By Pastor Rick Warren
“For the Lord is always good. He is always loving and kind, and his faithfulness goes on and on to each succeeding generation.” – Psalm 100:5 (TLB)
Because God is always good, we can know certain things about prayer. When you understand these things because you understand how good God really is, you’re going to enjoy prayer. It won’t be a duty anymore. It will be a delight!
(“Decision Making and the Will of God” has sold more than 250,000 copies since first published by Garry Friesen with J. Robin Maxson. Dr. Friesen has kindly provided us with this concise summary of his 525-page book so that we might share it with you. The full book is available on amazon.com here, and we recommend it highly.)
There is a very old, now classic, joke that goes like this:
Patient: “Doctor, I can’t seem to make up my mind about what I should do.”
Psychiatrist: “Have you always had trouble making decisions?”
Patient: “Well, yes and no.”
At best, the joke is a grinner. But it touches a responsive chord in most of us because, on any given day, the guy on the couch could be yours truly.
And yet we must decide. And how we decide matters, for all of our choices shape our lives to some extent. Dr. Haddon Robinson expresses our sentiments well when he says: “We want to make right decisions, for we realize that the decisions we make turn around and make us. As we choose one end of the road we choose the other. “
Everyone wants to make decisions that turn out well. But conscientious Christians have an additional, ultimate objective: “. . . we have as our ambition … to be pleasing to [the Lord]” (2 Corinthians 5:9).
The prerequisite for God-pleasing decisions is act forth by the Apostle Paul In Colossians 1:9-10: “. . . that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will. In all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects. . . .” The principal task in decision making for the Christian is to learn what God wants him to do, and then do it.
So far so good. The obvious question is, how is the Christian to learn what God wants him to do as he is confronted with life’s decisions?
“God Has Spoken”
Throughout history, the ways that God has communicated His will to men have varied. Before there was any Scripture, God revealed His will through direct revelation. Usually the message was received by a single individual who would pass along to others whatever content God would instruct. The means of revelation included visions, angels, theophanies (manifestations of God in human form), or simply the audible voice of God (see Genesis 28:12-16; 32:1-2. 24-30; 35: 1).
As God’s special revelation was committed to paper (Exodus 17:14; 24:4; 34:27-28), His people had two sources of knowledge of His will – the Book (referenced in Joshua 1:8) and the additional instruction that God gave by further direct revelation (Joshua 1:1-9).
Over a period of some 1500 years, God’s will was written down (2 Peter 1: 19-21). Finally, after God had revealed Himself fully in the human person of His Son, Jesus Christ (John 1: 14, 18), the Book we call the Bible was completed (Revelation 22:18-20). Since God’s special revelation culminated in His Son, believers in this age possess In Scripture the full disclosure of God’s will until the Second Coming of that same Son.
Accordingly, God has provided for us all that we need in order to make decisions that are pleasing to Him! (2 Peter 1:3).
The purpose of this article is to summarize the teaching of God’s Word on how we can make decisions according to God’s will.
When the Bible speaks of God’s will, it does so in one of two senses. The first of these we will call the “moral” will of God. It may be defined as the commands and principles which God has revealed in the Bible to teach how men ought to believe and live.
For example, Paul wrote that even unbelieving Jews “… know [God’s] will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law. . .” (Romans 2:18). He was saying that since they study the Scripture, they understand God’s moral will. Therefore, they know right from wrong, truth from error. Their fault is not ignorance, but disobedience.
Accordingly, the Principle of Obedience may be stated: In those areas specifically addressed by the Bible, the revealed commands and principles of God (His moral will) are to be obeyed.
The ramifications of this principle are more fully recognized when four crucial characteristics of God’s moral will are brought into focus.
1. The moral will of God is fully revealed in the Bible. One hundred per cent of what God wants us to know about believing and living to please Him He has already told us. The Bible is our final and complete authority for faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 1: 1-2).
2. The moral will of God is the expression of the character of God (Romans 7:12). Because God’s moral will reflects His character, it helps to produce that same character in the life of the one who obeys it (Luke 6.35-36) and leads to fullness of life (Psalm 19:7-11).
3. The moral will of God touches every aspect and moment of life. That is true because God’s will encompasses more than overt behavior. For God is not concerned simply with what we do; He cares equally about why we do what we do, as well as how we do it. To put it differently, God’s moral will prescribes the believer’s goals and attitudes, as well as his actions. Furthermore, it shapes his perspective of reality which serves as the context in which his decisions are made.
This point is so important that it merits further consideration. Goals, by their nature, are more general than behavioral commands. The Christian’s goals should reflect God’s stated purposes for his life. Here are a few of the major ones:
• to glorify God in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31);
• to minister to others (Romans 14:19);
• to fulfill God-given responsibilities (1 Peter 4: 10-11);
• to evangelize lost people (2 Peter 3:9);
• to do good works (Titus 3:8);
• to produce spiritual fruit (Colossians 1: 10).
Our decisions should not only conform to God-given goals, they should reflect right attitudes. A partial listing of God’s will for this area of our lives would include: love (Mark 12:28-31), reliance (Proverbs 3:5-6), humility (Philippians 2:5-8), gratitude (Colossians 3:17), integrity (Colossians 3:22), diligence (Colossians 3:23), eagerness (1 Peter 5:2), generosity (1 Timothy 6:17-19), courage (John 16:33), submission (Ephesians 5:21), contentment (Hebrews 13:5), and joy (James 1:2).
Of course God is concerned about our behavior, for the end does not justify just any means. With proper goals in view, and right attitudes at heart, our actions must be lawful (i.e., they must not be outside of the revealed will of God. Ephesians 5:1-14). and they must be wise (i.e., the believer may not make a decision he knows to be foolish (Ephesians 5: 15-17, Luke 14:28-32).
