It says nothing: Why ascribing human traits to God is problematic
Today's Sunday School topic in my church class was the age-old debate about why bad things happen to good people (the original question was, "has life turned out the way you thought it would- and, if not- how have you handled that). We took turns describing tough times to each other and our respective reactions to those times. We delved a little- but not too much- into the philosophical side of things. Inevitably the discussion turned to God's "will", His plan, His purpose, and whether life was predestined or not.
I wish we had had some time to discuss the meta-subjects we were unconsciously ignoring. Topics such as: what is "good", what is "bad", and what is "life". Its very difficult in my experience to have a conversation about deep questions like "why do bad things happen to good people" without discussing the foundational assertions that we assume everyone is in agreement on. Rarely, however, have I found folks to agree on fundamental assertions- and therefore we spend a lot of time talking past one another- doomed to disagree but not really sure why.
I have a huge problem ascribing human traits to God. I don't think He is a human (even using the pronoun "He" in my opinion masks the true nature of God by placing him in a human context) and thus to say that God "has a plan" or "has a will" is problematic to me, since the only way I can imagine a plan or a will is to think about how a human has a will or plan. I don't think God works like we do- and therefore I don't think we should waste our time attempting to apply our logic to the way God works in order to explain mysteries that have bedeviled humans for centuries if not mellennia.
Take, for instance, the word "plan". Many of my friends assert that things happen for a reason and it is all part of God's "plan". Now, I am a military planner, so I know a thing or two about how many- if not most- humans attempt to plan. We do it very logically- and in a linear fashion, because that is what our limited reasoning understands the best. We first set an objective or goal. We attempt to be as detailed as possible and we put a time constraint on it, placing it in the category of foretelling or prediction. We then backwards plan through a logical process all of the things that we think we will need to do- milestones if you will- and how they might be related to each other. We either consciously or unconsciously perceive an overarching theory or worldview of how things work that- if wrong- will cause us serious issues in reaching our goal (I've normally seen it done unconsciously, which renders learning- and thus adjusting one's plan- very difficult).
So, when this very human process is applied to real-world problems, chaos many times- if not most- raises its ugly head. When planning deals with human behavior the inevitable issue of emergence arises: humans and human population groups are independent, adaptive, and subjective thinkers and actors and thus give rise to behavior that is impossible to predict. Many cutting-edge planners today advocate learning lessons from complexity theory and evolutionary systems adaption to better understand how we might avoid planning that leaves us no better off- and many times worse off- because we assume a linear causal logic in the world.
I imagine the same can be said of God. I assume that I cannot understand God's mechanics- the way He functions. I assume that He is beyond my understanding in the present state of my existence: wholly reliant on my five Earthly and very human senses to literally make sense of life. So, I would further imagine that God's "plan" isn't any kind of plan that a human could imagine. In fact, I'd take it further and say that His purpose, will, what "good" is and "bad" (in this case "bad" things that happen to "good" people), and other concepts that imply some human quality or interpretation to them should not and cannot be applied to God and issues that deal with God.
So, to answer the original question, I'd first have to think about these questions:
- What is my definition of "life" (up to this point now? just me individually- divorced from others? including the "Afterlife"?)
- At what point am I talking about "planning" from? (a year ago? after High School? after college?)
- Has any plan worked out for me? If I'm in a good place- was it because I planned it? Can we really isolate ourselves from the world around us and analyze that question in an objective fashion?
And, to answer the question about bad things happening to good people, I'd have to think about the following:
- What is the definition of "bad" things?
- Who are these "good" people?
- How do we know the sum total of most or even all "bad" things is "bad"? Can we really analyze "bad" incidents divorced from their context and other incidents happening in conjunction with them?
Before concluding, here are a few prescient passages I found in Bible that deal with the nature of God and His "plan" and "will":
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Isaiah 43:18-19
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Revelation 22:20
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Colossians 1:17
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
What do these passages say to me? They hint at a mystery that is beyond me. They cry out for me to be wary of the things of this world- the human characteristics and the five senses I am limited to. To avoid putting human metaphors and characteristics on God. And always be ready to receive new Revelation as opposed to being stuck in the old Traditional ways of interpretation and revealing. I strongly suspect that the make-up of God- the way "He" "works" is truly beyond my comprehension- even to the extent that I have to rely on a terribly limited human language to describe what is indescribable (I think the Jews were on to something when they refused to speak God's true name).
