Does the Lord cause all that happens?
Elizabeth Angle and Gracie Brito were high school sophomores and best friends in Frisco, a suburb north of Dallas. Last Sunday, they were riding on a sled as it was pulled by a Jeep Wrangler. The sled crashed and Elizabeth was killed; Gracie was critically injured and died yesterday.
In a Facebook post, Elizabeth’s mother wrote: “She was a bright light, a fun spirit, a brave soul. We loved her so much. She just got a car and a license and had her whole life ahead of her. It was all taken away so abruptly.” Gracie’s mother called her daughter “a kind and generous soul, full of love, affection, and warmth.” Her family said the days since the tragedy have been “unimaginably difficult.”
I cannot imagine these families’ grief and am so sorry for their loss. I am praying for them, asking God to be their help and peace in these terrible days.
I’m also praying for a mother whose three young sons fell through an icy pond Monday and died. And for the loved ones of those who died in the Challenger tragedy forty years ago yesterday. (For my heartfelt reflections, please see my new website article, “The Challenger disaster and the providence of God.”)
If God is truly sovereign, did he cause their pain?
If not, how can he be truly sovereign?
Either way, how can I trust him to be the Father I hope he is?
“So this is what God’s really like”
There is no biblical doubt that God is indeed sovereign over the universe he created. Jesus taught that not even a sparrow can “fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matthew 10:29).
It only makes sense that an omnipotent being has the power by definition to do whatever he chooses to do. It is therefore unsurprising that the psalmist would declare, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3).
However, I don’t want to believe that my Father causes all tragedy and pain. But just because I don’t want to believe something doesn’t mean it’s not true. And part of me worries that because God is sovereign, he must cause all that happens, including all death and suffering.
In this sense, C. S. Lewis spoke for me when he wrote after the death of his wife,
Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
God’s sovereign choice to limit his sovereignty
However:
- Did God not choose to make humans in his image (Genesis 1:27)?
- Does being made in his image not include the same freedom to choose that he possesses (cf. Joshua 24:15)?
- Does God not then need to limit his sovereignty if he is to honor the freedom he gives us (cf. Deuteronomy 30:19)?
- Is it not an expression rather than a denial of his sovereignty if he sovereignly chooses to honor our freedom in this way (cf. 1 Kings 18:21)?
Consider an example.
Paul wrote that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Peter added that God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). And yet not all people are saved (cf. John 3:18). To the contrary, “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).
This paradox only makes sense if God sovereignly chooses to limit his sovereignty to permit our free will. As a result, though he passionately wants all people to be saved, not all are.
“His mercies never come to an end”
This discussion encourages me to believe that not everything that happens is the intentional will of God. However, let me hasten to add that he has both a perfect will and a permissive will.
Because he is sovereign, he must at least permit all that happens in his creation. From the sparrow that falls to the ground, to the Challenger disaster forty years ago, to the boys who drowned in an icy pond, to the teenagers who perished in a sledding accident, nothing can take place without his permission.
This fact leads me to close with mystery more than certitude, faith more than proof.
I don’t know why the God who permits disaster doesn’t always prevent it. He permits our free will, to be sure, but as with his miraculous delivery of Peter from Herod’s prison (Acts 12:6–11), he sometimes prevents its consequences.
However, as I noted in my website article on the Challenger tragedy, as a fallen and finite creature, I should not expect to understand the perfect and infinite mind of God any better than I do (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9). And the more I need his providence, the less I am likely to understand it, since challenges that call for his help are likely to be so difficult as to call into question his love.
Conversely, if I reject my Father’s love and grace because I do not understand them, I impoverish myself and forfeit his best in my life.
So I will pray honestly, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!” (Lamentations 3:19). But then I will say:
This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lᴏʀᴅ never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (vv. 21–24).
In what—or whom—is your hope today?
Quote for the day:
“Sooner shall a tender mother sit inattentive to her crying infant than Jesus be an unconcerned spectator of his suffering children.” —John Newton
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