Since no decision is made in a vacuum, the degree to which we pursue godly goals with righteous attitudes and wise actions will be largely determined by our perspective on life. In particular, the Christian whose world-view is shaped by Scripture will have a much different sense of self-identity. Knowing that he is loved by God with a love which he did nothing to earn (and which, therefore, he can do nothing to forfeit, Romans 8:31-39), he will face life with a deep sense of security. Being aware that God has specifically equipped him to participate meaningfully in the outworking of the eternal purposes of God (Ephesians 2: 10, 1 Peter 4: 10-11), he has a clear grasp of his personal worth. A strong sense of security and significance in Christ frees the Christian from self-promoting motivations in decision making, releasing him to focus more on the needs of others (Philippians 2:1-5).
Other passages would remind the Christian that he is on assignment for God in enemy territory (Ephesians 6:12), that physical life on this earth is preparatory for “real life” in heaven, that what he invests for God now will be repaid with interest later (Matthew 6:19-21; Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17). And he will recognize that the unseen forces and resources of heaven are involved in his behalf as he seeks to carry out God’s will on earth (Hebrews 1:14; 11:1, 2 Kings 6:16-17).
It is God’s moral will that we resist having our viewpoint molded by the world (Romans 12:2). Instead, we are to “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7) seeing our lives, and therefore our decisions, through the “glasses” of God’s Word.
To sum up: It is because God’s moral will prescribes our goals, attitudes, actions, and perspective that it touches every aspect and moment of life.
4. Since the moral will of God contains His complete revelation for faith and life, expresses God’s own character, and touches every aspect and moment of life, it is fully able to equip believers for every good work. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Our response to such abundant guidance from God should be obvious. First, we need to learn what God has said (Joshua 1:8).
Second, we need to do what God has said (John 13:17). As one observes the decision-making practices of people, one is forced to the sobering conclusion that the greatest impediments to making good decisions are ignorance of God’s Word and stubborn resistance to God’s will (Proverbs 16:25; Acts 7: 51).
It is obvious to the student of the Bible that God’s moral will does not specifically address every decision we make. That would be impossible. For not only are there too many decisions to prescribe, there are choices that are required in our modern setting that were unknown in the biblical world-which car to buy, what television program to watch, etc. It is those kinds of decisions that are governed by the next two principles of decision making.
The Principle of Freedom may be expressed as follows: In those areas where the Bible gives no command or principle (non-commanded decisions), the believer is free and responsible to choose his course of action. Any decision made within the moral will of god is acceptable to God.
This principle asserts three things: 1) There are some decisions which have multiple options, any number of which may be acceptable to God; 2) the final decision made must not be in violation of God’s moral will (in purpose, attitude, or execution); and 3) God will not dictate to the believer what he must do – the individual is free to make the decision.
(It should be noted in passing that God certainly could reveal His will for a particular decision not directly addressed in Scripture. He has done that in the past, as Scripture records, and His ability to do so now remains unchanged. So if His purposes warranted, God could directly communicate specific guidance today. If He were to do so, it could be expected that the revelation would be crystal clear – and that the means would be on the order of an angelic visit, super-natural vision, or audible voice. However, what we are about to see is that biblical decision making does not anticipate such divine intervention. True, it does not rule it out. It just assumes that the Word we already have is adequate for all our decisions. And if it is not enough in some situations, it is up to God to provide what we need.)
The principle of freedom of choice within revealed limits was clearly part of the Creator”s design from the very beginning. The parable which follows, paraphrased from Genesis 2, highlights the reality of freedom in God’s first specific commandment to man.
Adam was hungry. He had had a long, challenging day naming animals. His afternoon nap had been refreshing, and his post-siesta introduction to Eve was exhilarating, to say the least. But as the sun began to set on their first day, Adam discovered that he had worked up an appetite.
“I think we should eat,” he said to Eve. “Let’s call the evening meal ‘supper.’”
“Oh, you’re so decisive, Adam,” replied Eve in admiration. “I like that in a man. I guess all the excitement of being created has made me hungry too.”
As they discussed how they should proceed, they decided that Adam would gather fruit from the garden, and Eve would prepare it for their meal. Adam set about his task and soon returned with a basket full of ripe fruit. He gave it to Eve, and went to soak his feet in the soothing current of the Pishon River until supper was ready. He had been reviewing the animals” names for about five minutes when he heard his wife’s troubled voice.
“Adam, could you help me for a moment?”
“What seems to be the problem, dear?” he replied.
“I’m not sure which of these lovely fruits I should prepare for supper. I certainly want to be obedient to the Lord’s will. But I’m just not sure what He wants me to do. Would you go ask Him what I should do about supper?”
Adam understood Eve’s dilemma. So he left her to go speak with the Lord. Shortly he returned, looking perplexed. “He didn’t really answer your question,” he announced.
“What do you mean? Didn’t He say anything?”
“Oh yes,” replied Adam. “But He just repeated what He said earlier today during the garden tour: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” I assure you, Eve, I steered clear of the forbidden tree.”
“Well, we still have to make a decision about supper,” she observed. “What should I prepare for tonight?”
Adam shrugged. “I’ve never seen such crisp, juicy apples. I think it would be OK to have them.”
Eve agreed, and Adam headed back to his easy-bank.
He was only halfway to the river when he heard Eve’s call. He was so hungry that he jogged back to the clearing where she was working. But his anticipation evaporated when he saw her face.
“More problems?” he asked.
