The hypothetical example of a child who survived the 2004 tsunami (while many others perished around him) features in a debate between Alister McGrath and Richard Dawkins. The former endorses the appropriateness of the claim that God saved the boy; while the latter thinks that God would be extremely capricious if he behaved like that, and himself attributes the child’s survival to chance in the context of natural laws. You can view minutes 34 to 40 of https://youtu.be/k9aoE5P3j6M?t=2038
Christian theists (which we are supposed to be) of course believe that God sustains the world rather than only having created it and set its path in motion (the latter position is supposedly one held by Isaac Newton, and called deism). The position that I would like to explore is one where we say ex ante that the child’s survival was determined (purely) by the laws of nature (which includes the local variations of wave height at the boy’s location); but ex poste that God saved him (for some purpose). Before you write me off as a faithless deist, note that Vinoth Ramachandra also agrees with David Fergusson’s assessment that “there is at least a grain of truth in deism which requires acknowledgement”.
Consider also, in a different sphere, what most of the church thinks about our salvation. By God’s gracious provision in Christ, salvation is available to all. No one is denied access to God through Christ (perhaps even subliminally, as in the case of the Old Testament Jews). But not all are saved. For those who are saved, we see our salvation ex poste as part of God’s predestination. We would be very loathe to say ex ante that some are specifically destined for salvation and others for damnation.
So while the tsunami example is within the realm of natural law, personal salvation concerns individual behaviour. There is also the realm of socio-historical forces that falls in between the above. As we go from the individual through social to natural realms, the world God has created is increasingly tightly constrained. Another way of putting this is that God chooses to intervene less as we move through the above realms or entities; while the entities themselves have increasingly diminished capacity to depart from the so called inevitable. Note that the word “chance” is used often of the latter – e.g. “it was pure chance that the child was in a spot where the wave height was locally lower that along the rest of the coast”. But chance can equally be used in a different sense to describe the other extreme – i.e. “an individual has every chance of receiving salvation”.
Also, as per John Polkinghorne: ‘Chance’ simply means historical contingency – this happens rather than that. It is not automatically to be given the tendentious adjective “blind”, as if it were an unambiguous sign of meaninglessness. So, it is one thing to say that “God saved the child”; and another to say that the child was saved in one sense as a part of God’s plan, but in another sense because of the outworking of the laws of nature.
An example from C.S. Lewis, in his book Miracles, commenting on one of Shakespeare’s plays, could also help: In the play Hamlet, Ophelia climbs out on a branch overhanging a river: the branch breaks, she falls in and drowns. What would you reply if someone asked, ‘Did Ophelia die because Shakespeare for poetic reasons, wanted her to die at that moment – or because the branch broke?’ I think that one would have to say, ‘For both reasons.’ Every event in the play happens as a result of other events in the play, but also every event happens because the poet wants it to happen. All the events in the play are Shakespearean events; similarly, all events in the real world are providential events. All events in the play, however, come about (or ought to come about) by the dramatic logic of events. Similarly all events in the real world (except miracles) come about by natural causes. ‘Providence’ and natural causation are not alternatives; both determine every event because both are one.
I would also extend these ideas to think about what we should pray for. We are certainly required, I think to pray for the salvation of individuals – this is where the greatest potential for God’s intervention is present, mainly because individuals possess free will. We are also asked I think to pray for social justice, where there is perhaps less potential for such intervention, but where nevertheless God has historically been seen to act. Where the realm of nature is concerned, the Bible portrays God as having suspended such laws, but mainly in certain key periods of revelatory history – e.g. during the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt, when God wanted to call Israel back to himself from apostasy during the time of Elijah and Elisha, and when the kingdom of God was breaking into the world in New Testament times during the time of Jesus and the apostles. So perhaps God suspends natural laws only sparingly, whereas throughout the Bible he is portrayed as a God of history who is behind socio-historical processes.
I would not say that God cannot or will not intervene in all these spheres – individual, social and natural. However, we could probably expect his direct intervention to decrease as we go from the individual through the social to the natural. Our own capacity for agency and cooperation with God will also parallel the potential for God’s intervention. Where individuals are concerned, we can pray for them and also convey the gospel to them personally. Where society is concerned, we can pray for justice. And some of us, perhaps not all, may be able to write letters, engage in advocacy and even participate in protests. Where nature is concerned (and this includes healing) it is right and proper for us to pray for God’s interventions. But he is likely to intervene less than he would in socio-historical processes and individual lives. That is just the way things seem to be. Note however that a few of us may be able to advance the medical and natural sciences in directions that help us to be more shielded from some of the ravages of nature; that is also a way in which we cooperate with God.
The problem with not having an appreciation of such underlying realities (if indeed I have defined such realities appropriately) is that we can give God a bad name if we claim that he will act in a particular way, which does not later materialize. The situation is compounded when we claim things very strongly, thinking that God will act only if we “put our faith on the line by strongly articulating our belief”. For example, that God will heal someone (realm of nature), whereas the patient actually dies. A more recent example from the socio-historical sphere is the unfounded belief of evangelical Christians in the U.S. that Donald Trump’s re-election would be something that is effected by God. You can view minutes 12 to 16 of https://youtu.be/tiXeK7mz1yk?t=745
The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or position of FOCUS, Sri Lanka.