Space For Doubt

[For whatever reason, the latter part of this post does not display properly on mobile devices. FYI]

This subject is one that I’ve taken issue with for my entire life. I always felt blaming or crediting God for most things just didn’t sit right. It wasn’t until my deconstruction journey that I was able put some words behind those feelings.

Inevitably anytime something miraculous happens, a message of God’s mercy is conveyed.

• “God spared those people from that hurricane”
• “God blessed us with rain”
• “Your guardian angel protected you in that car crash!”
• When a baby is born, the most common verse thrown out is Psalm 139:13 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

I’m a bit of a cynic and pessimist. I’m struggling with the cognitive dissonance that I feel would be present for me to make such claims. How do I speak these things when in hearing range could be:

• The family who was NOT spared from that hurricane
• The farmer who lost everything to drought
• The father of a daughter killed in a car crash
• The mother of a deformed/diseased baby?

I have a different take. God is not involved in any of it. None. Zilch. Zero.

Let’s take the act of creation. In the beginning we were created in God’s image right? Would it not stand to reason that we were invested with certain abilities to mimic God’s? We get angry. He gets angry. We get jealous. He gets jealous. We get sad. He gets sad.

Would it not be reasonable to say that we also were gifted with the ability to create life via procreation?

In the first scenario, God is doing the “knitting,” thus any defects would seem to be a direct result of His failure. In the alternative, the defects are a result of sinful bodies that are not working how they should. In a perfect body these mutations should not be happening. In ours they do. A woman’s auto-abort abnormality detection system should be catching them, but isn’t because that too doesn’t work like it should.

We are spreading a form of the prosperity gospel when we use phrases like this. When the result is negative, the sufferer is often left feeling like it’s a direct fault of their own. I deserved this. I did something wrong. I didn’t do [Thing that makes God happy] enough. Or even worse, God doesn’t really love or care for me.

My deconstruction has brought me to see God as very “hands off.” I’m not saying He can’t intervene, or that He never has before. I think one can’t deny Jesus was a pretty direct intervention. However I just see our ability to discern when that happens as non-existent, and unwise to attempt.

It reminds of the old Chinese proverb “The old man lost his horse.” Who are we to assign something as a blessing or a curse? Many people have won the lottery only to wind up broke and alone at the end of their lives.

I have been at the receiving end of a lot of subjectively good things in my life. I’ve also had to uncomfortably acknowledge recently that most likely, the “good things” I’ve been blessed with, were not inherently due to God’s direct action.

A small portion of it is me using the brain that God gave me, the education I was afforded to have, and influences I’ve allowed into my life. All of that helped me make good life decisions resulting in those good things. I think the majority of it is simply the right place at the right time. A bit of chance if you will.

We know random chance is a thing that happens. We accept that in a door prize drawing. We accept that in a heads/tails coin flip.

What I’m getting at is:

The less consequential the outcome, the easier it is for people to attribute the outcome of a scenario to chance. The more consequential it is, the more likely it is that somehow God should be involved in one way or another.

I’ve seen too many people not receive good things. I’ve seen too many not get their hearts desires. I’ve seen too many ridden with mental health struggles. You’ll never hear me say “Just trust God. He will work it out for you” as comfort. Is that callous and cold? It is distrusting? Is it unfaithful? I still struggle with these questions.

All I know is sometimes God doesn’t speak. Sometimes He doesn’t work things out for our good, or at least our understanding of what “good” means in this life. The more a person hears that and continues to experience negative outcomes, the less inclined they will be to believe in this “Loving God.” The easier it is to grow cold and distant.

How Christianity has traditionally approached this has caused more harm than good in my view. If God has given me X and then I lose X, did He take it away? If God has never given me X despite everyone else having X, then does He not want me to have it? You could go on and on down this rabbit hole. It only ends if we stop assigning things a divine origin.

What if we have a total re-think on this? What if we move away from viewing this as given divine gifting to a mindset of appreciating the given divine wisdom?

Let’s reframe the conversation away from divine gifting. We can keep God as our anchor, without allowing our view of Him to turn off the hurting, hopeless, and afraid as feeling “abandoned.” It takes the pressure off of God and allows the blame for accidents or just straight up evil things to be human causes. Or even just simply random chance.

We can do better.

Peace