“Adam, I just can’t decide what I should do with these apples. I could slice them, dice them, mash them, bake them in a pie, a cobbler, fritters, or dumplings. Or we could just polish them and eat them raw. But I don’t want to do anything that would be displeasing to the Lord. Would you be a dear and go just one more time to the Lord with my problem?”
Not having any better solution himself, Adam did as Eve requested. When he returned, he said, “I get the same answer as before: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” You know, Eve, the Lord made that statement as though it ought to fully answer my question. I’m sure He could have told me what to eat and how to eat it; but I think He wants us to make those decisions. It was the same way with the animals today. He just left their names up to me.”
Eve was incredulous. “Do you mean that I can’t miss God’s will in this decision?”
Adam explained: “The only way you could do that is to pick some fruit from the forbidden tree. But all of these fruits are all right. Why, I suppose we could eat all of them.” Adam snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “Say, that’s a great idea! Let’s have fruit salad for supper.”
Eve was hesitant. “What’s a salad?”
When we speak of freedom within the moral will of God, our terminology suggests a diagram. God’s moral will can be represented by a circle. Whatever is commanded by God lies within the circle; whatever is forbidden by God is outside that perimeter. Within the larger circle of God’s moral will is a smaller circle signifying an area of freedom.
Now, in the first command quoted above, the tree of knowledge of good and evil would be outside of the circle of God’s will – forbidden. The rest of the trees of Eden would not only be inside the larger circle, they would be within the area of freedom.
This same principle is taught in the New Testament as well. For the sake of brevity, we will simply cite three passages that teach freedom of choice with regard to dinner invitations from unbelievers, giving to the church, and marriage partners.
“If one of the unbelievers invites you, and you wish to go, eat anything that is set before you, without asking questions for conscience’ sake” (1 Corinthians 10:27).
“Let each one [give] just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).
“A wife is bound as long as her husband lives, but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).
In each of these cases, there is a clear line marking off the circle of God’s moral will. The reality of an area of freedom is equally clear in each case. In the last passage, for instance, the moral will of God forbids marriage of a Christian to a non-Christian. But the choice of whether to marry and which particular believer to marry falls within the area of freedom. It is up to the individuals involved to make the decision and follow through on the commitment with the Spirit’s strength.
The other side of the coin is that freedom entails responsibility. If God is not going to dictate every choice we make, the believer is not only free to choose – he is required to choose.
That raises a critical question: On what basis is the Christian to make his decisions in freedom areas?
It is fruitful, when reflecting on this question, to observe the decision-making practices of the apostles as well as their explanations for the reasons behind their actions. For instance, some weeks after Paul and his companions were forced to leave the newly founded church at Thessalonica, they agreed on a plan, explained in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2, whereby the fledgling church could receive further help: “Therefore when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy … to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith.”
How was their decision made? “We thought it best.”
As one reads of other apostolic decisions in the New Testament, one encounters similar terminology: “I thought it necessary” (Philippians 2:25-26); “if it is fitting” (1 Corinthians 16:3-4); “it is not desirable” (Acts 6:2-4); “I have decided” (Titus 3:12).
When it came to instruction in decision making, the apostles’ exhortations were consistent with their practice. Some choices were commanded on grounds of being “good,” while others were “better” (1 Corinthians 7:1, 9, 26. 38).
All of the decisions referred to have two things in common: 1) since they were not determined by God’s moral will, they each qualified as a matter of freedom, and 2) the terms utilized in the explanations (“good,” “better.” “best.” “fitting,” etc.) imply some standard.
That standard, in a word, is wisdom. And the principle of wisdom is: In noncommanded decisions, the goal of the believer is to make wise decisions on the basis of spiritual advantage.
In this principle, some definitions are important.
“Spiritual” indicates that the ends in view, as well as the means to those ends, are governed by the moral will of God.
“Advantage” means what works best to get the job done – within God’s moral will, of course.
And “wisdom” is accurately defined as “the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.” Wisdom is the ability to recognize what is spiritually expedient in a given situation.
The importance of wisdom in decision making is emphasized by Paul in Ephesians 5:15-16: “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”
And where does one find the kind of wisdom necessary for decision-making? Ultimately, of course, “. . . the LORD gives wisdom, From His mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). For “wise” is what God is in His essence (Job 9:4, 12:13). In Him alone can wisdom be found in its fullness (Romans 11:33; 16:27).
But godly wisdom is not imparted to just anyone. It is granted only to those who value it enough to pursue it.
“If you seek [wisdom] as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the LORD,
And discover the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:4-5; see 8:17).
If one is going to find “hidden treasure,” it is important to know where to look. For God’s wisdom is mediated through a number of sources.
The most obvious of these sources is the Bible itself. For in its pages, God has spoken. His gift of wisdom has, in large measure, been given (Psalm 119:97- 100). Even though not all of decisions are determined by God’s moral will, they are all regulated by it.
Still, God in His grace has provided other valuable and legitimate sources of wisdom. The principal ones include outside research (Luke 14:28-32), wise counselors (Proverbs 15:22) and the lessons of life itself (Hebrews 5:12-14)
Even though the search for wisdom is objective, it is not impersonal. For God is involved throughout the process in granting wisdom to those who ask in faith (James 1:5-6) and who seek the attitudes of reverence, humility, teachableness, diligence, and uprightness (Proverbs 2:4-7. 9:9-10; 15:31-33).
Most of the biblical teaching concerning decision making relates the believer’s choices to the moral will of God. God’s moral will not only dictates what men must and must not do, but it also defines the sphere within which Christians have freedom and responsibility of choice. And it explains how that freedom and responsibility are to be exercised according to wisdom.