I can only conclude that sometime in the Afterlife God's purpose will be revealed to me. In the meantime I have to trust there is a higher purpose and that part of that purpose is how I deal with the gifts I've received through no effort of my own. I think the reason we have to rely on Grace- and that we can't rely on our works is that our works are for the most part not our own- they come from a mixture of others and who came before us. Works, therefore, are by definition problematic. But, that doesn't mean one should not "work". The effort we put forth- in the face of whatever "bad" things we perceive (and "good" things) IS important if for no other reason than if we put forth no effort- we are slandering the good gifts we have received, and thus in my opinion turning our back on God's grace.
Bad things don't happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people (humans, in my mind, are flawed- and thus, all "bad"), everyday, all around the world- in fact "bad" things are the norm for most of the world. If these "bad" things include dying- then they are most likely only "bad" for those who are left here. And defining something else "bad" is problematic- it assumes nothing "good" can come out of anything "bad" (people in the "East" would probably have an issue with the false choice presented between "good" and "bad"). We in the West experience an anomaly every day in that we worry about things the rest of the world considers luxuries: how we will beat cancer, how we will lose weight, how we will get the air-conditioning fixed, how we will get more income, how we will hold our marriages together. These are the worries of elites- a people who have long forgotten what it is like to survive on a subsistence level. If the least among us will rule in Heaven, then most Americans will probably be servants.
I don't think God plans or has a will- not, at least, in the way we think of humans planning and having a will. Therefore it literally makes no sense to contemplate whether or not something bad happening to us is God's will or part of His plan. I see no other option but to trust that there is a purpose, that it will be revealed to us one day, and that we must continue to learn and use the gifts we have received to do good- constantly questioning our most cherished assumptions. I propose asking for God's grace implies questioning one's human qualities and perspective. And that that might be the only way to become closer to God on this Earth, in this life.
Today's Sunday School topic in my church class was the age-old debate about why bad things happen to good people (the original question was, "has life turned out the way you thought it would- and, if not- how have you handled that). We took turns describing tough times to each other and our respective reactions to those times. We delved a little- but not too much- into the philosophical side of things. Inevitably the discussion turned to God's "will", His plan, His purpose, and whether life was predestined or not.
I wish we had had some time to discuss the meta-subjects we were unconsciously ignoring. Topics such as: what is "good", what is "bad", and what is "life". Its very difficult in my experience to have a conversation about deep questions like "why do bad things happen to good people" without discussing the foundational assertions that we assume everyone is in agreement on. Rarely, however, have I found folks to agree on fundamental assertions- and therefore we spend a lot of time talking past one another- doomed to disagree but not really sure why.
I have a huge problem ascribing human traits to God. I don't think He is a human (even using the pronoun "He" in my opinion masks the true nature of God by placing him in a human context) and thus to say that God "has a plan" or "has a will" is problematic to me, since the only way I can imagine a plan or a will is to think about how a human has a will or plan. I don't think God works like we do- and therefore I don't think we should waste our time attempting to apply our logic to the way God works in order to explain mysteries that have bedeviled humans for centuries if not mellennia.
Take, for instance, the word "plan". Many of my friends assert that things happen for a reason and it is all part of God's "plan". Now, I am a military planner, so I know a thing or two about how many- if not most- humans attempt to plan. We do it very logically- and in a linear fashion, because that is what our limited reasoning understands the best. We first set an objective or goal. We attempt to be as detailed as possible and we put a time constraint on it, placing it in the category of foretelling or prediction. We then backwards plan through a logical process all of the things that we think we will need to do- milestones if you will- and how they might be related to each other. We either consciously or unconsciously perceive an overarching theory or worldview of how things work that- if wrong- will cause us serious issues in reaching our goal (I've normally seen it done unconsciously, which renders learning- and thus adjusting one's plan- very difficult).
