Citizen Columns
Question
How does your faith understand coincidence versus the hand of God at work? Do you think it is true that there are no accidents?
Answer
Of course there are accidents. If I knock over a glass of milk I find it hard to believe there must always be more to this than an accident. Yet terms like accident, coincidence and chance all could be used to reflect a view of the universe as cold and impersonal. And this I can’t accept. Christian experience is that not even a sparrow is forgotten in God’s sight and that “even the hairs of your head are all counted” (Luke 12:7). God’s personal will is at work in creating, redeeming and sustaining the universe. Yet he allows his creation the freedom to unfold, not unlike parents who must eventually allow their children to make their own decisions and own mistakes. The natural world has its own laws. Human beings are given freedom to be and to act. There are also unseen angelic and demonic forces at work which further limit the realm of the merely accidental. But Orthodox Christianity rejects the notion that everything is pre-determined and that our role is to be passive receivers of the inevitable. On the contrary, we actively collaborate with God to shape our own and the world’s destiny. Indeed, openness to God’s inspiration and to “coincidences” can often lead us in surprising and fruitful directions.
If I am wary of an accidental universe, I am equally wary of an arbitrary one. Early Christians rebelled against widespread Greek and Roman fear of the gods. As Plutarch wrote, the superstitious person “assumes the gods are rash, faithless, fickle, vengeful, cruel and easily offended…He thinks that the worst of his ills is due to them. And yet, though he dreads them, he worships them and sacrifices to them and besieges their shrines” (On Superstition). Christ was received by many as their liberator from bondage to such fear. As St Paul wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). Whatever unexpected events happen, the horrific or joyful, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” (Romans 8:28).
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