There is, however, another aspect of God’s will that is found In the Bible and affects our decisions. We will call this category God’s “sovereign” will. Ephesians 1: 11, for example, uses the term in this sense when it says that God “. . . works things after the counsel of His will.” God’s sovereign will may be defined as God’s secret plan that determines everything that happens in the universe.
To see how God’s sovereign will affects our decisions, there are at least four things we need to understand about it.
1. God’s sovereign will is exhaustive. It is the ultimate determiner of all things (Ephesians 1: 11), including which of our plans finds fulfillment (James 4:13-15).
2. God’s sovereign will is certain. It will not be frustrated by men, angels, or anything else (Daniel 4:35). To Paul’s challenging question, “Who resists His will?” (Romans 9:19), we are humbly compelled to agree, “No one!” (Romans 9:6-29).
3. God’s sovereign will is secret. Man can only learn what it is after it happens (Deuteronomy 29:29). The only exceptions to this are statements of prophecy in which events are foretold (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and explanations of the destinies of the saved (John 3:16) and the lost (John 3:36).
4. God’s sovereign will is perfect. It is perfect in the sense that it will ultimately lead to God’s greatest glory. There never was another plan (Ephesians 1:4). Though sin is contrary to God’s moral will, its presence is permitted in God’s plan partly because His conquest of it reveals His grace and power. God will be glorified for His holiness, for His defeat of Satan, for His righteous judgment, and for His grace to redeemed sinners (Revelation 5, see also John 12:32-33; Romans 5:20, 8:28-30; 11: 15, 30-33).
Without a doubt, the teaching concerning God’s sovereign will confronts us with one of the greatest mysteries in the Bible. For Scripture is equally emphatic that while God ultimately determines all things, He does so without being the author of sin (James 1: 13), without violating the will of man (Luke 22:22), and without destroying the reality of decision making (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28).
Theologians have not unraveled this mystery (Romans 9:14-21), and God has not yet completely explained the outworking of divine sovereignty and human responsibility (see Habakkuk 1-3). But both are asserted to be true, often in the same verse (Luke 22:22).
The equal truth of these twin realities is in no place more clearly seen than in the provision of our salvation. For the most wicked act ever committed – the willful murder of God’s Son, Israel’s Messiah – actually accomplished the central requirement in God’s glorious plan of redemption! Accordingly, Peter declared to the men of Israel, “this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23; see 4:27-28).
While it is always appropriate to seek to understand God’s revelation to the fullest possible extent, there are limits to the ability of finite minds to comprehend the infinite God. Those who, through the study of God’s Word, gain humble appreciation for the wonder of God’s sovereign will, find themselves echoing in their hearts the doxology of the apostle Paul: “Oh. the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33).
It remains for us to see how God’s sovereign will relates to our decision-making. Perhaps the clearest biblical commentary is provided by James 4:13-16:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “if the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
This paragraph is essentially a rebuke of arrogant, self-sufficient planning which does not acknowledge God or His sovereignty. The proud merchants are guilty of making two presumptions: 1) that they will live beyond tomorrow; and 2) that they control their own destinies. “All such boasting is evil.”
Significantly, James does not condemn the practice of planning. His corrective does not call for a repeal of their plans, but for a proper recognition of God’s overruling purposes – “If the Lord wills …” (v. 15). The whole paragraph is apparently an illustration of the principle stated in verse 6: “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
In short, the proper response to the sovereign will of God is what we are calling the Principle of Humility: In all decisions, the believer should humbly accept, in advance, the outworking of God’s sovereign will as it touches each decision. (See Acts 18:21; 19:21. 20:16; 1 Corinthians 4:19; 16:5-7.)
Since the sovereign will of God cannot be known in advance (it is secret), it has no direct bearing on the activity of decision-making. On the other hand, since the sovereign will of God ultimately determines whether and/or when our plans are accomplished, its reality should govern our attitude in decision making. Humble planning is the proper response to the sovereign will of God.
What James advocated, Paul practiced. In Romans 1:8-13 and 15:20-29, Paul explained the travel plans by which he hoped to visit Rome. Careful study of these verses reveals the steps in Paul’s decision-making process:
1. PURPOSES: Paul adopted spiritual goals that were based on God’s moral will (1: 11-13; 15:20).
2. PRIORITIES: Since he did not know how much time he had, he arranged his goals into wise priorities, determining what should be done first, second, third, etc. (15:23-28).
3. PLANS: Next, he devised plans that gave him a strategy for accomplishing his purposes (1: 13; 15:23-28).
4. PRAYER: Through prayer, he submitted himself and his plans to the sovereign will of God (1:8-10).
5. PERSEVERANCE: When providentially hindered from accomplishing his plans, he assumed that the delay was God’s sovereign will. This conviction freed him from discouragement. Since his plans were sound, the only thing he adjusted was the timetable (1:10, 13; 15:22-24).
6. PRESENTATION: Paul explained his decisions on the basis of God’s moral will and his own personal application of wisdom (1:8-13; 15:20-29).
The postscript to this discussion is that Paul did eventually make it to Jerusalem, Rome, and possibly even Spain – in that order. He did have to modify his plans somewhat along the way, for the two-year stopover in the Caesarean jail and the shipwreck at Malta had not been included in Paul’s original projections. Nor did Paul just visit the Romans “in passing.” His confinement under house arrest delayed his plans for westward advancement for at least two years.
On the plus side, Paul’s transportation from Palestine to Rome was provided courtesy of Caesar, who also furnished a military escort for his protection. And the period of imprisonment was used by Paul to pen a major portion of what was to become the New Testament.
