we want to complete our thought experiment. Again, throw in the switching up of time periods (every possible length of time, pattern, number of occurences, etc), and things have become twice as complicated. But that's just the beginning of the classification problem.
Now these classifications start to contradict each other, that is, it's inherently impossible for all classifications to be manifested. Start with the simple division of heterosexuals and homosexuals. The 50/50 World says there's an equal number of both. But let's consider asexuals and non-asexuals. Do we consider this to be another category of orientation, or merely the negation of one? In any case, the 50/50 World still mandates that half of people be asexual and half non-asexual. But we just said that half of the people were heterosexual and half homosexual. This is a rather simple example, but I think you get my drift, that this classification problem applies to everything and therefore we'd have contradictions galore.
Now it's time to explore the problems of the 100% World. Once again, it's about contradictions. Everyone wants different things, and these desires are often opposed to each other. Do we watch his movie or her movie tonight? We can't have it both ways. So the only way the 100% World could have a chance of being feasible is if everyone were to live in their own world. But this presents a problem because surely some people would desire to have other people in the world of their own creation. For example, a typical man might desire to live on an island (or planet) of thousands of beautiful women. And some of these men would want at least some of the women to be real in the sense that they would have their own minds, make their own decisions and not just cater to his every whim because that's how he "programmed"/desired them. But if that were the case, we've come back to the original problem which we solved by separating everyone into their own individual worlds. So the 100% World is also impossible.
Now it occurred to me that while this 100% World is impossible and doesn't exist, in fact, to God, the 100% World is his reality. Remember that I said that with no limitations or hindrances of any kind, the power to attain in the 100% World would be truly God-like. Here we see that what we thought was a mere thought experiment is actually real (for at least one person). So what does this mean? What can we get from this realization? If before I said that the 100% World was unfeasible due to its inherent contradictoriness, how can we say that it exists to God?
First, the 100% World could exist for many people (here, because we're speaking philosophically, "many" just means "2 or more"), but they'd all have to desire the same things. But that right there doesn't seem free, and the whole point of the 100% World was to make things more free. As soon as you introduce one other person (that also has 100% power of attainability), that's where the problems start. This is taken care of for God because he's the only one with 100% power of attainability. Or does he? Wasn't that how we started this question and the whole point of it, that is, if God's will is always done, and his will is that none should perish, why do many perish? As we considered earlier, God could take care of this by making it so that everyone chooses him, but that doesn't sound free. He desires other people in his world, real people, not automatons, and if that's the case, he has to give them their free will. But now we're just repeating ourselves and have come back to the beginning of the question. Can I say that I've answered it? No, but I think I've given you some food for thought. (And you can read even more about this 3 questions down.)
What does it mean that the Holy Spirit would be with John the Baptist from the womb? Would it even matter, since he could "do nothing either good or bad"? (Rom 9:11)
I was just about to skip this question, but you know, a helpful theologizing technique is to universalize the particular, and I don't see why you can't do this even with the bible.
What if everyone is given the Holy Spirit from the very beginning of their existence, some getting more than others, with John the Baptist getting quite a bit more than average? No doubt, some people are chosen and some aren't, and some are naturally good-natured and some aren't. Some of this can be attributed to genes, and some to environment, but are those the only 2 influences? There's also the will (which is actually being influenced and acted upon, but nevertheless, a person's own choice is going to affect their nature and character), and then there's the Holy Spirit.
Now for the second part of the question, what's the use of the Holy Spirit being with someone from the womb? They're just kicking, sucking their thumb and growing, right? How would the Holy Spirit's presence matter?
Why would God not want the disciples to understand what Jesus meant when he said he would be delivered into the hand of men? Again, I think this is too “invasive”. This is all especially strange given that Jesus said, “Let these words sink into your ears.” (Lk 9:44-45)
My first thought is "Isn't this backwards?" It seems to me that it's not that it must be concealed, but that it must be revealed, since no one can be enlightened without God, and yet the way it's worded, it makes it sound like the "default mode" is understanding, and that this had to be actively prevented (by God), when it really seems that it should be the other way around.
"In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." (Eccl 7:14)
(a question about the hiddenness of the divine plan)
Why does God withhold information from us? For example, why does he not let us know when we're going to die, or when others are going to die?
"... so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." The sentiment that God purposely hides things from us in order to test us is growing on me, and this verse just says it outright. A part of me thinks that it makes sense, that of course we have no right to know the divine plan, that of course we're supposed to walk by faith and not by sight (II Cor 5:7), but another part of me thinks that ... there's something about it that's artificial. Which bothers me, because I don't think God is artificial. In fact, I think he must be the least artificial person out there. So I think that to say this all makes sense is oversimplifying it, and to say that there's something artificial about it is really an invitation to dig deeper and find what we can find.
So what do I mean by "artificial"? It means doing things for a reason that's not absolutely necessary. If God does something because it's absolutely necessary, then that's having a real reason. Anything less and there's something arbitrary about it. And in that sense it's artificial, like it seems that there's a reason, but there's really not.
Now let's go back to "absolute necessity", because I'm sure there's going to be people out there, Christians too, who disagree. They like to think that God can do whatever he wants. This is true, but does God do whatever he wants for no reason? Wouldn't that be God doing things randomly? But even more disturbing is God acting thoughtlessly, as if he were an automaton.
So I'm going to go off a side track here, but I think it's appropriate given that the above naturally leads me to this train of thought. So earlier, in the second half of the first question on this page, we considered that God actually lives in the 100% World (or at least as much as he's able to, given that he's given us free will), and is the only being who lives in the 100% World. But do we want to say that God lives in the 50/50 World? But that's what I was alluding to above, that some people (even Christians) want to believe that God also lives in the 50/50 World, that is, they want to give God so much freedom that he can do whatever he wants, even arbitrarily, having no reasons whatsoever other than that he feels like it. Why he feels like it, I don't think they've ever fully thought out. How could you explain this other than by saying that God does things randomly, as a coin flips? Sure, you could say that God's still perfect and perfectly good and that he would never will anything evil, but outside this one parameter, everything would be up for grabs to the Almighty. But, isn't the condition that God always be good and perfect itself an impediment, a hindrance, to complete and total freedom?
So I think I've given ample justification why I think that God does nothing arbitrarily/artificially. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's go into what greater reason he would have for keeping things (above all, the divine plan) hidden from us. I want to go back to the Ecclesiastes quote. The key phrase here is "so that" -- so that we can't find out anything that will be after us. It reminds me of all the books out there that try to bang it into our heads that people, and the experts, are always trying to predict the future, make some claim that they know where things are going, but that this simply can't be done, try as we might, as much as we might think we know. This is equivalent to what the bible's saying here -- that we can't know what will be after us, and that's equivalent to saying that we'll never be able to decipher the divine plan.
Furthermore, I think this is actually yet another version of the perennial question -- why do bad things happen to good people, and it's counterpart -- why do good things happen to bad people? I think the quote is alluding to the fact that things are mixed up in this world -- whether you're good or bad, good and bad things will happen to you. And this is what confuses people. Things aren't clear-cut. Isn't that what the book of Job is all about -- 5 friends duking it out, trying to figure it all out, but neither side can convince the other that they're right? If nothing but good things happened to good people, and nothing but bad things happened to bad people, wouldn't it be so much clearer that there is a God? Not only that, but wouldn't people be so much better behaved? If you always knew, with 100% certainty, that if you did good, you would be rewarded for it (in this life) and likewise, that if you did evil, you would be punished for it (in this life), everyone would shape up immediately. So undoubtedly, things are the way they are (in this real world) so that faith is required, so that God can really test us.
Then why do I still say that there's something artificial about this explanation about the hiddenness of God and the divine plan? I'm not denying that this partially explains it, only that it's not good enough. After all, what about the angels? How are we to explain that? As I mention on the Angel page, God doesn't hide himself from them, as he does with us. They know very clearly that he exists and have dealings with him all the time. On the other hand, we too, once had this sort of access to God, before the Fall. But even after the fall of the fallen angels, they still have "face-to-face" dealings with God. So why not us?
A few observations: 1)Angels, being spiritual, aren't born. As best as we can know, God made all the angels at one time and that's all the angels that he was ever going to create. The bible never says this explicitly, but it certainly never mentions God continuing to create angels. Not only that, you have the time problem, in which God and the angels, since they don't exist in time, how could you say that God made some before and some later? Obviously, I'm getting into very rarefied territory here, me with my physical limitations, and so I don't think I'll speculate about this any further. But I did want to point out the problems inherent to this time-eternity dichotomy. So since angels aren't born, they all knew God before the angelic Fall (or should I call it the demonic Fall?), and they continued with this knowledge. Could God have erased their memories? Sure, but I'm not sure what the purpose of that would be. With us humans, Adam and Eve knew God intimately without any barriers while still in their state of moral perfection, and so Adam and Eve would have carried this knowledge with them always, but their descendants (us) were born into the world, in a fallen world, and so we don't have this sort of direct knowledge.
But this "hiddenness" is a lot more than just having direct knowledge and experience with God. After all, even Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, and when they discovered themselves in our crappy world, well, it was a world in which God was hidden. No more enjoying God's company in the cool of the evening in the Garden. (Gn 3:8) So we see that God really did pull away from them. In some ways it makes sense, but I don't think that answers the question. There's still this disparity between us and the angels. And I really don't think that God withdrew from our first parents just in preparation for hiding himself when their children would come along. No, the hiddenness of God is part and parcel of the fallout of the Fall.
