For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11
This verse is often used to substantiate the claim that God knows the future. I don't interpret the verse that way. In my view, it is simply saying that God wants us to prosper and be filled with hope. And that hope can stem from seeing God working in our lives when things are hard.
Yet some read this verse through a different lens. They embrace the idea that God has planned a future that cannot be changed in the present. While others believe that the future is not predetermined, but rather a range of possibilities, with the actual outcome dependent on free choices.
I am open to that but not dogmatically. In reality we really do not know if God knows the future. Yet, one thing to consider is the idea that God seems to act after bad things happen rather than before. One could interpret that as evidence that he, a loving God, does not really know the future.
I'd like to discuss that last point. For me, I really believe that God loves us. Pursuant to that idea that it makes sense that our heavenly father would prevent traumatizing things from happening to us if he knew the future. Yet history and reality proves that he doesn't.
Yet that same history shows us how God actually works. He takes traumatic things, like abuse, and finds a way to gather counselors and others around us to help us heal. He takes our sins and our mistakes and seems to find ways to help us. He brings beauty from ashes.
I'd like to discuss that last point. For me, I really believe that God loves us. Pursuant to that idea that it makes sense that our heavenly father would prevent traumatizing things from happening to us if he knew the future. Yet history and reality proves that he doesn't.
Yet that same history shows us how God actually works. He takes traumatic things, like abuse, and finds a way to gather counselors and others around us to help us heal. He takes our sins and our mistakes and seems to find ways to help us. He brings beauty from ashes.
It is like God is really not interested in knowing the future, whether he can or not, but more interested in being in the moment with us. Take the Cross of Christ for example. He could have intervened but chose to allow Jesus to be tortured. And he brought something beautiful from it.
I guess it all depends on how one sees God. If one embraces the idea that God knows the future (as I once did) they must accept the idea that he chooses not to prevent awful and heinous things from happening in their lives. And much has been written on why he does that.
In contrast, a person who sees God as One who cannot, or chooses not to, see the future does not have to deal with the idea that their heavenly father could have prevented their pain but chose not to. They can rest in the idea that God is their friend and allow him to bring good things out of bad.
As I said before, I am not married to either idea but can see the merits of each view. One might say that a God who doesn't see the future is not God at all. And there is merit to that view. I also find merit in the other view as well because of the loving way that it imagines God.
... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to get comments and usually respond. So come back to see my reply.
You can click here to see my comment policy.