At our congregation, we are blessed to be able to help some people out with their bills. I always have the person we are helping come in to our office because I also want to give them of my time. I want to hear their story. They always seem to want to share it. One man, who had a series of bad things happen, said, “I believe all things happen for a reason.” Did I? Do they? I want to drill down on the cause of events, both good and bad. We want to think that God is their cause, but the actual answer is more nuanced than that.
One worldview is that every event is the result of the will of God. There are Bible passages that could be read like that. It makes sense to many people of all religions, but it is quickly disproven. Many events are the direct result of sin. Does God cause sin? Clearly not. Not all events are the will of God. Which ones are?
We need to understand the general environment in which we live. In Genesis 3, God told Adam the he (and consequently us) was under a curse. God gave a few modest examples of that. They were hardly comprehensive. The term, “the curse”, doesn’t actually tell you what it is. I doesn’t even state who curses us. I would infer this. The curse was something that was written in Heaven before creation began. God lives by what is written in this way. The curse necessitates that God step back from creation a bit. Adam and Eve put the curse into effect. God doesn’t abandon us. God must hold our fine-tuned universe together. But the creation will free-wheel a bit. You can already tell that this was a possibility because mankind was a necessary cog to the proper operation of the Garden of Eden. Without Adam fulfilling his role to “work and keep” the garden, it would not of operated properly before the curse. After their sin, it was not going to operate well in a much bigger way.
We experience many things that are not micro-managed by God. They happen because of direct human sin sometimes. Some things happen because Satan has some agency in the world. Some things happen because God directly intervenes. But most things happen strictly because of cause and effect built into the law of physics that operate in world. They do happen for a reason, but the reason is not God.
We do not live in a fatalistically determined world either. Things don’t happen just because the laws of physics force one result. A materialistic worldview would state that we simply act according to the electro-chemistry of our brains. There is no such thing as a will. We are all an ongoing experiment proving this to be false. Human will modifies cause and effect. So do the wills of God and Satan.
So let’s apply this. Let’s say a child is born with a birth defect. Is it the will of God? No. That is the point of the book of Job in the Bible. Not everything is caused by God. Does it mean that God doesn’t love this child? No. Is it the result of the parent”s sin? Not necessarily. If the mother was doing drugs or alcohol during pregnancy, then possibly yes. She may have impacted the processes at work that formed her child. Could such a thing happen just happen because the creation is free-wheeling a bit? Yes.
It is not God expressed plan to fix all these things. They will ultimately be set straight after Judgment Day. They will require the curse to expire and the universe be re-made. The curse cannot be undone by simply having enough faith. This passage is not stating that Jesus is the source of physical healing:
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.Isaiah 53:5 (ESV)
This passage is about our biggest problem. It is saying that Jesus’ passion heals our problem with God’s Law. It heals sin. We should invoke this as the promise of faith healing.
This is not to say that God can’t or won’t intervene with respect to illness or other results of the curse. He might. Prayer requires a few things to align. We must be living in obedience and repentance. We must believe that He is capable and correct. It helps to be persistent. You can change God’s direction with persistence. But God may choose to leave the effects of the curse in place and use them in a positive fashion.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (ESV)
Things happen for a reason, but that reason may not be God. In fact, it is probably not God. Things can be given a divine purpose for those who have been called. Divine purpose can even be found in things that happen to those whom God is still calling. That’s a good thing. Because many things happen somewhat randomly, by cause and effect, that means that there will be windows of opportunity that God can use in a person’s life to reach them and save them. There may not be that opportunity every day.
The same can be said for our development as disciples. Sometimes randomly occurring bad stuff are the windows of opportunity for God to change us and strengthen us. It may not seem so in the moment, but you would not want to have it another way.
The man’s statement, that I quoted in the first paragraph, then is not bad if you fully understand our situation. God is not the cause but He can give all things purpose. Things happen for a reason.