Secondly, (going back to the subject of angels), since they never die (having never been biologically alive), having once made their eternal decision (to follow or reject God, since they too have their free will), they remain in that state forever. Of course, I'm assuming that their decision is final, since this is what the bible and tradition have always taught. I've never heard of angels being able to repent, or even wanting to repent. This leads us to another question -- why? Why can't they go back and forth until some set "time" (again, they don't live in time, but I have no other way of speaking as a human), the way we do? We have until death to make up our minds. Why not angels? Well, first of all, what would this "set time" be? With humans, the final point-of-no-return is naturally death. But since angels don't die, when would this cut-off point be? Would this not in itself be somewhat artificial? So this is another reason for the difference in treatment between humans and angels. There would be no point in God hiding himself from angels that have already been judged and condemned. After all, even we humans will be treated likewise. After our death, judgment and sentencing, everything will have been revealed, and then everyone, having met their Maker, will surely know that he exists. Except in this case, they'll be having no dealings with him. So we see a split here. God can be hidden (and you may or may not have dealings with him [in the way that every good Christian ought to have dealings with God every day at every moment]), or God can be revealed, but you still have no dealings with him. So we see that this hiddenness of God is a lot more than just either knowing God directly (ie, without having faith), or having dealings with him. The 2 don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. A break-down might be helpful here:
living unregenerate humans: hidden, no dealings
living humans in good standing: (mostly) hidden, dealings
angels (good or fallen): revealed, dealings
angels (fallen, after the end of the world): revealed, no dealings
dead unregenerate humans: revealed, no dealings
dead saved humans: revealed, dealings
Now I want to back up a little here. In the previous paragraph I said, "... knowing God directly (ie, without having faith)". But this is a problem, because I define faith as "direct knowledge". I don't necessarily limit this to religious faith, and I say this because I don't really see any difference between religious faith and faith in general. Earlier on this page (in the first question) I mentioned faith in the law of cause and effect as perhaps the preeminent example of faith. Why do we believe in cause and effect? We just do. It's impossible to see the world in any other way. But we can't really give reasons for why we believe this. At some point you have to throw up your hands and confess that you believe on faith. This isn't so bad. Everything is like this. You can give reasons for belief in all sorts of things, but in the end, the explanations and reasons come to an end, you can't go any further, and that's when you hit the wall -- of faith. After all, we have to start somewhere. So we start with our fundamental axioms. It doesn't get more fundamental than that. These are things that you just grasp directly -- thus, I define faith as "direct knowledge". There's nothing intervening (no reasons or chain of reasoning) between it and your conclusion.
So why did I earlier make an (implied) distinction between faith (ie, direct knowledge, in this case, in God) and directly knowing God, as when we'll meet him face-to-face when we'll be judged by him at death, and then he'll no longer be hidden, but revealed? Why, even to the person of faith (unless they've had a mystical experience) do I say that God is hidden from them? If they know God directly by faith, why do we still say God is hidden?
Some may accuse me of faulty reasoning, but I refuse to concede that. I think something more interesting is going on here. I don't take back either my definition of faith, or my admittance that God not only appears hidden, but is indeed hidden.
For one thing, even the bible makes this distinction. The Apostle Paul says, "... hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" (Rom 8:24) On the other hand, St James says, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe -- and shudder!" (Jas 2:19) So I think this is a good biblical summary of the problem that I'm talking about. As I said before, I don't think there's any contradiction. And I'm not even talking about belief in God as having a (good) relationship with him, but simply intellectual assent to the propositional statement that God exists. I'm saying that the way Satan knows God exists, Satan who stands before God day and night and accuses the brethren (Rv 12:10), is different from the way I know God exists, even though my faith is direct knowledge of God.
This is clearly seen in the fact that God is the object of my hope and longing, just as St Paul explained in the verse from Romans. I must be content with watching and waiting. The closest I can get to him in this life is through communion. Even that requires faith, since he's hidden under the species of bread and wine. But if Jesus were to come back today, or if I were to die and go to heaven, I would have what I was waiting and hoping for all this time. The 2 feelings are quite distinct!
I think I can link this to another topic: the difference between knowing and experiencing. And then afterwards I think I might be able to link this to the difference between reality and virtual reality. It appears to me that there's a world of difference between knowing and experiencing. This may seem obvious, and it is, but there's a lot more to it than what's obvious.
A simple example is the difference between trying to imagine what it'd be like to have a kid, and actually having a kid. Even though we've all had experiences with children, and even though we've all been children ourselves, for some reason, just trying to imagine what it feels like to have a kid in order to know what it's like to have a kid isn't going to work. I think even if you have a powerful imagination, it's still not going to feel the same as when you actually have your first kid. What's interesting about this example is that the knowing (or what might better be called the experiencing) is really in the knowing. What?! Whatever could I mean? That sounds like total nonsense. Let me explain.
I'd like to contrast this with a different, and even simpler example. What does it feel like to swim? Would it be appropriate to learn how to swim from a book? Of course not! In this case, it's quite apparent why this wouldn't work. Words can never describe what it's actually like to try to float and propel yourself through water if you've never tried it before.
This is quite different from our first example about having a kid. Having a kid requires no physical sensations or experiences. Let's say your wife announces that she's pregnant. I'm pretty darn sure that afterwards your life will never be the same. However, nothing in your direct physical experience has changed. If she hadn't told you anything, you would never have known. But somehow just knowing this information is enough for you to really feel it, to experience it. This is why I say that the knowing (the experiencing) is in the knowing. You can't know how something feels until it happens to you, but oftentimes this experiencing is really based on nothing but knowledge, having acquired some new piece of knowledge. And this experiencing can't be faked. This is why you can't just imagine or pretend what it'd be like to have a kid. Imagining your wife announcing her pregnancy and actually hearing your wife making this announcement cannot be compared. But it's kind of strange because while a person who has never swum truly has no idea of what it's like to be in the water, you can at least imagine your wife telling you that she's pregnant, and if you know your wife well, you might even be able to predict how she would choose to make this big announcement. And yet, you'll never really be able to fully feel what it'd be like unless it actually happens. That is, you have to really believe that it's true. Really believing that something's true, and imagining that something's true, are two totally different things.
You could say the same thing for imagining what it'd be like for a loved one to die. You can imagine it and even fear it, but until it really happens, you're not going to be able to fully feel your new reality minus your loved one. Even if you've already lost a parent, that's not going to really let you know what it'd be like to lose your spouse.
Let's take a more contrived example. Let's say a man gets the opportunity to sleep with either a beautiful woman or a sex doll. The real woman isn't allowed to move or have any kind of reaction, and the man is blindfolded so he can't tell the difference between them. (Conversely, we could allow the doll to move [realistically] and moan and what have you instead.) Assume also that the sex doll is so realistic that he can't tell just by touch that it's a sex doll. So now we send the man in and -- what's his experience? Probably a lot will have to do with what we tell him beforehand about what he can expect. It doesn't really matter so much who or what he's having sex with, but what he thinks or thinks he knows about who or what he's having sex with. It's very artificial and contrived thought experiments like this that are most helpful in separating knowledge and experience. In this example, the actual physical experience is exactly the same, but what the man knows (if we tell him the truth) or thinks he knows (if we lie to him), is going to greatly influence his perception of that experience. That is, his epistemic knowledge and belief is going to have an influence on his subjective experience of his objective experience. So we see that much of experience lies in something so intangible as knowing and believing.
So I liken this to faith in God. Even though faith is direct knowledge, we see that there's 2 types of knowing. Going back to the sex doll example, let's say we don't tell the man what kind of experience he's going to have -- to the day he dies he'll wonder if it was a real woman or a sex doll. So where would that put him? I think it'd forever leave him stuck in the land of knowing-but-not-really, which might really tear him apart if we add that this potentially real woman was the woman of his dreams. In such a case, being reassured that even if it was just a doll, at least it can be guaranteed that the experience was an exact replica of what it would really be like would be little comfort.
So what to call these 2 types of knowing? I'll call the first one abstract and the second concrete. I could give them all sorts of names, but these 2 names seem the most suitable to me. Now to link this up with reality/virtual reality. I see a similarity. It's almost as if abstract knowing is like virtual reality and concrete knowing is like real life. And I wonder if this might explain the differences we see between the two. But I'll leave this for the Reality page.
Anyways, a few more observations on the hiddenness of God. First, it's interesting that in a way, this distinction between abstract and concrete knowing is not the most important thing. I mean, it's not the most important thing compared to having faith (in the religious sense). This is because in the end, everyone will have concrete knowledge and belief in God, but that's not the determining factor in whether a soul gains eternal life or not. So even though concrete knowledge is what the believer seeks after the most, it's what they already have, faith, that in a way is their most prized possession. And yet, faith is never satisfied with just hoping. It seeks its object, the manifestation of its hope. So we see that trying to order these 2 according to importance is very difficult, because each is important in its own way. (By the way, if you want to look at this in the framework of the UQ, you have:
religious faith -- spiritual
intellectual assent -- physical
abstract knowledge -- spiritual
concrete knowledge -- physical.) And as with all things in the UQ, you can't really say which is more important than the other. Yes, you can say which comes first (see the UQ page to see what I mean by "first"), but there's no hierarchy between the elements in a dichotomy. Furthermore, you can have religious faith with no concrete knowledge, and you can have intellectual assent with concrete knowledge, but be lacking in religious faith, although intellectual assent in itself can be limited to just having abstract knowledge. (You can compare this with the other breakdown I did earlier in this question comparing angels and humans.)
Now let's look at the atheist. And here we come full circle (you'll soon see why). If an atheist truly believes in God (please see the Atheism page for why I have a hard time believing there's such a thing as a true atheist; if you can agree with me, please continue), and yet still denies him, what's the use of saying that God is hidden at least in part in order to test us? So I started off by saying that God is hidden in order that it would require faith to seek him out and believe him, but it seems that everyone already believes in him -- it's just that some people claim not to believe in him, and they use God's hiddenness as an excuse for why their claim is justified. So is God hiding just to provide these atheists with an excuse? As it says in II Thes 2:11-12, "God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Here we see the difference between an atheist and a fallen angel, though they're essentially in the same camp. They both deny God, but in different ways. The fallen angel's rejection of God is explicit -- the demon knows that God exists and cannot deny this, while the atheist rejects God fooling themself into thinking that this is the most reasonable claim. The demon doesn't have this ready excuse. But now the question is, why does God provide the atheist with an excuse, but not the fallen angel? To put it another way, why does God demand faith from humans, but not angels? The good angels have chosen to serve God and don't need to have faith the way we humans do. But we humans aren't so fortunate. To further complicate things, our first parents didn't require faith either, since they had ready access and communion with God, and yet they chose to reject him anyway. So we've come full circle. Though we've learned a lot in attempting to answer this question, we find that the question has just gotten deeper as a result. It's pretty frustrating.
Now to go back to the original question (ie, why doesn't God tell us specifics about the divine plan), the first thought that comes to my mind is that it's simply not our business. Though we'd all like to satisfy our curiosity, as Nm says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (29:29) The point of this life, and our primary motivation, is to do the Lord's will and please him, and he has already told us everything we need to know to fulfill this requirement. Everything else is superfluous.