Because he responded properly to God’s guidance in its various forms, Paul became a model of one who engaged in long-range planning on the one hand, and snatched up present opportunities on the other. Interruptions became occasions for personal growth and ministry. It is just such a balance that believers today should seek to maintain.
At the beginning of this article, we established that the goal of the Christian is to make decisions that are pleasing to God. What we have seen is that His Word establishes four principles for decision making according to God’s will:
1. The Principle of OBEDIENCE: In those areas specifically addressed by the Bible, the revealed commands and principles of God (His moral will) are to be obeyed.
2. The Principle of FREEDOM: In those areas where the Bible gives no command or principle, the believer is free and responsible to choose his course of action. Any decision made within the moral will of God is acceptable to God.
3. The Principle of WISDOM: In noncommanded decisions, the goal of the believer is to make wise decisions on the basis of spiritual advantage.
4. The Principle of HUMILITY: In all decisions, the believer should humbly accept, in advance, the outworking of God’s sovereign will as it touches each decision.
This summary is stated slightly shorter in the new edition of Decision Making and the Will of God:
1. Where God commands, we must obey.
2. Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose
3. Where there is no command, God gives us wisdom to choose.
4. When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we must trust the sovereign God to work all the details together for good.
Top Image by Barbara Jackson from Pixabay
The question of whether a god exists is heating up in the 21st century. According to a Pew survey, the percent of Americans having no religious affiliation reached 23 percent in 2014. Among such “nones,” 33 percent said that they do not believe in God – an 11 percent increase since only 2007.
Such trends have ironically been taking place even as, I would argue, the probability for the existence of a supernatural god have been rising. In my 2015 book, “God? Very Probably: Five Rational Ways to Think about the Question of a God,” I look at physics, the philosophy of human consciousness, evolutionary biology, mathematics, the history of religion and theology to explore whether such a god exists. I should say that I am trained originally as an economist, but have been working at the intersection of economics, environmentalism and theology since the 1990s.
In 1960 the Princeton physicist – and subsequent Nobel Prize winner – Eugene Wigner raised a fundamental question: Why did the natural world always – so far as we know – obey laws of mathematics?
As argued by scholars such as Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh, mathematics exists independent of physical reality. It is the job of mathematicians to discover the realities of this separate world of mathematical laws and concepts. Physicists then put the mathematics to use according to the rules of prediction and confirmed observation of the scientific method.
But modern mathematics generally is formulated before any natural observations are made, and many mathematical laws today have no known existing physical analogues.
Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity, for example, was based on theoretical mathematics developed 50 years earlier by the great German mathematician Bernhard Riemann that did not have any known practical applications at the time of its intellectual creation.
In some cases the physicist also discovers the mathematics. Isaac Newton was considered among the greatest mathematicians as well as physicists of the 17th century. Other physicists sought his help in finding a mathematics that would predict the workings of the solar system. He found it in the mathematical law of gravity, based in part on his discovery of calculus.
At the time, however, many people initially resisted Newton’s conclusions because they seemed to be “occult.” How could two distant objects in the solar system be drawn toward one another, acting according to a precise mathematical law? Indeed, Newton made strenuous efforts over his lifetime to find a natural explanation, but in the end he could say only that it is the will of God.
Despite the many other enormous advances of modern physics, little has changed in this regard. As Wigner wrote, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.”
In other words, as I argue in my book, it takes the existence of some kind of a god to make the mathematical underpinnings of the universe comprehensible.
In 2004 the great British physicist Roger Penrose put forward a vision of a universe composed of three independently existing worlds – mathematics, the material world and human consciousness. As Penrose acknowledged, it was a complete puzzle to him how the three interacted with one another outside the ability of any scientific or other conventionally rational model.
How can physical atoms and molecules, for example, create something that exists in a separate domain that has no physical existence: human consciousness?
It is a mystery that lies beyond science.
This mystery is the same one that existed in the Greek worldview of Plato, who believed that abstract ideas (above all mathematical) first existed outside any physical reality. The material world that we experience as part of our human existence is an imperfect reflection of these prior formal ideals. As the scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, Ian Mueller, writes in “Mathematics And The Divine,” the realm of such ideals is that of God.
Indeed, in 2014 the MIT physicist Max Tegmark argues in “Our Mathematical Universe” that mathematics is the fundamental world reality that drives the universe. As I would say, mathematics is operating in a god-like fashion.
The workings of human consciousness are similarly miraculous. Like the laws of mathematics, consciousness has no physical presence in the world; the images and thoughts in our consciousness have no measurable dimensions.
Yet, our nonphysical thoughts somehow mysteriously guide the actions of our physical human bodies. This is no more scientifically explicable than the mysterious ability of nonphysical mathematical constructions to determine the workings of a separate physical world.
Until recently, the scientifically unfathomable quality of human consciousness inhibited the very scholarly discussion of the subject. Since the 1970s, however, it has become a leading area of inquiry among philosophers.
Recognizing that he could not reconcile his own scientific materialism with the existence of a nonphysical world of human consciousness, a leading atheist, Daniel Dennett, in 1991 took the radical step of denying that consciousness even exists.
Finding this altogether implausible, as most people do, another leading philosopher, Thomas Nagel, wrote in 2012 that, given the scientifically inexplicable – the “intractable” – character of human consciousness, “we will have to leave [scientific] materialism behind” as a complete basis for understanding the world of human existence.
As an atheist, Nagel does not offer religious belief as an alternative, but I would argue that the supernatural character of the workings of human consciousness adds grounds for raising the probability of the existence of a supernatural god.
Evolution is a contentious subject in American public life. According to Pew, 98 percent of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science “believe humans evolved over time” while only a minority of Americans “fully accept evolution through natural selection.”
