God Nerd: The Motion Picture - Part II
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
"Neither do you!"
-McGuiness and Zorro
So, two things got me thinking about this subject this morning. I was sitting there having breakfast and watching TV, and two thoughts popped into my head about the upcoming day: Star Trek (which was on this afternoon... Mondays through Thursdays, actually, four hours of it... not the Star Trek Enhanced that I've come to enjoy so, but Next Generation and Voyager, which are almost as good), and someone whom I care very much about, which my mind is almost always drifting to. Thoughts of the latter snagged me. I began to think about the idea of a future with them. I began to think about the promises that I truly believe God has given me about my life and my future. I thought about worries that I would somehow do something to mess things up, as I often fret about... and another idle thought tickled the back of my brain.
"If you did receive a promise from God about your future... would that be destiny?"
It stopped me for a moment. Interesting question. I'm worried about doing something to mess things up... if I were to receive a promise about the future, would that make it a 'destiny?' That no matter what I did, how badly I messed up... things would still turn out the same way? Does that mean that if I was promised a friendship would last for 50 years, I could go and start screaming at my friend at the top of my lungs and rail and rant about their every decision and generally be the biggest nuisance in the whole wide world... and nothing would change, because the future was 'guaranteed?' Or would the future simply be 'guaranteed' because God already knows that I never would go rant and rave and scream at my friend, and so the promise was just based on what I was already going to do? But then, isn't it possible I could become complacent from the promise and get careless and do something I wouldn't have done otherwise to mess up the friendship? Or would the relaxation from having the guarantee cause me to relax somehow that I wouldn't have before and actually cause me to keep the friendship precisely because of how I'd mellowed? Ack!
The second, Star Trek, reminded me of one of the most interesting Next Generation episodes, "Parallels." In this episode, Worf is bouncing in between quantum realities. We'll get to that in a moment, though- lest I digress on another side-path. The question, the issue we're dealing with in this blog entry, is that of Destiny- does it exist? Does God providing knowledge of the future prove or disprove this? Well, to get to the crux of the issue, we'll first have to brush into the area of pre-destination vs. free will, the age-old debate.
I want to start... well, it's a little late for that, isn't it? I want to continue, then, with a disclaimer. I've been reading in the New Testament lately around the area of Timothy, and a number of Paul's instructions for elders in the church, and leaders. It's only served to enhance what I already knew- teaching others is both a great privilege and a solemn responsibility. A teacher will be held accountable for his teachings, and woe to the man who teaches falsely about the things of God! And indeed, I do not want that to be me! I enjoy imagining, creating, asking "What if?" about the mysteries and miracles God has surrounded us with- but I in no way claim to be a scholar. Many more knowledgeable than I have considered these many issues (as a general rule of thumb, anything I say that contradicts the Bible, for example, is dead wrong- and anything that contradicts the writings of C.S. Lewis is 99% percent likely to be, too,) and I don't want to lead anyone astray by posing as a knowledgeable teacher who knows these things I posit. No, these are only theories, my best guesses- I try to educate in the basics and then suggest my own theories, but when it comes down to it, the Bible is a far better source to get what you believe in!
That said, here's my take on the question of pre-destination vs. free will, which is in essence a microcosm of my take on the whole concept of destiny.
Free Will is the trouble with everything. It's also the only thing that makes life as we know it, love and trust and faith even possible. It is the ability to choose freely. It's the cause of sin- so long as we have the ability to choose, we have the ability to choose to do wrong. It's also the source of love- as long as we have the ability to choose, we have the ability to choose love, which is the only way it can be, because True Love can only exist as a choice. Without Free Will, we would be, in essence, robots. We would not think as we do now. We would simply respond to stimuli in a pre-programmed manner. A robot cannot really 'do' anything. It cannot sin, because it has no choice to do either right or wrong, it simply carries out pre-programmed commands. God did not want robots, He wanted living, breathing creatures who could love Him, whom He could love... but the only way that they could truly love is if they had the choice to not love as well. If love was the only option they were capable of, it would be no different from a factory robot assembling cars- gears move in response to a computer program transmitting to a robot, and a car gets built- but the robot doesn't do it; the robot is simply a body carrying out tasks assigned it from elsewhere. Likewise, in order for us to do obey, there has to be an option for us to disobey- otherwise, we are not obeying, simply... existing as bodies with no minds carrying out pre-programmed instructions from an external source. That, in a nutshell, is Free Will- the ability to choose anything, everything, and receive the consequences.