Secondly, and to develop the previous idea further, not only is God and the divine plan as a whole something to be accepted by faith, but every step of our lives. So God doesn't tell us everything he has planned for us. Rather, through trust in God, prayer and experience, we're to discern his will little by little. Not only does this require and develop our faith, but it makes our lives truly our own, in that we get to choose how our lives unfold.
Here I'd like to tie this theme in with the topic of what I call God's perfect will and his manifested will. (You can see a more concreted example of this from the bible 3 questions down.) The question is -- Is God's plan set, or not? Does the future exist as a fact, or as potential possibilities? Like so many things about the Christian faith, the bible, and the UQ, you have this tension between the two. On one hand, God's will is always done -- on the other, even God talks as if things could be otherwise. The first example of this is when God prevents Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Life, "... lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever --" (Gn 3:22) -- you can see that God shudders at the thought. But the examples continue all throughout the bible, a particularly dramatic instance being as when God was about to destroy the Israelites after their rebellion with the golden calf were it not for Moses' intercession. And even Jesus says (which is quite scary), "... false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." (Mt 24:24) (You can read more about this potentiality, especially as it relates to prayer, under the Prayer page.) So if the divine plan is hidden from us, perhaps that means that it is indeed in a way hidden, in that, the future isn't really here until it comes.
An example: Jesus often did things purposely to fulfill prophecy, but does this mean that the prophets who came before Jesus were prophesying things that wouldn’t have happened had Jesus not intentionally fulfilled them? I had always thought of prophecies as Greek oracles: they happen without you trying to fulfill them, often without you even knowing it, and no matter what you do to avoid their fulfillment. (Mt 2:23, 4:13-14, Jn 18:7-9, 19:28)
Something we share with the angels, although to what extent I can't say, is our ignorance of the divine plan. While the angels don't require faith to believe in God, and though they "see" God all the time, angels, like us, don't know everything about the divine plan. I'm sure there's many times that they don't know why God has decided this or that course of action, yet they follow his instructions and obey him on faith. And will we ever be omniscient? I don't think so. But if that's so, then some kind of faith will always be required of us, even into eternity.
After having moved on from this question, I just made another connection today. I was thinking in terms of the judgment. You remember earlier how I quoted Paul in II Thes 2:11-12 ("Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.") You also remember how I said the atheist uses the hiddenness of God as an excuse to justify their unbelief. I'd like to point out here that this same mechanism (of unbelief and its rationalization) is behind every temptation in life, and how this raises the question: if the delusion merely serves as an excuse (being no excuse at all in reality), then why the excuse? What purpose does it serve? Why does the delusion work so well on the unbeliever? Let's take someone who loses their faith because of the bad example of a hypocritical religious person (pedophile priests for example). What excuse will they (the victims) have at the judgment? On one hand, it's true that that hypocrite played a role in the person losing their faith. Jesus himself said, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin." (Lk 17:1-2) But the ultimate responsibility for every sin lies within each sinner. "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand." (Ezk 3:18) So we see that they have no excuse, since they still die for their iniquity. Nevertheless, I can see how being molested or raped by a priest could serve as a "strong delusion". I mean, this is a man who's supposed to represent God, right? And he didn't do a good job of representing God. And therefore it's easy to blame God. Sure, it's not completely logical, but it can sure feel right when you've been so thoroughly violated. What makes this example so especially tragic and ironic is that the victim ends up victimizing themself, by allowing the wrongdoing of another, even wrongdoing perpetrated against oneself, to drag them (the victim) down with them (the predators). So the end result (losing faith) is even worse than what got them down there in the first place (being the victim of a priest's faithlessness).
Or say a person believes lies or gossip or propaganda, none of which happens to be true. It was wrong of the liars to lie, but everyone has their own responsibility to find out and sort out what's true from all the lies out there. If you believe the lie, you're in partnership with the liar.
Jdgs 2:20-22 Why should he test them, seeing that they had already proven themselves sinful?
This is quite related to the immediately previous question, I mean, the last part, where I come to the conclusion that I don't really know why faith is required. You can see the similarities between the Judges quote and the one from II Thes. In II Thes we have a strong delusion, while in Judges we have the Canaanites as God's instrument of testing. But in both cases, the "results" of the test are already known -- in II Thes, God already knows who the unrighteous are, and in Judges, God already knows that the people are corrupt. Other than for the purpose of manifesting our sinfulness to us, as it says in Ezekiel, "Whether they hear or refuse to hear -- for they are a rebellious house -- they will know that a prophet has been among them" (2:5), (which we might call the "utilitarian" reason), what would the "essential" reason be?
A good example: Why would God say they might turn back from their evil deeds, when God is omniscient and already knew since forever that they would not turn back? (Jer 26:3, 7:27, pattern seen in 7:1-29 — God tells the people to repent [implying that they can repent] [vv 1-7], he accuses them & prophesies their punishment [meaning that they will not repent, as a fact] [vv 8-15], God tells Jeremiah not to even bother praying for the people, b/c He won’t listen [vv 16-20])
Why didn't God tell Joshua before he killed the 36 men that there were devoted things among them? Why does he wait around until people are killed? (Jos 7:13)
Again, very related to the previous 2 questions, but in this case, we have a concrete example. What if God pointed out to us every time we sinned that we had screwed up and better get back on track? No doubt, some people still wouldn't care, as when Cain disregarded God's warning, but for many of us, this would take faith out of the equation. If God told a sexually abusive priest every time he was tempted to watch out, probably a lot more would-be abusers would take heed, but then would they be taking heed because they really wanted to do the will of God, or merely out of fear? But a part of faith is to have your own fear of the Lord.
What did God mean that he was planning on establishing Saul's throne for all time? (I Sm 13:13) No he wasn't. First, that's not what he did, and God's divine plan was ordained before time began and second, it would falsify the prophecy of the Messiah coming from the tribe of Judah. (Gn 49:10)
(See 3 questions up [end of question] where this is addressed.)
It just occurred to me that I think God was really telling the truth when he said that he was planning to establish Saul's throne forever. Although it's true that God has his divine plan which is irrevocable, that doesn't mean that other potential realities don't exist. That is to say, if Saul really had pleased God, instead of disobeying him, things really would have also turned out different. He could have chosen this alternate reality, but didn't. But it was really there for him to choose. Some may say that this alternate reality, since it's not in God's plan, is just an illusion. If one takes this view, they have to also say that we have no free will. So this is a paradox, because the Christian must maintain God's sovereignty but our free will as well, and this is done by saying that the alternate reality is real, not an illusion. So in a way God really does react to our choices. God had a Plan A, but because of sin, he ends up going with Plan B instead.
Mk 6:48 What does it mean "he meant to pass by them"? If God always has his way, why would he not have been able to pass by them? And why would the Son's will be different from the Father's? And if the Son wanted them to go to Bethsaida, why did the Father send them to Gennesaret? (Mk 6:45, 53 & ESV note on v 53 -- "The northeasterly wind had caused the ship to drift southwestward, bringing them to Gennesaret instead of their intended destination of Bethsaida.")
I can only say that this must be due to Christ's dual human and divine natures. The passage indicates that Jesus could have the human "whim" of wanting to pass by his disciples, but could have this whim "redirected" if the Father so indicated. So we see how very human Jesus lived his earthly life. Similarly, you could even attribute this difference in wills not merely to the difference between his human and divine natures, but to the fact that the first and second persons of the Trinity are different persons. We can see this in other examples in the Gospels, such as in the Garden of Gethsemane, where it's plain that Jesus would have preferred not to drink the cup that this Father was giving him to drink, and also in more mundane matters, as when Jesus was tired from all his ministering to the people and needed a break, either to eat or sleep.
I think it's a really weird story about king Joash of Israel and Elisha and the arrows. How could God have managed the world's affairs according to the number of times a man struck the ground with arrows? How could God have used something so arbitrary to overthrow a whole kingdom? Wouldn't Syria's doom be due to their own goodness or evil? And I don't think that God could have totally left such a big decision in the hands of a mere mortal. Doesn't God see to it that all things follow his own will? So then why even give Joash a “chance” to vanquish his enemy if it wasn't really an opportunity to make an actual free-will decision? (That is, God already decided that Syria would be defeated, then caused Joash to choose according to his (God’s) own will, while making it seem that Joash had a say in the matter.) How could Elisha have gotten mad at Joash for not beating the ground more times if he really had no say in the matter, but was only working out the will of God? How could he have been blamed for not beating the ground 5 or 6 times if it was not the Lord's will? And then wouldn't God be controlling Joash's actions by making him work out his plan for Syria and the world by causing him to only beat the ground three times? (II Kgs 13:15-19)
How can Paul say that all things work together for the good of those who love God, when he also says that there will be some who will be saved, but only as through fire? The first is an ideal, the second is just passing, describing one who has fallen short of God's standards, so how can it be said that in such a person's life all things worked together for their good? (Rom 8:28)
If Jesus’ hour had not yet come, why did he obey his mother? Then wouldn’t he be breaking God’s plan? (Jn 2:3-11)
A difficult question, but at least we can see the usefulness of asking even when God says not to.
A similar example: Why would God tell Ezekiel to use human dung rather than cow dung if he knew that he would allow Ezekiel to use the cow dung after he asked him? OR, to flip the question, why would God listen to Ezekiel if what he wanted was for him to use human dung? (Ezk 4:12-15)
But I'd like to point out the difference, and how each question is striking in its own way. In the first example, Jesus point blank tells his mother that it's not God's will that he do a miracle at that time. His mother basically tells him otherwise. This is amazing because Mary is "rewriting" the divine plan. In the second example, it's God himself who issues a command, but backs down when Ezekiel protests. Why protest a commandment of God, though?
I really don’t get what it says in Jdgs 2:20-22. Basically, God gave two reasons for why he wouldn’t drive out the original inhabitants of the land for Israel. First, it’s to punish them for leaving him, and second, to test them to see if they would leave him or not. Obviously, this doesn’t make any sense, since he already knew that they had already left him, and without him testing them. Now what’s up with that?