As I say in my book, I should emphasize that I am not questioning the reality of natural biological evolution. What is interesting to me, however, are the fierce arguments that have taken place between professional evolutionary biologists. A number of developments in evolutionary theory have challenged traditional Darwinist – and later neo-Darwinist – views that emphasize random genetic mutations and gradual evolutionary selection by the process of survival of the fittest.
From the 1970s onwards, the Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould created controversy by positing a different view, “punctuated equilibrium,” to the slow and gradual evolution of species as theorized by Darwin.
In 2011, the University of Chicago evolutionary biologist James Shapiro argued that, remarkably enough, many micro-evolutionary processes worked as though guided by a purposeful “sentience” of the evolving plant and animal organisms themselves. “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable,” he wrote. “Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life.”
A number of scientists, such as Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “see no conflict between believing in God and accepting the contemporary theory of evolution,” as the American Association for the Advancement of Science points out.
For my part, the most recent developments in evolutionary biology have increased the probability of a god.
For the past 10,000 years at a minimum, the most important changes in human existence have been driven by cultural developments occurring in the realm of human ideas.
In the Axial Age (commonly dated from 800 to 200 B.C.), world-transforming ideas such as Buddhism, Confucianism, the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and the Hebrew Old Testament almost miraculously appeared at about the same time in India, China, ancient Greece and among the Jews in the Middle East, groups having little interaction with one another.
The development of the scientific method in the 17th century in Europe and its modern further advances have had at least as great a set of world-transforming consequences. There have been many historical theories, but none capable, I would argue, of explaining as fundamentally transformational a set of events as the rise of the modern world. It was a revolution in human thought, operating outside any explanations grounded in scientific materialism, that drove the process.
That all these astonishing things happened within the conscious workings of human minds, functioning outside physical reality, offers further rational evidence, in my view, for the conclusion that human beings may well be made “in the image of [a] God.”
In his commencement address to Kenyon College in 2005, the American novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace said that: “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
Even though Karl Marx, for example, condemned the illusion of religion, his followers, ironically, worshiped Marxism. The American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre thus wrote that for much of the 20th century, Marxism was the “historical successor of Christianity,” claiming to show the faithful the one correct path to a new heaven on Earth.
In several of my books, I have explored how Marxism and other such “economic religions” were characteristic of much of the modern age. So Christianity, I would argue, did not disappear as much as it reappeared in many such disguised forms of “secular religion.”
That the Christian essence, as arose out of Judaism, showed such great staying power amidst the extraordinary political, economic, intellectual and other radical changes of the modern age is another reason I offer for thinking that the existence of a god is very probable.
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Robert H. Nelson, was a professor at the University of Maryland. He is now deceased.
Note from Editor of The Conversation US: This is a revised version of the original piece. We have done so to make explicit the author’s expertise with regard to the subject of this article. We have also incorporated important context that was missing in the original version. Republished under a Creative Commons license.
Top image by Michael Peligro, CC BY-ND
By The Rev. Dr. Craven Williams
Isaiah 55:10-13 (NRSV) states:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
“12 For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
“A difficult task can be done immediately; an impossible task requires a bit more time.” (George Santayana)
Isaiah’s job description could have been written by the Spanish poet George Santayana. He speaks a word of hope when all else is negative. Isaiah conjures up a world where the impossible seems possible again. The prophet helps others look at their broken world with optimistic eyes.
Isaiah is sure of what he is saying. He all but bursts out in song. He uses imaginative words that conjure up a world where the mountains and the hills are alive in song and the trees of the fields clap their hands in joy. He envisions a world where the thorn trees and briers, usually symbols of judgment, will be transformed into luscious green myrtles and cypresses. This transformation serves as a symbol for the new life that lies ahead for the exiles after the devastation of the Babylonian exile.
The word of God will be an eternal sign that shall not be cut off. Isaiah reminds us of God’s reality, loyalty and steadfast love. With that love and support, maybe we can accomplish the impossible and bring our nation and world back together. Gracias Senor Santayana and thank you Mr. Isaiah.
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Dr. Craven E. Williams was a College/University President for 27 years, before retiring in June 2009. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Southeastern Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Union Theological Seminary. In 1996 he was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, England, under the sponsorship of Duke Divinity School. He wrote bi-weekly columns for Methodist publications in several states. He is the author of three books on the life and times of John and Charles Wesley.
Image by My pictures are CC0. When doing composings: from Pixabay
By Ethan Siegel*
There’s an argument that many people make: that the natural world, and humanity’s existence in the Universe, point towards a divine creator that brought forth all of this into existence. To the best of our knowledge, Earth exists with a plethora of conditions that allowed for our existence, and does so in a way that no other world can match.
We live in a particularly privileged place. We live on a planet that has all the right ingredients for life, including:
If you look at the other worlds we know of, the difference is striking.
The terrain of, for example, Mars, is woefully inhospitable to life as we recognize it. Image… [+]
The claim that’s often made isn’t merely that Earth is unlikely; it’s that our planet, with the confluence of circumstances that gave rise to us, is statistically impossible, even given all the stars and galaxies in the Universe. The emergence of intelligent life is so outlandishly unexpected, given all the factors that needed to occur in just the right particular order, that our Universe must have been designed specifically to give rise to us. Otherwise, the argument goes, the odds of us coming to be would be so infinitesimally small that it’s unreasonable to believe it could have happened by chance.
This is a very compelling argument for many people, but it’s important to ask ourselves three questions to make sure we’re approaching this honestly. We’ll go through them one at a time, but here are the three, so we know what we’re getting into.
These are all big questions, so let’s give them the care they deserve.