And part and partial to the whole existence of Free Will is the fact that just like love is only love if 'not love' also exists and obedience isn't obedience unless disobedience is also possible, and just as (as I've indicated on previous blogs about the nature of God- see “The God-nerd Begins, Part II”) perfection needs to be completely perfect to be perfect- even a single micro-cell of imperfection introduced into a perfect universe makes the whole universe imperfect, because it is not TOTALLY perfect... Free Will isn't Free Will unless it's free. Which means that in order for us to have Free Will, which is crucial to what God wants us to be and made us to be, we have to have complete Free Will! This means that we can choose good things and receive the consequences without God interfering to make it happen... and it also means that we can choose bad things and receive (or deal out to others) the consequences, and God will not interfere to prevent them- if He did, then He would be restricting the freedom of Free Will, and only Partially Free Will is not Free Will at all- and since Free Will is necessary to being the beings God made us to be... we're Free totally, to choose and do both good and bad! So, the next time someone asks you that age old question "Why do bad things happen?" or that lackluster attempt to object to the existence of God, "If there is a loving God, why does He allow bad things to happen?", you know have the answer for them. Because it is necessary for us to also be able to think, to reason as human beings, to love and trust and have faith, that we must also be able to do evil. (Of course, the necessity for Good and Evil as moral absolutes and a discussion of why they really do exist, and are not 'up to the individual' is another discussion, in case you happened by to read this and are now saying "But what if good and evil don't really exist, and it's all shades of gray?" Or, depending on your locale, "What if it's all shades of grey?" If you are wondering this, then you're a little behind the class- that's covered in “Truth…?” and brushed-upon briefly in ”“The God-nerd Begins”)
So, that's Free Will. One of the most basic and inviolable parts of our being, which God has graciously granted to us. It also answers another question/challenge people sometimes pose- "I don't believe that a loving God would send people to Hell." This is covered in more detail in “The God-nerd begins, Part III”, but to summarize again here... He doesn't. The point of fact is that Salvation was made free when Jesus Christ, who was himself God, came to Earth in human form, took all of that evil committed by humans misusing our Free Will on Himself, and died paying the penalty for it. (If you want to know why He would have to do that... or at least my explanation... take a look at “The God-nerd Begins” series, parts I through III, for further details.) At that point, salvation was made free to every single person on Earth- all they have to do is say "I believe that Jesus did this, and I accept this gift of taking my sins away," and they are saved- destined to be with God in Heaven for the biggest party ever thrown- perfect joy for all eternity.
Well, Jesus made salvation free to everyone, and it has full coverage not even the most generous insurance agent could match- everyone, everywhere, every time. So why would anyone still go to Hell when their sins have been taken care of? Sadly... Free Will.
For Free Will to truly be free, it has to be so every time... which means that God can't even 'violate' it to give us salvation- we still have to use our Free Will to choose to accept it! Sadly, this means that everyone who has ever gone to Hell since Jesus death on the cross has done so by choice- a sort of suicide, if you will- by choosing not to accept or believe in this sacrifice. (How did things work BEFORE Jesus died on the cross? That is an EXCELLENT question for another blog post... if I ever get even the foggiest clue of the answer! It may be one of those things we won't know until we get to Heaven and hear it straight from the mouth of God Himself!) Some people may disagree with that supposition- I am happy to discus it with challengers- but the truth of the matter is, that's 'damnation'- a self-inflicted choice not to accept the freely offered gift of salvation. No one is ever condemned... they condemn themselves by refusing to accept being saved, just as a man struggling in the sea is not condemned by the captain of the ship if he refuses to grab onto the life preserver thrown to him- he condemns himself by refusing the freely offered rescue, and he will drown.