There's another example of this in Isaiah (3:1-15) Notice in my outline that I give this section the heading: Since Your Leaders are Evil, I Will Give You Bad Leaders. We see here how things work in a vicious cycle. While unfortunate and ironic, we see that this is true for all things in life. If someone doesn't have enough money to buy something, whether they need it or not, what will they often do? Go into debt. And then how are they going to pay that off if they couldn't even pay for the first thing? They can't. So then they get into more debt. The cycle continues, as senseless as it is, all the while the person feeling more and more helpless, which in fact, is true. So if the Israelites got bad leaders as a punishment from God for their bad leaders, is this really something inflicted upon them by God? In a sense, yes, since all things come from God, and we see explicitly that this was God's plan, but in another way, no, the Israelites were just inflicting bad leaders on themselves. Trouble always begets more trouble.
*human effect on the divine plan - Prv 24:17-18
*the divine plan in potentiality - Jer 36:3, 7:27, 16, 11:14, 14:11, Ezk 12:3, Jl 2:14, Am 5:15
*the divine plan & prayer - Mt 24:20, Mk 13:18, 14:35-36
*God preparing evil - Zech 11:16-17 (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering)
*good & evil under God - Jb 12:16, Prv 15:3, Eccl 7:14 (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering)
*verses that point indirectly to fate - Ezk 30:12
*how God runs the show - Mt 12:27, Lk 11:48
*God's ideal will & manifested will - Lk 7:30
*God reversing the way of the world - I Cor 1:20-21, 24
If it is God’s desire that none should perish (Ezk 18:23, II Pt 3:9), and his will is always fulfilled, why do many perish? (Mt 7:13) Or to put it another way: Compare Ezk 6:9-10 vs Rv 9:20-21 Why is it that sometimes people repent and sometimes they don’t?
This is a good example of the "clash" between fate and free will, or the divine plan and individual (in this case, human) choice. I say "clash" because I'm sure from God's perspective, there is no clash -- it's just a clash to us because we don't understand it. It is indeed God's will that none should perish, but let's consider -- if it were true that none perish, then what would that mean for free will? Would it really be free? Unhelpfully, I can see it from both sides, the side that says "yes" and the side that says "no". "Yes" because even in this reality where some people choose for God and some against, even the ones who choose for him cannot do so except by the inspiration and conviction of the Holy Spirit, the grace and election of the Father, and the sacrifice of and forgiveness from the Son. However, this doesn't mean that God "overpowered" them or somehow manipulated their free will -- they really did choose. And God respects and graciously accepts their choice.
But I can also say that the answer is "no", because, by way of analogy, just as if you found a coin that always landed on heads, no matter what, no matter the conditions it's subjected to, would you think that that was normal? (Check out a scene from the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in which we see just how eerie this exact scenario is. It's as if they stepped into some kind of probability vortex. That's the feeling I get.) In the same way, if everyone went to heaven, would that not be a cause of some concern that there was some kind of divine manipulation involved? On one hand, I'm not sure that anyone would complain (in a sense, how could they, if it's true that they had been manipulated into it?), but on the other, could not a hypothetical outside observer complain that there had been a violation of free will, and even worse, that that actually rendered everyone's choice null and void, and that this in turn meant that we were not truly living spirits but rather automatons?
Now to play devil's advocate, I can actually think of a way around this problem. In The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, the author says that "in a random series of 10 to the power 1,000,007 zeroes and ones, you should expect at least 10 non-overlapping subsequences of a million consecutive zeroes." Well, that's an awful long string of 0s and 1s, a lot more than there's ever been humans on this earth, but it shows that given a large enough set, it seems that you can pull anything out of it. But even though it's unrealistic, let's assume for the sake of argument that the same mechanism can be applied by God to humans. Except he decides that the beginning of this string of humans destined for heaven will start with the very first human, and the end of the string will end with the very last human created. So he just conveniently snips off the fluff and then claims that he got everyone into heaven without violating anyone's free will.
Or could God even change the rules of randomness? That is, as I said earlier, even though I was trying to play devil's advocate, I had to admit that the above scenario is very contrived and doesn't actually match the parameters specified by the mathematician George Spencer-Brown, but who says that God couldn't "set up" randomness so that you could pull whatever you wanted out of it from a much smaller set? But am I going way too far here in playing devil's advocate? Now I'm starting to pose the daring question -- What is randomness? How do you determine what's random? Is anything truly random? And most importantly, while randomness exists to us, does it exist to God? Scary questions indeed. However, these questions more appropriately belong in the Math section (not the section on Randomness [I know, it's confusing]), so I'll address these later when I get to it. However, it was worth mentioning in order to get a true scope of this issue.
Now before I continue, I just realized that I'm going on and on about randomness without really justifying why I see our original question in these terms. I first mentioned it by way of analogy, but I actually see it as much more than that. I know we didn't even define our terms (in this case, "randomness"), but leaving that aside (or rather, to the Math section), randomness, in the framework of the UQ (which is my framework for everything) is physical, and order/deliberation is spiritual. (Actually, this is one of those flippable dichotomies, but I won't go into that here. For the purposes of this discussion, random = physical, imposed order = spiritual.) So in God's respect for our free will (which in this case is physical, ie, human will is physical [though this is also a flippable dichotomy], God's will being spiritual, he must also respect nature (which is physical), and that means he must respect randomness. However, this randomness imposes no constraint on his own will. "What?!" you say. "That's a contradiction!" Not so. As with all things in the UQ (and that's everything), we know that the physical and spiritual perfectly overlap, without doing any violence to each other. So God can still work his sovereign will while still respecting natural forces, such as randomness.
So why do I believe this? How did I reach this conclusion? Just look at the world, at how natural it is. Think of human generation. Surely, God has planned each individual and designed them personally. But look at how he does it! Through randomness! Why do you think that men produce and ejaculate so much sperm? Because you need that many (naturally speaking) in order to impregnate a woman. Could God make it so that the man only needs one spermatozoon to hazard a treacherous voyage to the awaiting egg? Sure, divinely speaking. But that would be what we call a miracle. And we know that God, in his own wisdom, for reasons known only to himself, has reserved such things for only special occasions. The rest of the time, God works with and through nature. But does that mean that we're all accidents? By no means! God creates every spermatozoon, and he directs each one, including the lucky one that hits the jackpot.
Then does this mean that it's all a show, all the other millions of sperm, just to make it look like God's respecting nature and randomness, but actually, they're all just props and he really only cares about that one that makes it all the way? But then God would be a liar, a deceiver! No, God really does use randomness for his own purposes. Of course, this is all a mystery, this interface between the physical and spiritual, but then, it wouldn't be the Ultimate Question, would it?
So now to refute my earlier argument when I was playing devil's advocate (if I haven't already done so). It seems to me that while Spencer-Brown may be right about all these paradoxical consecutive 0s, I'm only willing to concede that he's right in the abstract. In the real world, if we were to test this empirically (which is humanly impossible given the enormity of 10 to the 1,000,007th power, unless, perhaps, they came up with quantum computing, which I somehow doubt) I posit that there's a limit to how long a consecutive string could get. Now this in itself is somewhat audacious to claim, since the natural question to ask next is "OK, how do we determine that number?", which is an interesting question in itself, especially given that I think that would have to be determined mathematically/rationally, when I just said that the whole point of this would be to perform an empirical test. So given that it's my hunch that such a method and its resulting answer can probably only be determined mathematically, and since I'm no mathematician, I'm going to have to leave it at that. You say, "How convenient", but not so fast. While I realize that coming up with such a number is one step away from grappling with questions of infinity (since we have no idea, as of now, where to put an end to this supposedly finite string of 0s (so I'm saying it does have an end, I just don't know where, which in some people's estimation might be no better than conceding infinity [never mind that we were talking about 10 to the power 1,000,007, which is definitely not infinite], though mathematicians would definitely disagree with these people, since they're always talking in this sort of very unhelpful and frustrating abstract manner [ie, say some mathematical object exists, but give no other specifics]), I do have my reasons for making this audacious claim.
First, I'd like to clarify this distinction between the abstract and empirical. Something may very well exist in the abstract, and yet not in the real world. For example (and there are many), you can divide anything infinitely (mathematically, that is, abstractly), but in the real (physical) world, since nothing physical can be infinite, we must start with some kind of finite building block (the atoms of Democritus). Right away, some people are going to totally disagree with this, which made me hesitant to use this as an example, but I still think it's the example par excellence, so if you'd like to argue, I'll cover this elsewhere (I think a good place would be in the Epistemology/Faith section).
So something a bit less controversial: imaginary and complex numbers (although no longer controversial [except among the minority of intuitionists], they were once controversial, as were irrational numbers, negative numbers, higher dimensions, infinity (according to Wittgenstein), and I suppose even the number 0, which was actually discovered, unlike the number 1). However, it turns out, somewhat disturbingly (I can actually partially see things from the intuitionist's point-of-view), that so many calculations come out so nicely, and even more amazingly, are actually manifested and corroborated in the real world. So real life vindicates abstract truth. (I'll cover this issue in more detail in the Math section.)
So that's the background to my claim. Indeed, since, as I said earlier, it's impossible to empirically test such a claim given the enormity of the numbers involved, I guess I have to concede that such a claim ultimately rests on faith (and empirical experience, which I'll go into in just a bit). But is that so bad? Not really, given that everything is based on faith (more on this in the Epistemology/Faith section). This is like when they say that given an infinite (or enough) amount of time, a monkey could type out the complete works of Shakespeare on a typewriter, and not only the complete works of Shakespeare, but everything else that has ever been written, ever been said, and that could possibly be written or said. Again, I think I can concede this in some kind of abstract, pure, probabilistic world, but not in this world. Likewise, if you were to flip a coin an infinite number of times, no, I don't think you'd get huge, monster strings of heads (or tails). It seems to me that some kind of entropic force would keep this from happening. After all, that's why miracles are miracles -- because while in the abstract world, miracles can happen, in the real world under entropy, they just don't, except by supernatural cause (which is the definition of a miracle.) A very simple textbook example is a partitioned box filled with a gas (in one compartment). (diagram here) There's a little slit in the partition so that the gas in the one compartment can seep into the other. So what happens? The box (or rather the gas) reaches a state of equilibrium in which the gas molecules are pretty much evenly divided between the 2 compartments. This is all due to entropy, in which systems "try", or rather naturally like to fall into a more disordered and less energetic state. So in this case, that's exactly what the gas is doing. Being on just one side of the box requires too much effort (energy) and too much "planning" (order). It just wants to be lazy so the molecules will float off in a random fashion to take up as much space as it can. Kind of like the parting of the Red Sea. The Red Sea wants to fill up as much space as it can. The only way it's going to stand up like a wall on either side of a path right through the middle of it is if God puts in the effort and planning to make that happen. We call that a miracle. Likewise with our classic textbook example, the molecules are not going to decide that they want to stay on just one side of the box. If they did, well, the probability of that happening would be so minute that lacking any other kind of naturalistic example, we'd have to call that a miracle. So you see that in the abstract, the configuration in which all the gas molecules just happen to all be on one side of the box and stay on one side of the box can happen -- it is indeed one of the configurations of all the possible configurations, but it's just never going to happen in real life.
