Intervention.
I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Oh, not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
If he felt he had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms~ lyrics by Nick Cave
What do you think, does God intervene in our affairs? Does God answer our prayers for healing, for safety, for miracles… or for jobs? In the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, the answer is unequivocal: Yes, God intervenes regularly and powerfully into our lives, largely at our request. Personally, I’m not so sure.
The bigger question for me is whether or not God is good—and whether God can bring good results out of bad circumstances. To these two questions, I have chosen to believe in the affirmative. And in fact, it is my commitment to the goodness of God as the most central and non-negotiable of truths that causes me to question whether God actively intervenes in response to our prayers.
Here’s what we know absolutely, that sometimes good people pray and get the answers they are looking for, and other times good people pray and don’t get the answers they are looking for. One person gets “supernaturally healed” while another dies. And while many Christians seem to accept that dissonance without any apparent concern, quoting cliques such as, “Well, God works in mysterious ways,” I can’t get past the seeming capriciousness of a God who would intervene on behalf of one precious child and spurn another. And when it comes to prayers for miraculous interventions, the answer seems to be no a whole lot more than yes. So I would genuinely like to hear from my readers on this point: How do you deal with the inconsistency of such answers to prayer?
Does my agnosticism at this point mean that I disregard the stories of the Bible? I really don’t, I take those stories very seriously, just not at face value. It all comes down to whether we believe the Bible to be written by God… or written by people who loved God—people who filtered their experiences with God through their own mindsets and presumptions and wrote accordingly. I have written about this in past posts, but it seemed relevant to recap the big idea of how we hold scripture again here.
I chose the photo above of a person picking pedals off a daisy, reminiscent of the adolescent sentiment, “He loves me… She loves me not” to capture the randomness embedded in interventionist theory. But in addition to the rub with biblical literalness, the non-interventionist God carries troubling overtones as well: Does God even care about our authentic threats and losses if there is no divine intervention? Does God care when we suffer physically or emotionally… when a marriage partner leaves… when jobs and resources evaporate… [insert your quandary here]? Theologians and philosophers have wrestled with “the problem of pain” since the beginning of time. And so must we.
Back to the central principle: If God is fundamentally good, then of course God cares about our slightest concern and anxiety, not to mention the genuine crises of our lives! Another possibility in our dilemma is that God want to intervene but lacks the power to do so. But I think we would struggle to attach the name “God” to a being who was that impotent. So if we believe that God both cares deeply about our afflictions and is strong enough to intervene, but chooses not to, the only logical option left that I can find is that God deliberately eschews intervention (most of the time) in order to serve a greater good. Is this option just another trite dodge, or is there genuine merit to this possibility?
As usual, it’s illuminating to look at the example of Jesus. Did God protect Jesus from insult, temptation, betrayal, injury from family and friends, the loss of a father (and almost certainly other deaths), and of course his own suffering and death? Did Jesus get sick? Did Jesus pray for miracles to benefit himself or others? No, it seems that Jesus believed God could intervene but basically chose not to intervene, for himself, for a larger good.
I’m not a secessionist; I believe that the supernatural is woven into our world. I just don’t think we get to play that power card very often. Think about it, if we got supernatural interventions every time we prayed, that would be the ultimate power trip. God seems to value humility of soul and trust in the unknown more than being spectacular, which is enormously evident when we look at who Jesus blessed in the Beatitudes: not the powerful but the dependent.
So what can we trust God to do for us? In my view, basically two things: to aways be with us (Mt 28:20) and to work every bad thing for an ultimate good effect in our lives (Rom 8:28). For me, that’s enough. Actually, it’s more than enough.
growing your soul
How does your sense of God’s interventions or non-interventions affect your sense of safety and security in the world?
serving our world
How does your sense of God’s intention to answer prayers for intervention influence your sense of power and control in your world?
takeaway
Find safety in being loved.