But then, as we get to the crux of the issue, some people object at this point. "If accepting Christ and being saved is a choice, how can the Bible talk about those who have been chosen by God to be saved?" And "What about when God performed miracles and turned back armies and flooded the Earth and did all of those things- wasn't He taking away their Free Will when He did that?" These and other questions have been flashpoints for generations. Here, whether it is correct or not only God knows, is my answer.
No, God does not mess with Free Will when it comes to talking about who He has chosen. Likewise, when He affects the course of history, He is not affecting Free Will. But the distinction is an important, and for some, hard to differentiate one. (Remember this point- we're going to go through a LONG set of explanations, and then return back here- so think of this as the off-ramp of our little highway, okay?)
One way to think about the universe is like an incredible set of dominoes. You've seen those demonstrations where someone will build a row of scores and scores of dominoes- hundreds, thousands, all in a row, in intricate patterns- and when the first one is pushed, they all fall, one after another- sometimes one will trigger a pair in front of it, and two new branches will head off in opposite directions, or an intricate circle or zigzag will be arranged so that one set of dominoes will not fall until the other has already passed it- in essence, the fall of every domino is designed to specifically and purposefully cause and contribute to everything that comes after it behaving in a certain way.
Now, this is a rather cold metaphor for the universe- it seems to imply the Blind Watchmaker scenario that some have suggested- that God did create the universe, but just like a watchmaker, He simply wound it up and let it go on it's merry way and didn't affect it or give it a second glance ever again. It's basically a theory for those who cannot deny the signs that point to God creating the universe, but still don't want to believe in a God who they must be accountable to, or one who gives laws they must follow, or one who loves or punishes or in any way competes with the lovely mental picture of the universe they have crafter for themselves that features them at the center of it. They may not admit this, or even consciously think so- but this is the reason, I think. But again, I digress.
"'Butterfly Wings' refers to the famous theorem that the flapping of that creature's wings may affect weather patterns on the other side of the globe... in two words, "Chaos Theory.""
-Spock, in his riddle contest with Q
Another things that has always fascinated me to no end is the Chaos Theory- the Butterfly Effect I described earlier in which you caused Osama Bin Laden to rule the world because of your wristwatch, you big jerk, you. Now, you may have caused a lot of trouble with your interference, but it was unintentional. Unpredictable. Never in a thousand years could you have know how it would all happen, especially because it was based on dozens of factors, like the mood of the man with the nice shoes or the internal thoughts of the husband with the chip on his shoulder, that you never could have known.
Now let's say an agent of Al Queda intended to go back in time to cause just this scenario to happen instead. He knows from years of research that this method, eliminating the bloodline of Louis Pasteur on precisely that day, at that time, in that way, would cause the future to turn out the way he wanted it without any negative side effects- if he just bopped the chip-on-his-shoulder-husband on the head that day, he would report to the constable who would be gruff with his child who would grow up and beat a dog which would attack a man and mangle his hand which would prevent him from playing a piano concerto that would have inspired a listener to paint a painting which would have given encouragement to a freedom fighter during his lowest moment who would have then saved the life of the ancestor of a man who once sheltered the second in command of Al Queda from pursuing forces... so he cannot do that; without the second in command, Osama might not be able to take America successfully, which puts the whole scenario at risk. Nor can this time traveling terrorist simply say something nasty to annoy the man with the nice shoes, because the time it would take him to stop and listen to the terrorists insult would cause him to be a few seconds late to the barber shop where he would have seen the husband, and thus he would never put the chip onto the husbands shoulders to begin with and Pasteur would be born just fine. And the Al Queda Interloper certainly can't simply interrupt the husband and wife before they can conceive a child by knocking on the door and pretending to be a traveling insurance salesman, as the annoyed husband's loud ranting at this annoyance at his doorstep will exacerbate the hangover headache of a next door neighbor who will write an angry note that will be thrown in the trash that will be seen by an angry street urchin and stick in his head and years later cause him to repeat it to his illegitimate son who will foster such resentment that he will write angry poetry in his later years which will inspire a slightly twisted but charismatic man who would otherwise have become a wealthy and corrupt politician later killed in a political revolt to instead found a small cult which would eventually grow into a hateful religion of vengeance which would eventually make an invasion attempt on the middle east, killing the great grandfather of the founder of the Al Queda movement in the process and causing the complete collapse of their plans! (See, I told you I liked playing with the Butterfly Effect!)