I think the same mechanism is at work with coin flipping. In the abstract world, sure, you can calculate the probability of getting monster strings out of some ridiculously gigantic number, but in the real world, entropy is going to dramatically cut down on those monster strings, in fact, I think to the point that they just wouldn't exist. So there you have it -- my refutation of my argument as devil's advocate. And so I think it stands that God must (or chooses to) respect nature and randomness, and all that this entails, including allowing free will full rein to run its course.
So I thought that's all I had to say on this, but I'll pick up this question because I was discussing this with a philosophy buddy and we came across some good thought experiments, and some conclusions (or rather, more mysteries) therefrom.
I applied the coin flipping analogy to a wider context -- in fact, as wide as you can get -- it was the most extreme case imaginable. I did this on the pretext that true freedom would require that people have absolutely no reasons, preferences or biases when making a decision. For example, if you come from a family of gangsters, you are quite likely to become a gangster yourself. If you come from a family of priests and religious, than you are more likely than average to become a priest or religious. If you prefer vanilla over chocolate, this is probably due more to genetic factors than because of environmental ones. There's many kinds of preferences and biases out there, all leading to one having reasons for what one chooses to do, think and believe. Well, let's imagine a world where there are no pre-set or pre-programmed preferences or influences -- you're just completely, really free to create yourself into whatever you want. Now I realize this in itself presents problems, which we'll get to, but for right now just hold on and assume that this is even possible. What I want you to do is to imagine the world works just like a coin, a perfectly unbiased coin. So, for example, in this world (the real world) most people get married, and most people get married because they feel they have reasons and a preference to do so. But in the 50/50 World (which is what I christened my thought experiment, not that everything in it is really 50/50, but rather 1/n, n being the number of possibilities for any particular "free will" [or not] decision), in the 50/50 World, since in this case we're talking about a the free will decision to get married or not, that's 2 choices, so 1/2, half the people are going to go one way and half the people the other, so half the people would get married, and half the people would remain single. After all, if the world and free will really functioned like a coin, since there would be no preferences, everything would be random, every decision would be truly unshackled, truly free, and so there would be no bias towards marriage, as we see in this world.
Now even though I haven't unpacked all the ramifications of the 50/50 World, I'm going to unload another thought experiment on you, what I call the 100% World. The 100% World means that there's absolutely no impediments, limitations or restrictions on what you can attain. (100% here means you get 100% of everything you want, and whenever you want.) This is necessary to consider because as I was discussing with my philosophy buddy, free will consists of 2 components, the inner and the outer, or the subjective and objective, or desire and attainability. Take a poor, uneducated immigrant. Can they become a successful lawyer? It's possible. It's not on the same level of impossibility as a pig flying (and I'm not talking about taking a pig on board a plane). But it's unlikely. In fact, it's so unlikely that it's practically impossible. I'm not saying poor, uneducated immigrants never become successful lawyers -- undoubtedly in a world of 7.4 billion people, it's bound to happen, but if we take our immigrant, the one under consideration, it's close to impossible. This is sad but true. Likewise, not every woman can be married to a billionaire, nor can every man be married to a supermodel. It's sad but true. That's our world. But in the 100% World, there's no such barriers or impossibilities. Whatever you want is attainable, and immediately so. It's truly God-like. Yes, I'm taking the argument to the extreme. So we've taken the ability to desire to the limit (the 50/50 World), and we've taken attainability to the limit (the 100% World, where there are no limits). Again, there's problems with this thought experiment as well, but we'll get to that later.
First I want to explain this inner/outer, subjective/objective, desire/attainability dichotomy. If a man wants to commit adultery but finds that he is unable to do so, can we say that this man is not an adulterer? Though he hasn't actually committed adultery, could he not be considered an adulterer? So we find free will works the same way. There's the actual volition part, and then there's the ability to carry out your wish. Though on paper we can make this kind of clear-cut separation, in real-life things are unfortunately not so simple. Let's go back to the would-be gangster from the gangster family. Why does the would-be gangster feel that he must be a gangster? Because that's all he's ever seen and so the world of what's possible (in his mind) is quite narrow. In this sense, if this person becomes a gangster, we can't blame them, because you can't control what kind of family or socioeconomic background you're born into. Nevertheless, in the case of this poor unfortunate soul, attainability has impinged itself on volition. People take what they can get, and they do what (they think) is the best for themselves. Here the issue of relativity is introduced, an important component in (the real-world) of free will decision-making, but you can read more about this on the Relativity page. Suffice it to say for now that most people with more options would not willingly choose to be a gangster. Rich people have more options and more freedom than poor people. This is sad but true.
However, I wonder if this disparity is of any real consequence. I say this from a Christian perspective. Is it harder for a poor person to reach heaven, or a rich person? From a worldly perspective, it would seem that the poor person has it harder. Poor people live in environments rife with crime, lack of resources, leading to all sorts of temptations to fight, cut corners, do shady things, and basically act like a dog in a dog-eat-dog world. But Jesus actually said that it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (Mt 19:24). And indeed, wealth, and the desire for it, comes with its own temptations, which Jesus is implying are nearly insurmountable to resist. And though I'm going a bit off topic here, I wonder if the same goes for any other kind of (material) blessing, be it good looks, intelligence, fame, connections, etc.
So as I was saying, to me, what I really care about is the volition part of this equation, since what you desire is far more open (wider) than what you can actually attain, even than what you admit to yourself that you can realistically attain. It's this wider world that I think is more important and of greater consequence than the world of limitations and set-backs. In this sense, what's in your head and heart is more real than the contingencies you face. This is the real self.
So now back to the 50/50 World. First, it seems artificial. In fact, there's something eerie about it. I can't help but think of the movie Coraline (if you've seen it, great -- you know what I'm talking about, if not, don't worry -- I could link to the trailer, but it doesn't really do justice to what I'm trying to get at here.) The 50/50 World is the true existentialist's paradise -- the ability to create your own reality any way you see fit. But isn't that kind of creepy if everyone did everything based on randomness, which in this case, means the same thing as nothing? So 2 things here: 1)it seems that in our attempt make a more free world, a completely free world, by getting rid of all biases, preferences and "pre-programming", we've actually made the world less free, in fact, completely unfree. If you were to ask the people in this world why they decided on anything, they'd just say, "Cuz I felt like it", and then you'd ask, "Well, why did you feel like it?" and they would just keep saying, "Cuz I felt like it." Biologically, these people would be alive, but it would seem that their souls were gone. 2)it also seems that in our attempt to understand free will by imaging this alternate world, we've actually come full circle, that is, we can only settle on the conclusion that we can't really even say what free will is. Might this be one of those indefinables (see the first question on the Metaphysics page) -- you recognize it when you see it, but can't describe or articulate exactly what it is? I say this because whether it's the real world or the 50/50 World, you hit rock bottom at some point and can't say why someone has chosen one way or the other. In this world, we say, "I did such and such because of blah, blah, blah." But if you keep asking, "And why did you do that?" eventually you'll come to something similar or equivalent to "Cuz I felt like it." So the only real difference between the real world and our experimental one is that in this world you have a bunch of intervening reasons before you get to the mysterious "Cuz I felt like it", whereas in the 50/50 World you just cut to the chase. What you're left with is merely the feeling that this world is the free one, and the 50/50 World, though ostensibly freer, is actually not. Philosophically and intellectually speaking however, a mere feeling isn't very satisfying. But I'm afraid that's the best we can do.
As a side note, but of great interest, this reminds me of faith, because everything we believe, we believe on faith. Sure, ask people why they believe blah, blah, blah, but in the end, it all comes down to faith. A more salient example of this is our belief in cause and effect, a particularly relevant example because we must all admit defeat and say that if we believe in cause and effect, we do so on faith. And yet the belief is unshakable. Even if you say you don't believe in cause and effect, you're a hypocrite, because no one can live a normal life without it. Likewise, we can't live without the belief in free will. How else could we hold people responsible for their actions, whether it's in a relationship, keeping order in society, encouraging or dissuading people from following certain courses of action, etc?
Now onto other considerations, not cutting so close to the very nature of free will, but quite damning, nonetheless.
Take the 50/50 World. Since everything in it is as meaningful as a coin flip, everything would be random, and all possibilities would be equally distributed. So we could say that 1/3 would be heterosexual, 1/3 homosexual, and 1/3 bisexual. Not only that, but the period of time that someone would identify with a certain sexual orientation could either be constant, constantly change (either every day, or with each new partner), or fall somewhere else on this spectrum. So that's a problem right there because now we have a classification problem. If you have a hard time understanding why, perhaps my next objection will be helpful. Again, it's a classification problem. Not only is the division between 3 sexual orientations really not enough, now we can't be sure what kind of classifications to use. There's all kinds of bizarre "orientations" out there (though at this point, they get so bizarre that they're generally not called "orientations" but paraphilias -- wow, Wikipedia even has a whole list of them, but I'm not sure if I want to link to that), but it's really amazing how many of them are out there (paraphilias, not paraphiliacs, though I'm sure there's plenty of those too), so in the 50/50 World, they'd all have to be equally represented. But again, you could have a paraphilia for anything, so all possible paraphilias would have to be represented. The 50/50 World was already untenable, but now it's ridiculous, but I'm afraid this is the inevitable conclusion we must draw, if we want to complete our thought experiment. Again, throw in the switching up of time periods (every possible length of time, pattern, number of occurences, etc), and things have become twice as complicated. But that's just the beginning of the classification problem.
Now these classifications start to contradict each other, that is, it's inherently impossible for all classifications to be manifested. Start with the simple division of heterosexuals and homosexuals. The 50/50 World says there's an equal number of both. But let's consider asexuals and non-asexuals. Do we consider this to be another category of orientation, or merely the negation of one? In any case, the 50/50 World still mandates that half of people be asexual and half non-asexual. But we just said that half of the people were heterosexual and half homosexual. This is a rather simple example, but I think you get my drift, that this classification problem applies to everything and therefore we'd have contradictions galore.