Deep under the sea, around hydrothermal vents, where no sunlight reaches, life still thrives on… [+]
1.) What are, scientifically, the conditions that we need for life to arise?
In other words, things did occur in a very specific way here on Earth, but how many of them does life-as-we-know-it require, versus how many of them happened in a particular way here, but could have easily happened under different conditions elsewhere?
The things I listed earlier are based on the assumption that any life that’s out there is going to be like us in the sense that it will be based on the chemistry of atoms and molecules, occur with liquid water as a basic requirement of its functioning, and won’t be in an environment that we know to be toxic to all terrestrial life. For those criteria alone, we already know there are billions of planets in our galaxy alone that fit the bill.
Kepler 186f is one of a great many candidates for a very Earth-like planet. Image credit:… [+]
Our studies of exoplanets — of worlds around stars beyond our own — have shown us that there’s a huge variety of rocky planets orbiting at the right distance from their central stars to have liquid water on their surfaces if they have anything akin to atmospheres like our own. We are starting to approach the technological capabilities of detecting exo-atmospheres and their compositions around worlds as small as our own; currently, we can get down to about Neptune-sized worlds, although the James Webb Space Telescope will advance that further in under a decade.
But aren’t there other things we need to worry about? What if we were too close to the galactic center; wouldn’t the high rate of supernovae fry us, and sterilize life? What if we didn’t have a planet like Jupiter to clear out the asteroid belt; wouldn’t the sheer number of asteroids flying our way wipe any life that manages to form out? And what about the fact that we’re here now, when the Universe is relatively young? Many stars will live for trillions of years, but we’ve only got about another billion or two before our Sun gets hot enough to boil our oceans. When the Universe was too young, there weren’t enough heavy elements. Did we come along at just the right time, to not only make it in our Universe, but to witness all the galaxies before dark energy pushes them away?
A primarily ultraviolet view of the galactic center reveals a complex, intricate view of stars that… [+]
Probably not, to all of these questions! If we were closer to the galactic center, yes: the star formation rate is higher and the rate of supernovae is higher. But the main thing that means is that large numbers of heavy elements are created faster there, giving complex life an opportunity starting from earlier times. Here in the outskirts, we have to wait longer! And as for sterilizing a planet, you’d have to be very close to a supernova for that to happen — far closer than stars typically are to one another near the galactic center — or else in the direct path of a hypernova beam. But even in this latter case, which would still be incredibly rare, you’re likely to only sterilize half your world at once, because these beams are short-lived!
Even a focus, ultra-energetic, nearby supernova might not be enough to extinguish life on a… [+]
Their atmospheres wouldn’t be blown off entirely, deep-ocean life should still survive, and there’s every reason to believe that no matter how bad it got, the conditions would be ripe for complex life to make a comeback. Once life takes hold on a world, or gets “under its skin” as some biologists say, it’s very hard to annihilate it entirely. And this simply won’t do.
Multiple scenarios for the asteroid belt may each have advantages for life evolving on the inner… [+]
Same deal for asteroids. Yes, a solar system without a Jupiter-like planet would have many more asteroids, but without a Jupiter-like planet, would their orbits ever get perturbed to fling them into the inner solar system? Would it make extinction events more common, or rarer? Moreover, even if there were increased impacts, would that even make complex/intelligent life less likely, or would the larger number of extinction events accelerate the differentiation of life, making intelligence more likely? The evidence that we need a Jupiter for life is specious at best, just like the evidence that we need to be at this location in our galaxy is also sparse. But even if those things were true, we’d still have huge numbers of worlds — literally tens-to-hundreds of millions — that met those criteria in our galaxy alone.
And finally, we did come along relatively early, but the ingredients for stars and solar systems like our own were present in large abundances in galaxies many billions of years before our own star system formed. We’re even finding potentially habitable worlds where life may be 7-to-9-billion-years-old! So no, we’re probably not first. The conditions that we need for life to arise, to the best we can measure, seem to exist all over the galaxy, and hence probably all over the Universe as well.
Potentially habitable worlds may be possible around a large variety of stars. Image credit: © Lisa… [+]
2.) How rare or common are these conditions elsewhere in the Universe?
Scientists didn’t help themselves with overly optimistic estimates of the Drake equation: the equation that is most commonly used to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Of all the science presented in Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos series, his estimates of the Drake equation represented possibly the worst science in the series. So let’s run through the actual numbers to the best that science knows — complete with realistic uncertainties — and see what we come up with.
As best as we can tell — extrapolating what we’ve discovered to what we haven’t yet looked at or been able to see — there ought to be around 1-to-10 trillion planets in our galaxy that orbit stars, and somewhere around 40-to-80 billion of them are candidates for having all three of the following properties:
So the worlds are there, around stars, in the right places! In addition to that, we need them to have the right ingredients to bring about complex life. What about those building blocks; how likely are they to be there?
Organic molecules are found in star forming regions, stellar remnants and interstellar gas, all… [+]
Believe it or not, these heavy elements — assembled into complex molecules — are unavoidable by this point in the Universe. Enough stars have lived and died that all the elements of the periodic table exist in fairly high abundances all throughout the galaxy. But are they assembled correctly? Taking a look towards the heart of our own galaxy is molecular cloud Sagittarius B, shown at the top of this page. In addition to water, sugars, benzene rings and other organic molecules that just “exist” in interstellar space, we find surprisingly complex ones.
Organic molecules found throughout the Universe, particularly towards the galactic center. Image… [+]
Like ethyl formate (left) and n-propyl cyanide (right), the former of which is responsible for the smell of raspberries! Molecules just as complex as these are literally in every molecular cloud, protoplanetary disk and stellar outflow that we’ve measured. So with tens of billions of chances in our galaxy alone, and the building blocks already in place, you might think — as Fermi did — that the odds of intelligent life arising many times in our own galaxy is inevitable.