So, this Time Traveling Al Quedan knows that he has to do things at precisely the right moment, the right way, just perfectly- the way you accidentally did in the other scenario- if he wants the future to turn out EXACTLY the way he planned it, with Osama in the Oval Office plotting his conquest of the Mounties. (Who, in all fairness to our friends to the north, could probably give him a darn good run for his money!) In fact, what you did by accident, he has to do EXACTLY- five seconds too soon, and the first man might see the watch, notice it, conclude that it is obviously Dutch, and have his attention free to notice the shoes by the time they arrive. Five seconds too late, and the man might already have his eyes on those nice shoes and never notice the watch. So, even knowing exactly what needs to happen- the husband getting a chip on his shoulder and not buying flowers, the Agent still has to do an insane amount of calculation before he can even hope to begin to have a chance of successfully completing his task without interfering with anything else. He needs to be on exactly the right street and do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time- the odds against his success are millions to one just because so many factors come into play between his block-long walk and the husband arriving home flowerless- and that's assuming he could predict what each man would think and how he would react in the first place!
Now, think back on the last week. Has there perhaps been a time where you have seen a particularly beautiful sunset, for example, and it's inspired you to do something you wouldn't have done otherwise? Or has something 'coincidental' occurred- a valuable conversation that has deeply affected your relationship with someone else having been inspired because you noticed a random movement or object? Or perhaps something, either cause or affect, that you haven't even noticed? The fact of the matter is, the universe is, I believe, a more incredible Butterfly Effect ever planned- on a scale that would boggle not only the mind, but even the imagination. That cloud you saw that reminded you of a bunny that caused you to play that bunny game with your little cousin that he always remembered fondly and brought you closer together? The weather patterns that would cycle in a slow pattern for thousands of years to eventually form the perfect shape to create that bunny were in place when the Garden of Eden was created. The events that brought that guy with the Got Milk T-shirt to cross the street and make you slam on your brakes and drop your eggs so that picking up more the next day you happened to meet your best friend onto the street corner he was on were laid in place before his grandfather was even born- or yours. Now, those are overly-dramatic and extremely noticeable examples. Like the Pasteur-scenario suggests, things as little as a single thought, or a single statement to another person can have effects you would never even know or think about. (Kind of makes you stop and think about the impact your words have on others... and your responsibility to use them wisely!)
Now, here's the thing- according to the Bible, God works all things out for good, and have all events in His hands. Everything that has ever happened and ever will happen is in His hands. This would suggest that, indeed, every event that occurs in your life has a purpose, and was planned- even the tiniest little thing. Which would also mean that, since everything that happens is, in essence, the result of another thing happening- be it a response to stimuli, a reaction to a situation, etc.- the chain of events that caused it to happen was set up long ago- even at the beginning of the world.
Think about the amount of planning it took to get one action to cause a reaction all the way through a chain of people from the Agent with the watch down to the Husband with the chip on his shoulder. Now imagine how much more effort it would take to create a chain all the way from Adam and Eve that would somehow make it's way through the places and ages to reach you and make even one thing happen in your life.
Now imagine the effort it would take to make two things happen in your life. Things at the very beginning of that chain would have to happen with such perfect and delicate balance that two separate events thousands of years later would somehow happen perfectly and precisely the way they're supposed to.
Now, imagine that chain affecting every event in your life.
Now imagine it affecting every event in everyone's life. Ever.
The complexity is staggering. It's like a fractal- a mathematically based shape, a pattern of swirls and curves- and as you zoom in, you see every prong is actually a tiny swirl or shape covered in prongs itself- and as you zoom into them, you see that each of them is actually it's own swirl of shape also covered in tiny prongs- you just keep on zooming, discovering complexity upon complexity, but no end.
Can you imagine the pattern, the precision it would take for all of Earth and all of it's history- even for just all the decisions that affect and motivate only you through one day, that would have to be arranged to be triggered by the fall of the first domino? It's enough to make you crazy- even my chest constricts a little with bubbling anxiety, a sort of mental cabin fever that rattles at me when I feel like my mind is crammed inside too small of a brain to understand what I'm trying to picture.