Now it's time to explore the problems of the 100% World. Once again, it's about contradictions. Everyone wants different things, and these desires are often opposed to each other. Do we watch his movie or her movie tonight? We can't have it both ways. So the only way the 100% World could have a chance of being feasible is if everyone were to live in their own world. But this presents a problem because surely some people would desire to have other people in the world of their own creation. For example, a typical man might desire to live on an island (or planet) of thousands of beautiful women. And some of these men would want at least some of the women to be real in the sense that they would have their own minds, make their own decisions and not just cater to his every whim because that's how he "programmed"/desired them. But if that were the case, we've come back to the original problem which we solved by separating everyone into their own individual worlds. So the 100% World is also impossible.
Now it occurred to me that while this 100% World is impossible and doesn't exist, in fact, to God, the 100% World is his reality. Remember that I said that with no limitations or hindrances of any kind, the power to attain in the 100% World would be truly God-like. Here we see that what we thought was a mere thought experiment is actually real (for at least one person). So what does this mean? What can we get from this realization? If before I said that the 100% World was unfeasible due to its inherent contradictoriness, how can we say that it exists to God?
First, the 100% World could exist for many people (here, because we're speaking philosophically, "many" just means "2 or more"), but they'd all have to desire the same things. But that right there doesn't seem free, and the whole point of the 100% World was to make things more free. As soon as you introduce one other person (that also has 100% power of attainability), that's where the problems start. This is taken care of for God because he's the only one with 100% power of attainability. Or does he? Wasn't that how we started this question and the whole point of it, that is, if God's will is always done, and his will is that none should perish, why do many perish? As we considered earlier, God could take care of this by making it so that everyone chooses him, but that doesn't sound free. He desires other people in his world, real people, not automatons, and if that's the case, he has to give them their free will. But now we're just repeating ourselves and have come back to the beginning of the question. Can I say that I've answered it? No, but I think I've given you some food for thought. (And you can read even more about this 3 questions down.)
What does it mean that the Holy Spirit would be with John the Baptist from the womb? Would it even matter, since he could "do nothing either good or bad"? (Rom 9:11)
I was just about to skip this question, but you know, a helpful theologizing technique is to universalize the particular, and I don't see why you can't do this even with the bible.
What if everyone is given the Holy Spirit from the very beginning of their existence, some getting more than others, with John the Baptist getting quite a bit more than average? No doubt, some people are chosen and some aren't, and some are naturally good-natured and some aren't. Some of this can be attributed to genes, and some to environment, but are those the only 2 influences? There's also the will (which is actually being influenced and acted upon, but nevertheless, a person's own choice is going to affect their nature and character), and then there's the Holy Spirit.
Now for the second part of the question, what's the use of the Holy Spirit being with someone from the womb? They're just kicking, sucking their thumb and growing, right? How would the Holy Spirit's presence matter?
Why would God not want the disciples to understand what Jesus meant when he said he would be delivered into the hand of men? Again, I think this is too “invasive”. This is all especially strange given that Jesus said, “Let these words sink into your ears.” (Lk 9:44-45)
My first thought is "Isn't this backwards?" It seems to me that it's not that it must be concealed, but that it must be revealed, since no one can be enlightened without God, and yet the way it's worded, it makes it sound like the "default mode" is understanding, and that this had to be actively prevented (by God), when it really seems that it should be the other way around.
"In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." (Eccl 7:14)
(a question about the hiddenness of the divine plan)
Why does God withhold information from us? For example, why does he not let us know when we're going to die, or when others are going to die?
"... so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." The sentiment that God purposely hides things from us in order to test us is growing on me, and this verse just says it outright. A part of me thinks that it makes sense, that of course we have no right to know the divine plan, that of course we're supposed to walk by faith and not by sight (II Cor 5:7), but another part of me thinks that ... there's something about it that's artificial. Which bothers me, because I don't think God is artificial. In fact, I think he must be the least artificial person out there. So I think that to say this all makes sense is oversimplifying it, and to say that there's something artificial about it is really an invitation to dig deeper and find what we can find.
So what do I mean by "artificial"? It means doing things for a reason that's not absolutely necessary. If God does something because it's absolutely necessary, then that's having a real reason. Anything less and there's something arbitrary about it. And in that sense it's artificial, like it seems that there's a reason, but there's really not.
Now let's go back to "absolute necessity", because I'm sure there's going to be people out there, Christians too, who disagree. They like to think that God can do whatever he wants. This is true, but does God do whatever he wants for no reason? Wouldn't that be God doing things randomly? But even more disturbing is God acting thoughtlessly, as if he were an automaton.
So I'm going to go off a side track here, but I think it's appropriate given that the above naturally leads me to this train of thought. So earlier, in the second half of the first question on this page, we considered that God actually lives in the 100% World (or at least as much as he's able to, given that he's given us free will), and is the only being who lives in the 100% World. But do we want to say that God lives in the 50/50 World? But that's what I was alluding to above, that some people (even Christians) want to believe that God also lives in the 50/50 World, that is, they want to give God so much freedom that he can do whatever he wants, even arbitrarily, having no reasons whatsoever other than that he feels like it. Why he feels like it, I don't think they've ever fully thought out. How could you explain this other than by saying that God does things randomly, as a coin flips? Sure, you could say that God's still perfect and perfectly good and that he would never will anything evil, but outside this one parameter, everything would be up for grabs to the Almighty. But, isn't the condition that God always be good and perfect itself an impediment, a hindrance, to complete and total freedom?
So I think I've given ample justification why I think that God does nothing arbitrarily/artificially. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's go into what greater reason he would have for keeping things (above all, the divine plan) hidden from us. I want to go back to the Ecclesiastes quote. The key phrase here is "so that" -- so that we can't find out anything that will be after us. It reminds me of all the books out there that try to bang it into our heads that people, and the experts, are always trying to predict the future, make some claim that they know where things are going, but that this simply can't be done, try as we might, as much as we might think we know. This is equivalent to what the bible's saying here -- that we can't know what will be after us, and that's equivalent to saying that we'll never be able to decipher the divine plan.
Furthermore, I think this is actually yet another version of the perennial question -- why do bad things happen to good people, and it's counterpart -- why do good things happen to bad people? I think the quote is alluding to the fact that things are mixed up in this world -- whether you're good or bad, good and bad things will happen to you. And this is what confuses people. Things aren't clear-cut. Isn't that what the book of Job is all about -- 5 friends duking it out, trying to figure it all out, but neither side can convince the other that they're right? If nothing but good things happened to good people, and nothing but bad things happened to bad people, wouldn't it be so much clearer that there is a God? Not only that, but wouldn't people be so much better behaved? If you always knew, with 100% certainty, that if you did good, you would be rewarded for it (in this life) and likewise, that if you did evil, you would be punished for it (in this life), everyone would shape up immediately. So undoubtedly, things are the way they are (in this real world) so that faith is required, so that God can really test us.
Then why do I still say that there's something artificial about this explanation about the hiddenness of God and the divine plan? I'm not denying that this partially explains it, only that it's not good enough. After all, what about the angels? How are we to explain that? As I mention on the Angel page, God doesn't hide himself from them, as he does with us. They know very clearly that he exists and have dealings with him all the time. On the other hand, we too, once had this sort of access to God, before the Fall. But even after the fall of the fallen angels, they still have "face-to-face" dealings with God. So why not us?
A few observations: 1)Angels, being spiritual, aren't born. As best as we can know, God made all the angels at one time and that's all the angels that he was ever going to create. The bible never says this explicitly, but it certainly never mentions God continuing to create angels. Not only that, you have the time problem, in which God and the angels, since they don't exist in time, how could you say that God made some before and some later? Obviously, I'm getting into very rarefied territory here, me with my physical limitations, and so I don't think I'll speculate about this any further. But I did want to point out the problems inherent to this time-eternity dichotomy. So since angels aren't born, they all knew God before the angelic Fall (or should I call it the demonic Fall?), and they continued with this knowledge. Could God have erased their memories? Sure, but I'm not sure what the purpose of that would be. With us humans, Adam and Eve knew God intimately without any barriers while still in their state of moral perfection, and so Adam and Eve would have carried this knowledge with them always, but their descendants (us) were born into the world, in a fallen world, and so we don't have this sort of direct knowledge.
But this "hiddenness" is a lot more than just having direct knowledge and experience with God. After all, even Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, and when they discovered themselves in our crappy world, well, it was a world in which God was hidden. No more enjoying God's company in the cool of the evening in the Garden. (Gn 3:8) So we see that God really did pull away from them. In some ways it makes sense, but I don't think that answers the question. There's still this disparity between us and the angels. And I really don't think that God withdrew from our first parents just in preparation for hiding himself when their children would come along. No, the hiddenness of God is part and parcel of the fallout of the Fall.
Secondly, (going back to the subject of angels), since they never die (having never been biologically alive), having once made their eternal decision (to follow or reject God, since they too have their free will), they remain in that state forever. Of course, I'm assuming that their decision is final, since this is what the bible and tradition have always taught. I've never heard of angels being able to repent, or even wanting to repent. This leads us to another question -- why? Why can't they go back and forth until some set "time" (again, they don't live in time, but I have no other way of speaking as a human), the way we do? We have until death to make up our minds. Why not angels? Well, first of all, what would this "set time" be? With humans, the final point-of-no-return is naturally death. But since angels don't die, when would this cut-off point be? Would this not in itself be somewhat artificial? So this is another reason for the difference in treatment between humans and angels. There would be no point in God hiding himself from angels that have already been judged and condemned. After all, even we humans will be treated likewise. After our death, judgment and sentencing, everything will have been revealed, and then everyone, having met their Maker, will surely know that he exists. Except in this case, they'll be having no dealings with him. So we see a split here. God can be hidden (and you may or may not have dealings with him [in the way that every good Christian ought to have dealings with God every day at every moment]), or God can be revealed, but you still have no dealings with him. So we see that this hiddenness of God is a lot more than just either knowing God directly (ie, without having faith), or having dealings with him. The 2 don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. A break-down might be helpful here:
living unregenerate humans: hidden, no dealings
living humans in good standing: (mostly) hidden, dealings
angels (good or fallen): revealed, dealings
angels (fallen, after the end of the world): revealed, no dealings
dead unregenerate humans: revealed, no dealings
dead saved humans: revealed, dealings
Now I want to back up a little here. In the previous paragraph I said, "... knowing God directly (ie, without having faith)". But this is a problem, because I define faith as "direct knowledge". I don't necessarily limit this to religious faith, and I say this because I don't really see any difference between religious faith and faith in general. Earlier on this page (in the first question) I mentioned faith in the law of cause and effect as perhaps the preeminent example of faith. Why do we believe in cause and effect? We just do. It's impossible to see the world in any other way. But we can't really give reasons for why we believe this. At some point you have to throw up your hands and confess that you believe on faith. This isn't so bad. Everything is like this. You can give reasons for belief in all sorts of things, but in the end, the explanations and reasons come to an end, you can't go any further, and that's when you hit the wall -- of faith. After all, we have to start somewhere. So we start with our fundamental axioms. It doesn't get more fundamental than that. These are things that you just grasp directly -- thus, I define faith as "direct knowledge". There's nothing intervening (no reasons or chain of reasoning) between it and your conclusion.