So, when this very human process is applied to real-world problems, chaos many times- if not most- raises its ugly head. When planning deals with human behavior the inevitable issue of emergence arises: humans and human population groups are independent, adaptive, and subjective thinkers and actors and thus give rise to behavior that is impossible to predict. Many cutting-edge planners today advocate learning lessons from complexity theory and evolutionary systems adaption to better understand how we might avoid planning that leaves us no better off- and many times worse off- because we assume a linear causal logic in the world.
I imagine the same can be said of God. I assume that I cannot understand God's mechanics- the way He functions. I assume that He is beyond my understanding in the present state of my existence: wholly reliant on my five Earthly and very human senses to literally make sense of life. So, I would further imagine that God's "plan" isn't any kind of plan that a human could imagine. In fact, I'd take it further and say that His purpose, will, what "good" is and "bad" (in this case "bad" things that happen to "good" people), and other concepts that imply some human quality or interpretation to them should not and cannot be applied to God and issues that deal with God.
So, to answer the original question, I'd first have to think about these questions:
- What is my definition of "life" (up to this point now? just me individually- divorced from others? including the "Afterlife"?)
- At what point am I talking about "planning" from? (a year ago? after High School? after college?)
- Has any plan worked out for me? If I'm in a good place- was it because I planned it? Can we really isolate ourselves from the world around us and analyze that question in an objective fashion?
And, to answer the question about bad things happening to good people, I'd have to think about the following:
- What is the definition of "bad" things?
- Who are these "good" people?
- How do we know the sum total of most or even all "bad" things is "bad"? Can we really analyze "bad" incidents divorced from their context and other incidents happening in conjunction with them?
Before concluding, here are a few prescient passages I found in Bible that deal with the nature of God and His "plan" and "will":
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Isaiah 43:18-19
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Revelation 22:20
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Colossians 1:17
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
What do these passages say to me? They hint at a mystery that is beyond me. They cry out for me to be wary of the things of this world- the human characteristics and the five senses I am limited to. To avoid putting human metaphors and characteristics on God. And always be ready to receive new Revelation as opposed to being stuck in the old Traditional ways of interpretation and revealing. I strongly suspect that the make-up of God- the way "He" "works" is truly beyond my comprehension- even to the extent that I have to rely on a terribly limited human language to describe what is indescribable (I think the Jews were on to something when they refused to speak God's true name).
I can only conclude that sometime in the Afterlife God's purpose will be revealed to me. In the meantime I have to trust there is a higher purpose and that part of that purpose is how I deal with the gifts I've received through no effort of my own. I think the reason we have to rely on Grace- and that we can't rely on our works is that our works are for the most part not our own- they come from a mixture of others and who came before us. Works, therefore, are by definition problematic. But, that doesn't mean one should not "work". The effort we put forth- in the face of whatever "bad" things we perceive (and "good" things) IS important if for no other reason than if we put forth no effort- we are slandering the good gifts we have received, and thus in my opinion turning our back on God's grace.
Bad things don't happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people (humans, in my mind, are flawed- and thus, all "bad"), everyday, all around the world- in fact "bad" things are the norm for most of the world. If these "bad" things include dying- then they are most likely only "bad" for those who are left here. And defining something else "bad" is problematic- it assumes nothing "good" can come out of anything "bad" (people in the "East" would probably have an issue with the false choice presented between "good" and "bad"). We in the West experience an anomaly every day in that we worry about things the rest of the world considers luxuries: how we will beat cancer, how we will lose weight, how we will get the air-conditioning fixed, how we will get more income, how we will hold our marriages together. These are the worries of elites- a people who have long forgotten what it is like to survive on a subsistence level. If the least among us will rule in Heaven, then most Americans will probably be servants.
I don't think God plans or has a will- not, at least, in the way we think of humans planning and having a will. Therefore it literally makes no sense to contemplate whether or not something bad happening to us is God's will or part of His plan. I see no other option but to trust that there is a purpose, that it will be revealed to us one day, and that we must continue to learn and use the gifts we have received to do good- constantly questioning our most cherished assumptions. I propose asking for God's grace implies questioning one's human qualities and perspective. And that that might be the only way to become closer to God on this Earth, in this life.