But first, we need to make life from non-life. This is no small feat, and is one of the greatest puzzles around for natural scientists in all disciplines: the problem of abiogenesis. At some point, this happened for us, whether it happened in space, in the oceans, or in the atmosphere, it happened, as evidenced by our very planet, and its distinctive diversity of life. But thus far, we’ve been unable to create life from non-life in the lab. So it’s not yet possible to say how likely it is, although we’ve taken some amazing steps in recent decades. It could be something that happens on as many as 10–25% of the possible worlds, which means up to 20 billion planets in our galaxy could have life on them. (Including — past or present — others in our own Solar System, like Mars, Europa, Titan or Enceladus.) That’s our optimistic estimate.
A young planet with the potential conditions for life could grow into an Earth-like world, or could… [+]
But it could be far fewer than that as well. Was life on Earth likely? In other words, if we performed the chemistry experiment of forming our Solar System over and over again, would it take hundreds, thousands or even millions of chances to get life out once? Conservatively, let’s say it’s only one-in-a-million, which still means, given the pessimistic end of 40 billion planets with the right temperature, there are still at least 40,000 planets out there in our galaxy alone with life on them.
But we want something even more than that; we’re looking for large, specialized, multicellular, tool-using creatures. So while, by many measures, there are plenty of intelligent animals, we are interested in a very particular type of intelligence. Specifically, a type of intelligence that can communicate with us, despite the vast distances between the stars! So how common is that? From the first, self-replicating organic molecule to something as specialized and differentiated as a human being, we know we need billions of years of (roughly) constant temperatures, the right evolutionary steps, and a whole lot of luck. What are the odds that such a thing would have happened? One-in-a-hundred? Well, optimistically, maybe. That might be how many of these planets stay at constant temperatures, avoid 100% extinction catastrophes, evolve multicellularity, gender, become differentiated and encephalized enough to eventually learn to use tools.
Once intelligence, tool use and curiosity combine in a single species, perhaps interstellar… [+]
But it could be far fewer; we are not an inevitable consequence of evolution so much as a happy accident of it. Even one-in-a-million seems like it might be too optimistic for the odds of human-like animals evolving on an Earth-like world with the right ingredients for life; I could easily imagine that it would take a billion Earths (or more) to get something like human beings out just once.
If we take the optimistic estimate of the optimistic estimate above, perhaps 200 million worlds are out there capable of communicating with us, in our galaxy alone. But if we take the pessimistic estimate about both life arising and the odds of it achieving intelligence, there’s only a one-in-25,000 chance that our galaxy would have even one such civilization. In other words, life is a fantastic bet, but intelligent life may not be. And that’s according to reasonable scientific estimates, but it assumes we’re being honest about our uncertainties here, too. So the conditions for life are definitely everywhere, but life itself could be common or rare, and what we consider intelligent life could be common, rare or practically non-existent in our galaxy. As science finds out more, we’ll learn more about that.
And finally…
Reaching, broadcasting and listening for the evidence of others has so far returned an empty, lonely… [+]
3.) If we don’t find life in the places and under the conditions where we expect it, can that prove the existence of God? Certainly, there are people that will argue that it does. But to me, that’s a terrible way to place your faith. Consider this:
Do you want or need your belief in a divine or supernatural origin to the Universe to be based in something that could be scientifically disproven?
I am very open about not being a man of faith myself, but of having tremendous respect for those who are believers. The wonderful thing about science is that it is for everybody who’s willing to look to the Universe itself to find out more information about it. Why would your belief in God require that science give a specific answer to this question that we don’t yet know the answer to? Will your faith be shaken if we find that, hey, guess what, chemistry works to form life on other worlds the same way it worked in the past on this one? Will you feel like you’ve achieved some sort of spiritual victory if we scour the galaxy and find that human beings are the most intelligent species on all the worlds of the Milky Way?
Or, can your beliefs — whatever they are — stand up to whatever scientific truths the Universe reveals about itself, regardless of what they are? In the professional opinion of practically all scientists who study the Universe, it is very likely that there is life on other worlds, and that there’s a very good chance — if we invest in looking for it — that we’ll be able to find the first biological signatures on other worlds within a single generation. Whether there’s intelligent life beyond Earth, or more specifically, intelligent life beyond Earth in our galaxy that’s still alive right now, is a more dubious proposition, but the outcome of this scientific question in no way favors or disfavors the existence of God, any more than the order of whether fish or birds evolved first on Earth favors or disfavors a deity’s existence.
There may or may not be other worlds very, very similar to our own out there, but neither result is… [+]
The truths of the Universe are written out there, on the Universe itself, and are accessible to us all through the process of inquiry. To allow an uncertain faith to stand in as an answer where scientific knowledge is required does us all a disservice; the illusion of knowledge — or reaching a conclusion before obtaining the evidence — is a poor substitute for what we might actually come to learn, if only we ask the right questions. Science can never prove or disprove the existence of God, but if we use our beliefs as an excuse to draw conclusions that scientifically, we’re not ready for, we run the grave risk of depriving ourselves of what we might have come to truly learn.
So as Obama’s presidency draws to a close and a Trump presidency begins, I implore you: don’t let your faith, whatever it may be, close you off to the joys and wonders of the natural world. The joys of knowing — of figuring out the answers to questions for ourselves — is one that none of us should be cheated out of. May your faith, if you have one, only serve to enhance and enrich you, not take the wonder of science away!