So why did I earlier make an (implied) distinction between faith (ie, direct knowledge, in this case, in God) and directly knowing God, as when we'll meet him face-to-face when we'll be judged by him at death, and then he'll no longer be hidden, but revealed? Why, even to the person of faith (unless they've had a mystical experience) do I say that God is hidden from them? If they know God directly by faith, why do we still say God is hidden?
Some may accuse me of faulty reasoning, but I refuse to concede that. I think something more interesting is going on here. I don't take back either my definition of faith, or my admittance that God not only appears hidden, but is indeed hidden.
For one thing, even the bible makes this distinction. The Apostle Paul says, "... hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" (Rom 8:24) On the other hand, St James says, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe -- and shudder!" (Jas 2:19) So I think this is a good biblical summary of the problem that I'm talking about. As I said before, I don't think there's any contradiction. And I'm not even talking about belief in God as having a (good) relationship with him, but simply intellectual assent to the propositional statement that God exists. I'm saying that the way Satan knows God exists, Satan who stands before God day and night and accuses the brethren (Rv 12:10), is different from the way I know God exists, even though my faith is direct knowledge of God.
This is clearly seen in the fact that God is the object of my hope and longing, just as St Paul explained in the verse from Romans. I must be content with watching and waiting. The closest I can get to him in this life is through communion. Even that requires faith, since he's hidden under the species of bread and wine. But if Jesus were to come back today, or if I were to die and go to heaven, I would have what I was waiting and hoping for all this time. The 2 feelings are quite distinct!
I think I can link this to another topic: the difference between knowing and experiencing. And then afterwards I think I might be able to link this to the difference between reality and virtual reality. It appears to me that there's a world of difference between knowing and experiencing. This may seem obvious, and it is, but there's a lot more to it than what's obvious.
A simple example is the difference between trying to imagine what it'd be like to have a kid, and actually having a kid. Even though we've all had experiences with children, and even though we've all been children ourselves, for some reason, just trying to imagine what it feels like to have a kid in order to know what it's like to have a kid isn't going to work. I think even if you have a powerful imagination, it's still not going to feel the same as when you actually have your first kid. What's interesting about this example is that the knowing (or what might better be called the experiencing) is really in the knowing. What?! Whatever could I mean? That sounds like total nonsense. Let me explain.
I'd like to contrast this with a different, and even simpler example. What does it feel like to swim? Would it be appropriate to learn how to swim from a book? Of course not! In this case, it's quite apparent why this wouldn't work. Words can never describe what it's actually like to try to float and propel yourself through water if you've never tried it before.
This is quite different from our first example about having a kid. Having a kid requires no physical sensations or experiences. Let's say your wife announces that she's pregnant. I'm pretty darn sure that afterwards your life will never be the same. However, nothing in your direct physical experience has changed. If she hadn't told you anything, you would never have known. But somehow just knowing this information is enough for you to really feel it, to experience it. This is why I say that the knowing (the experiencing) is in the knowing. You can't know how something feels until it happens to you, but oftentimes this experiencing is really based on nothing but knowledge, having acquired some new piece of knowledge. And this experiencing can't be faked. This is why you can't just imagine or pretend what it'd be like to have a kid. Imagining your wife announcing her pregnancy and actually hearing your wife making this announcement cannot be compared. But it's kind of strange because while a person who has never swum truly has no idea of what it's like to be in the water, you can at least imagine your wife telling you that she's pregnant, and if you know your wife well, you might even be able to predict how she would choose to make this big announcement. And yet, you'll never really be able to fully feel what it'd be like unless it actually happens. That is, you have to really believe that it's true. Really believing that something's true, and imagining that something's true, are two totally different things.
You could say the same thing for imagining what it'd be like for a loved one to die. You can imagine it and even fear it, but until it really happens, you're not going to be able to fully feel your new reality minus your loved one. Even if you've already lost a parent, that's not going to really let you know what it'd be like to lose your spouse.
Let's take a more contrived example. Let's say a man gets the opportunity to sleep with either a beautiful woman or a sex doll. The real woman isn't allowed to move or have any kind of reaction, and the man is blindfolded so he can't tell the difference between them. (Conversely, we could allow the doll to move [realistically] and moan and what have you instead.) Assume also that the sex doll is so realistic that he can't tell just by touch that it's a sex doll. So now we send the man in and -- what's his experience? Probably a lot will have to do with what we tell him beforehand about what he can expect. It doesn't really matter so much who or what he's having sex with, but what he thinks or thinks he knows about who or what he's having sex with. It's very artificial and contrived thought experiments like this that are most helpful in separating knowledge and experience. In this example, the actual physical experience is exactly the same, but what the man knows (if we tell him the truth) or thinks he knows (if we lie to him), is going to greatly influence his perception of that experience. That is, his epistemic knowledge and belief is going to have an influence on his subjective experience of his objective experience. So we see that much of experience lies in something so intangible as knowing and believing.
So I liken this to faith in God. Even though faith is direct knowledge, we see that there's 2 types of knowing. Going back to the sex doll example, let's say we don't tell the man what kind of experience he's going to have -- to the day he dies he'll wonder if it was a real woman or a sex doll. So where would that put him? I think it'd forever leave him stuck in the land of knowing-but-not-really, which might really tear him apart if we add that this potentially real woman was the woman of his dreams. In such a case, being reassured that even if it was just a doll, at least it can be guaranteed that the experience was an exact replica of what it would really be like would be little comfort.
So what to call these 2 types of knowing? I'll call the first one abstract and the second concrete. I could give them all sorts of names, but these 2 names seem the most suitable to me. Now to link this up with reality/virtual reality. I see a similarity. It's almost as if abstract knowing is like virtual reality and concrete knowing is like real life. And I wonder if this might explain the differences we see between the two. But I'll leave this for the Reality page.
Anyways, a few more observations on the hiddenness of God. First, it's interesting that in a way, this distinction between abstract and concrete knowing is not the most important thing. I mean, it's not the most important thing compared to having faith (in the religious sense). This is because in the end, everyone will have concrete knowledge and belief in God, but that's not the determining factor in whether a soul gains eternal life or not. So even though concrete knowledge is what the believer seeks after the most, it's what they already have, faith, that in a way is their most prized possession. And yet, faith is never satisfied with just hoping. It seeks its object, the manifestation of its hope. So we see that trying to order these 2 according to importance is very difficult, because each is important in its own way. (By the way, if you want to look at this in the framework of the UQ, you have:
religious faith -- spiritual
intellectual assent -- physical
abstract knowledge -- spiritual
concrete knowledge -- physical.) And as with all things in the UQ, you can't really say which is more important than the other. Yes, you can say which comes first (see the UQ page to see what I mean by "first"), but there's no hierarchy between the elements in a dichotomy. Furthermore, you can have religious faith with no concrete knowledge, and you can have intellectual assent with concrete knowledge, but be lacking in religious faith, although intellectual assent in itself can be limited to just having abstract knowledge. (You can compare this with the other breakdown I did earlier in this question comparing angels and humans.)
Now let's look at the atheist. And here we come full circle (you'll soon see why). If an atheist truly believes in God (please see the Atheism page for why I have a hard time believing there's such a thing as a true atheist; if you can agree with me, please continue), and yet still denies him, what's the use of saying that God is hidden at least in part in order to test us? So I started off by saying that God is hidden in order that it would require faith to seek him out and believe him, but it seems that everyone already believes in him -- it's just that some people claim not to believe in him, and they use God's hiddenness as an excuse for why their claim is justified. So is God hiding just to provide these atheists with an excuse? As it says in II Thes 2:11-12, "God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Here we see the difference between an atheist and a fallen angel, though they're essentially in the same camp. They both deny God, but in different ways. The fallen angel's rejection of God is explicit -- the demon knows that God exists and cannot deny this, while the atheist rejects God fooling themself into thinking that this is the most reasonable claim. The demon doesn't have this ready excuse. But now the question is, why does God provide the atheist with an excuse, but not the fallen angel? To put it another way, why does God demand faith from humans, but not angels? The good angels have chosen to serve God and don't need to have faith the way we humans do. But we humans aren't so fortunate. To further complicate things, our first parents didn't require faith either, since they had ready access and communion with God, and yet they chose to reject him anyway. So we've come full circle. Though we've learned a lot in attempting to answer this question, we find that the question has just gotten deeper as a result. It's pretty frustrating.
Now to go back to the original question (ie, why doesn't God tell us specifics about the divine plan), the first thought that comes to my mind is that it's simply not our business. Though we'd all like to satisfy our curiosity, as Nm says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (29:29) The point of this life, and our primary motivation, is to do the Lord's will and please him, and he has already told us everything we need to know to fulfill this requirement. Everything else is superfluous.
Secondly, and to develop the previous idea further, not only is God and the divine plan as a whole something to be accepted by faith, but every step of our lives. So God doesn't tell us everything he has planned for us. Rather, through trust in God, prayer and experience, we're to discern his will little by little. Not only does this require and develop our faith, but it makes our lives truly our own, in that we get to choose how our lives unfold.
