It’s probably safe to say we’re all dealing with a bit of uncertainty in our lives right now.
We’ve got a super contagious virus that can spread from person to person without us
even knowing it—an economy that is struggling to stay afloat, with millions of people wondering
if they’re going to have a job in a month—and to top it all off, we have really no way of
knowing when any of this will be over.
What will the world look like in July?
We just don’t know.
It’s for this reason that many people, understandably, are looking for some solace, looking for something
to help it all makes sense.
In the midst of confusion and even tragedy, many people of faith are putting their trust
in a single belief: everything happens for a reason.
Yes, it may seem grim, it may seem out of control, we may have no idea what is happening
or why things are the way they are, but everything has a reason, and so there must be some purpose
for this all; it’s all a part of God’s plan, and so we’re all going to be fine
in the end.
I’m… just not sure if this is the best approach.
Taken at face value, the idea that “everything happens for a reason” or that “God has
a plan for us all” is perfectly fine.
I do believe that there is order to the universe, that God is in control and that there is nothing
outside of God’s ultimate plan of goodness and justice.
So says Sacred Scripture, so is the teaching of the Church.
Looking at the big picture, playing the long game, this is absolutely true: there is order
and reason to existence.
But I don’t think that’s what people mean when they say this.
When said in the midst of chaos and confusion, when given as a response to senseless tragedy,
what is subconsciously understood, or maybe even explicitly stated, is that this thing,
this situation we are struggling with, is intentionally willed by God.
There is a sense that everything that HAS ever happened and everything that WILL ever
happen is the direct result of God WANTING it to happen.
We can’t understand why so-and-so died, why this horrible thing happened to us, why
everything seems a mess, but that’s just because we can’t see the big picture.
If we could, we would be able to see why God wanted these things to happen for the sake
of the greater good.
If THAT is what is meant by “everything happens for a reason” and “it’s all
apart of God’s plan,” then I think we have a theological mess on our hands.
You see, there’s a major problem with this line of thinking, and that is the problem of evil.
In our world as it exists, there is not only physical evil—evil that is best described
in the negative, the naturally occurring absence or destruction of things as a result of say,
storms or earthquakes—but there is also moral evil—evil that is willed by a moral
agent, actions that destroy goodness and love, and go against the nature of God.
If everything happens for a reason in the sense that God WILLS everything, then what
we are saying is that God wills something that is against God’s nature.
Not only would this be sort of foolish and against God’s best interests, it’s a logical
fallacy that undermines the very existence of God.
If God is pure goodness, then it is not possible for God to will evil, otherwise God wouldn’t
be pure goodness anymore.
God would be mostly good, but also partially evil, making God… not God.
Intimately related to this problem, is a second theological mess, which is that of free will.
If we want to suggest that everything that has and will ever happen is the direct result
of God’s will, then what we’re saying is that nothing is the direct result of OUR will.
Because… how could there be?
If God is 100%, then there’s nothing left for us…
And if there is nothing in existence that is the result of our free will, if we can’t
have a direct effect on the way things are with at least some semblance of autonomy from
God, then we are not autonomous at all.
We’re puppets.
Robots.
Pre-programmed machines that are simply an extension of God’s will without anything
remotely our own.
And if THAT is the case, then there is no such thing as God loving us or us loving God,
because free will is kind of important when it comes to love.
Just as before, this simply can’t be the case.
We know that God created us to love and serve each other and God; we know that God made
us stewards of the earth and gave us dominion to create for ourselves; we know that God
gave us autonomy to choice for ourselves what we would do, even the choice to hate God,
to sin, and hurt one another.
And so we know that there are things in this world that we choose and create—sin, death,
destruction, lies, greed—none of which have their origin in God.
We did that.
We made it happen.
We, like God, created out of nothing.
Which means that, as strange as it sounds, there are things in this world that God did
not will, that God does not desire, and that God, in a sense, does not control.
Because, again, if God controlled and willed everything, then we could do neither, undermining
our whole existence.
To suggest that everything happens for a reason in a universal and explicit sense contradicts
both our understanding of God and the human person, leaving us with no reason to care
why anything happens in the first place.
So, yeah, that’s sort of a theological mess we got there.
At the same time, that doesn’t mean that we’re just floating through our existence
without a purpose, staring into the great abyss of nothingness with no point to anything we do.
Just because God isn’t a micro-manager dictating every event that has ever taken place doesn’t
mean that we have to jump straight to being despairing atheists.
As I said in the beginning, there is a sense in which I DO believe that everything happens for a reason.
God IS in control, that there IS a plan for all in existence.
An ultimate plan.
I say it all of the time when talking about vocations: I don’t think there is a call
from God to a specific career or path—that the only way that I can love God is to be
a priest or doctor or teacher, and that everything else is against God’s will.
That sort of narrow understanding misses the one essential call that we all have, which
is to be a disciple of Christ.
THAT is what God wants.
THAT is what God wills.
In a more general sense, we can say that the only thing that God truly wills is love, the
sort of pure and selfless love that desires to be shared and bear fruit in others.
I think of it like rowing in a boat down a river. God is the flow of the river.
God is that force pulling us down the stream, ultimately leading everyone to the same place.
We have control over the paddle, what direction we steer.
If we want, we can go against the current, tip the boat, or even try to crash into other boats. We can hurt others, hurt ourselves.
But no matter what we do, the river keeps flowing, keeps pulling us to a certain end.
God may not dictate how we talk or walk or how we treat others, and so there are
certainly individual situations that have no ultimate reason to them.
But there is nothing, in the end, that can escape the pull of the river.
Nothing that can escape the love of God, the will of God barreling through history to achieve God’s ultimate end.
Is this to say that everything good in the world comes from God and everything bad comes from us?
Not necessarily.
There are certainly times when God wills what is painful or hurtful to us: like a Father
punishing a disobedient child, there must be natural consequences to sin and poor behavior.
Tough love is still love.
But there are also times in which the hardship we face is not God’s doing at all, in which
there is no reason for it other than “we did this ourselves.”
God does not will human trafficking, poverty, pollution, abortion, murder, rape, negligence—we,
as a people, do this with our free will, and God, respecting that free will, allows it to happen
But that doesn’t mean that God stays distant or uninvolved or out of control of the ultimate picture.
Being the source of love and desiring nothing but Goodness, God takes everything that we
do and responds with something better.
When we choose evil, God makes it an opportunity for redemption; when we choose death, God
brings new life; when we try to bring disorder and chaos and futility, God brings order and
reason and purpose.
There may be no ultimate reason for the coronavirus other than that’s the way things mutate
and that’s what happens when you expose humans to sick animals.
There may be no intended purpose for the suffering that we feel right now, the pain of isolation,
the sorrow of losing a loved one.
I'm not sure if this is the direct will of God.
But I can tell you for sure that none of these things are beyond God’s redeeming touch,
and none of them can get in the way of God’s ultimate plan.
Our salvation.
Even in sadness, God brings joy.
As a Christian in these times, never let your heart grow weary.
No matter what happens, no matter what reason we face this or that, in the end,
God is in control.
Take solace in that.