But for God, that power is elementary.
"Let's play "What do we know?""
-Kate Monday and George Frankly, Mathnet
Now (lest you wonder if we've just digressed again), what in the world does this have to do with Free Will? Well, you may recall quite a while back when I pointed out a section of our discussion as the off-ramp of our little highway? Well, now it's time to merge back into traffic. What we were left with was:
No, God does not mess with Free Will when it comes to talking about who He has chosen. Likewise, when He affects the course of history, He is not affecting Free Will. But the distinction is an important, and for some, hard to differentiate one. One way to think about the universe is like an incredible set of dominoes...
I included that last sentence as a reminder- that is one way to think of things, all I have just described- a metaphor I, a flawed and fallen human have created- NOT an accurate portrayal of the universe or God's plan. Just an idea. It doesn't factor in God's loving benevolence, or His ability to easily through miracles, or simply excercising His powers of control and creation, to intervene and effect things at any point, not just setting them all up and letting them go. But, even with this stipped-down simplistic scenario, we can learn a few things. Now, stick with me on this. If God can predict, set up, and create that whole line of dominoes, that tells us two things:
1. He knows what's going to happen, and what could happen based on countless variables.
2. He can cause things to happen.
"But wait!" you say, confused. You say that God could cause, say, history to go a certain way? But history is based on the choices of people, isn't it? If He affects that, isn't He doing it by affecting their Free Will?
Well, first, I'd hardly say you're in a position to be asking me questions after you accidentally killed Louis Pasteur like that. Second, leaving aside the basic flaws of those questions... no. Not really.
Here's my proposal for you to consider: if God chooses to, say, have me give up my computer so I stop confusing all those poor people with my long and convoluted blogs, there are a number of ways He could do so without violating my Free Will. The simplest is, of course, to simply speak to me- through prayers in a still small voice, or even through an Old-Testament style booming command, to simply get rid of my computer. The second is to affect my circumstance- for example, cause my computer to suddenly malfunction and threaten my health with showers of sparks, or by having circumstances in place that computers can be recycled in my area for $5,000, or perhaps opening up the circumstances for my best friend to get her dream job after years of waiting, but only if she can get a computer just like mine immediately, and she doesn't have the money for it, while at the same time my life circumstances cause me to move to a place where I don't have room for my computer. Now, again, these are all over-dramatic, overkill examples to demonstrate the basic principle here... God can affect things, and because of those effects, I will choose to do what He wants me to do- but still of my own Free Will. In the first case, it would be because I value following God's commands. In the second, it would be because I like being unburned. In the third, because I want the money, and in the fourth, because from where I am, my computer is useless to me and useful to another and I want her to prosper- in each case, I did not choose to do what God wanted me to do because He took over my Will- I chose so because it is what I would want to choose in the given circumstances.
Likewise, when God intervenes in 'natural human development' in the form of miracles, I believe the same principle is at work. God may have told Abraham to leave and move to a new land, but He did not override Abraham’s (Abram, at the time) will to do so- Abraham did so because under those circumstances, what he would choose of his own Free Will is to obey God. Likewise, when God issued the Ten Commandments, He did not take away anyone's Free Will to act as they chose- merely set up laws with consequences to them that people could choose to obey- and penalties if they did not. And when He caused the Israelites to win so many battles to take the land He had promised them, He did not take over their wills to cause them to fight, nor those of their enemies to cause the to surrender- He simply affected strength, energy, skill, and surroundings to give the Israelites victory.
Of course, some would call this 'still fixing the results of each situation just as surely as if He'd taken control of their wills.' But in truth, at no point did any man lose his free will or his choice- some simply encountered circumstances that only presented them with one choice that they would consider viable. Even if cases like the book of Exodus where "The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart," we do not have any evidence that God did this by affecting Pharaoh’s will instead of his circumstances- and every piece of evidence we do have about God's character tells us that He did not, and will not, violate our Free Will.
There we are- one issue of Free Will down, in a cursory manner. But the second issue, the question of how He can speak of those chosen for salvation? That is a slightly trickier one. One that leads us back out from Predestination vs. Free Will and into the larger realm of Destiny, our main focus, which I shall now finally focus on.