Here I'd like to tie this theme in with the topic of what I call God's perfect will and his manifested will. (You can see a more concreted example of this from the bible 3 questions down.) The question is -- Is God's plan set, or not? Does the future exist as a fact, or as potential possibilities? Like so many things about the Christian faith, the bible, and the UQ, you have this tension between the two. On one hand, God's will is always done -- on the other, even God talks as if things could be otherwise. The first example of this is when God prevents Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Life, "... lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever --" (Gn 3:22) -- you can see that God shudders at the thought. But the examples continue all throughout the bible, a particularly dramatic instance being as when God was about to destroy the Israelites after their rebellion with the golden calf were it not for Moses' intercession. And even Jesus says (which is quite scary), "... false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." (Mt 24:24) (You can read more about this potentiality, especially as it relates to prayer, under the Prayer page.) So if the divine plan is hidden from us, perhaps that means that it is indeed in a way hidden, in that, the future isn't really here until it comes.
An example: Jesus often did things purposely to fulfill prophecy, but does this mean that the prophets who came before Jesus were prophesying things that wouldn’t have happened had Jesus not intentionally fulfilled them? I had always thought of prophecies as Greek oracles: they happen without you trying to fulfill them, often without you even knowing it, and no matter what you do to avoid their fulfillment. (Mt 2:23, 4:13-14, Jn 18:7-9, 19:28)
Something we share with the angels, although to what extent I can't say, is our ignorance of the divine plan. While the angels don't require faith to believe in God, and though they "see" God all the time, angels, like us, don't know everything about the divine plan. I'm sure there's many times that they don't know why God has decided this or that course of action, yet they follow his instructions and obey him on faith. And will we ever be omniscient? I don't think so. But if that's so, then some kind of faith will always be required of us, even into eternity.
After having moved on from this question, I just made another connection today. I was thinking in terms of the judgment. You remember earlier how I quoted Paul in II Thes 2:11-12 ("Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.") You also remember how I said the atheist uses the hiddenness of God as an excuse to justify their unbelief. I'd like to point out here that this same mechanism (of unbelief and its rationalization) is behind every temptation in life, and how this raises the question: if the delusion merely serves as an excuse (being no excuse at all in reality), then why the excuse? What purpose does it serve? Why does the delusion work so well on the unbeliever? Let's take someone who loses their faith because of the bad example of a hypocritical religious person (pedophile priests for example). What excuse will they (the victims) have at the judgment? On one hand, it's true that that hypocrite played a role in the person losing their faith. Jesus himself said, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin." (Lk 17:1-2) But the ultimate responsibility for every sin lies within each sinner. "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand." (Ezk 3:18) So we see that they have no excuse, since they still die for their iniquity. Nevertheless, I can see how being molested or raped by a priest could serve as a "strong delusion". I mean, this is a man who's supposed to represent God, right? And he didn't do a good job of representing God. And therefore it's easy to blame God. Sure, it's not completely logical, but it can sure feel right when you've been so thoroughly violated. What makes this example so especially tragic and ironic is that the victim ends up victimizing themself, by allowing the wrongdoing of another, even wrongdoing perpetrated against oneself, to drag them (the victim) down with them (the predators). So the end result (losing faith) is even worse than what got them down there in the first place (being the victim of a priest's faithlessness).
Or say a person believes lies or gossip or propaganda, none of which happens to be true. It was wrong of the liars to lie, but everyone has their own responsibility to find out and sort out what's true from all the lies out there. If you believe the lie, you're in partnership with the liar.
Jdgs 2:20-22 Why should he test them, seeing that they had already proven themselves sinful?
This is quite related to the immediately previous question, I mean, the last part, where I come to the conclusion that I don't really know why faith is required. You can see the similarities between the Judges quote and the one from II Thes. In II Thes we have a strong delusion, while in Judges we have the Canaanites as God's instrument of testing. But in both cases, the "results" of the test are already known -- in II Thes, God already knows who the unrighteous are, and in Judges, God already knows that the people are corrupt. Other than for the purpose of manifesting our sinfulness to us, as it says in Ezekiel, "Whether they hear or refuse to hear -- for they are a rebellious house -- they will know that a prophet has been among them" (2:5), (which we might call the "utilitarian" reason), what would the "essential" reason be?
A good example: Why would God say they might turn back from their evil deeds, when God is omniscient and already knew since forever that they would not turn back? (Jer 26:3, 7:27, pattern seen in 7:1-29 — God tells the people to repent [implying that they can repent] [vv 1-7], he accuses them & prophesies their punishment [meaning that they will not repent, as a fact] [vv 8-15], God tells Jeremiah not to even bother praying for the people, b/c He won’t listen [vv 16-20])
Why didn't God tell Joshua before he killed the 36 men that there were devoted things among them? Why does he wait around until people are killed? (Jos 7:13)
Again, very related to the previous 2 questions, but in this case, we have a concrete example. What if God pointed out to us every time we sinned that we had screwed up and better get back on track? No doubt, some people still wouldn't care, as when Cain disregarded God's warning, but for many of us, this would take faith out of the equation. If God told a sexually abusive priest every time he was tempted to watch out, probably a lot more would-be abusers would take heed, but then would they be taking heed because they really wanted to do the will of God, or merely out of fear? But a part of faith is to have your own fear of the Lord.
What did God mean that he was planning on establishing Saul's throne for all time? (I Sm 13:13) No he wasn't. First, that's not what he did, and God's divine plan was ordained before time began and second, it would falsify the prophecy of the Messiah coming from the tribe of Judah. (Gn 49:10)
(See 3 questions up [end of question] where this is addressed.)
It just occurred to me that I think God was really telling the truth when he said that he was planning to establish Saul's throne forever. Although it's true that God has his divine plan which is irrevocable, that doesn't mean that other potential realities don't exist. That is to say, if Saul really had pleased God, instead of disobeying him, things really would have also turned out different. He could have chosen this alternate reality, but didn't. But it was really there for him to choose. Some may say that this alternate reality, since it's not in God's plan, is just an illusion. If one takes this view, they have to also say that we have no free will. So this is a paradox, because the Christian must maintain God's sovereignty but our free will as well, and this is done by saying that the alternate reality is real, not an illusion. So in a way God really does react to our choices. God had a Plan A, but because of sin, he ends up going with Plan B instead.
Mk 6:48 What does it mean "he meant to pass by them"? If God always has his way, why would he not have been able to pass by them? And why would the Son's will be different from the Father's? And if the Son wanted them to go to Bethsaida, why did the Father send them to Gennesaret? (Mk 6:45, 53 & ESV note on v 53 -- "The northeasterly wind had caused the ship to drift southwestward, bringing them to Gennesaret instead of their intended destination of Bethsaida.")
I can only say that this must be due to Christ's dual human and divine natures. The passage indicates that Jesus could have the human "whim" of wanting to pass by his disciples, but could have this whim "redirected" if the Father so indicated. So we see how very human Jesus lived his earthly life. Similarly, you could even attribute this difference in wills not merely to the difference between his human and divine natures, but to the fact that the first and second persons of the Trinity are different persons. We can see this in other examples in the Gospels, such as in the Garden of Gethsemane, where it's plain that Jesus would have preferred not to drink the cup that this Father was giving him to drink, and also in more mundane matters, as when Jesus was tired from all his ministering to the people and needed a break, either to eat or sleep.
I think it's a really weird story about king Joash of Israel and Elisha and the arrows. How could God have managed the world's affairs according to the number of times a man struck the ground with arrows? How could God have used something so arbitrary to overthrow a whole kingdom? Wouldn't Syria's doom be due to their own goodness or evil? And I don't think that God could have totally left such a big decision in the hands of a mere mortal. Doesn't God see to it that all things follow his own will? So then why even give Joash a “chance” to vanquish his enemy if it wasn't really an opportunity to make an actual free-will decision? (That is, God already decided that Syria would be defeated, then caused Joash to choose according to his (God’s) own will, while making it seem that Joash had a say in the matter.) How could Elisha have gotten mad at Joash for not beating the ground more times if he really had no say in the matter, but was only working out the will of God? How could he have been blamed for not beating the ground 5 or 6 times if it was not the Lord's will? And then wouldn't God be controlling Joash's actions by making him work out his plan for Syria and the world by causing him to only beat the ground three times? (II Kgs 13:15-19)
How can Paul say that all things work together for the good of those who love God, when he also says that there will be some who will be saved, but only as through fire? The first is an ideal, the second is just passing, describing one who has fallen short of God's standards, so how can it be said that in such a person's life all things worked together for their good? (Rom 8:28)
If Jesus’ hour had not yet come, why did he obey his mother? Then wouldn’t he be breaking God’s plan? (Jn 2:3-11)
A difficult question, but at least we can see the usefulness of asking even when God says not to.
A similar example: Why would God tell Ezekiel to use human dung rather than cow dung if he knew that he would allow Ezekiel to use the cow dung after he asked him? OR, to flip the question, why would God listen to Ezekiel if what he wanted was for him to use human dung? (Ezk 4:12-15)
But I'd like to point out the difference, and how each question is striking in its own way. In the first example, Jesus point blank tells his mother that it's not God's will that he do a miracle at that time. His mother basically tells him otherwise. This is amazing because Mary is "rewriting" the divine plan. In the second example, it's God himself who issues a command, but backs down when Ezekiel protests. Why protest a commandment of God, though?
I really don’t get what it says in Jdgs 2:20-22. Basically, God gave two reasons for why he wouldn’t drive out the original inhabitants of the land for Israel. First, it’s to punish them for leaving him, and second, to test them to see if they would leave him or not. Obviously, this doesn’t make any sense, since he already knew that they had already left him, and without him testing them. Now what’s up with that?
There's another example of this in Isaiah (3:1-15) Notice in my outline that I give this section the heading: Since Your Leaders are Evil, I Will Give You Bad Leaders. We see here how things work in a vicious cycle. While unfortunate and ironic, we see that this is true for all things in life. If someone doesn't have enough money to buy something, whether they need it or not, what will they often do? Go into debt. And then how are they going to pay that off if they couldn't even pay for the first thing? They can't. So then they get into more debt. The cycle continues, as senseless as it is, all the while the person feeling more and more helpless, which in fact, is true. So if the Israelites got bad leaders as a punishment from God for their bad leaders, is this really something inflicted upon them by God? In a sense, yes, since all things come from God, and we see explicitly that this was God's plan, but in another way, no, the Israelites were just inflicting bad leaders on themselves. Trouble always begets more trouble.