Is the idea of randomness and purposelessness consistent
with the way God works? Where does the idea of randomness come from anyway?
The two ideas are everywhere in the Western world, they are in
the way we think and the way we speak. Even a trivial remark like ‘best of luck’ is based on the idea that the
events in life are random. These ideas haven’t always been in the Western
world. In history the Western world always believed that even the most
insignificant events were the result of God’s will, there was no concept of
things occurring without a purpose. But when atheism started to take over the
Western world, it started transforming the way we think about things. Because the
atheist believes that there is no God, he also believes that absolutely everything
is random and has no purpose. This is exactly where we get the idea of ‘luck’.
So randomness and purposelessness actually come from the atheist way of
thinking.
So after pondering these things for a while I came to realise
that I had unwittingly adopted the ideas of randomness and purposelessness into
the way I view the world. I thought I knew atheism well enough to prevent it
from invading my personal worldview because I spent half a decade actually studying
atheism and debating atheists. But it seems that the ideas of atheism are so
deeply ingrained into the Western world that I unwittingly adopted some aspects
of atheism into the way that I view the world; my worldview.
My personal worldview was built by spending a great deal of
time studying the natural sciences. I had noticed how everything in the
universe ticked along like clockwork (albeit clockwork that’s running down and
malfunctioning) without the immediate presence of God; planets revolve, our
bodies repair themselves and clouds create rain all without any supernatural
action. These observations lead me to think that events in nature are random
and have no purpose, events like rain, earthquakes, the motion of planets, bushfires.
When I started looking into the Bible it became clear to me
that randomness and purposelessness are simply NOT Scriptural concepts, but as I noted before, they instead come
from atheism.
While most Christians have no trouble believing that God is all-powerful,
few are aware of how surprisingly powerful this actually is! Being all-powerful,
all knowing and means that God has complete control over His creation. He knows
& sees all (1Jn3:20; Ps139; Pr5:21;15:3; Heb4:13; Isa46:10), and nothing is
too hard for Him (Gen18:14; Job42:2; Jer32:17; Mt19:26). Even Satan and his
minions are fully bound by the will of God, as the story of Job testifies. So
if nothing happens without His knowledge, then absolutely nothing can happen without God’s approval; not the explosion of a
star, not an earthquake, not a car crash, not a broken finger nail, nor even
the motion of an atom in the atmosphere. God’s dominion is absolute.
God is described throughout Scripture as making all things conform to
His will. Everything does His bidding, and nothing can resist (Is 43:13;
Rm8:28; Eph 1:11; Ps155:3,135:6; Dan4:35).
The picture of God that is painted in Scripture is a God of
purpose and design. I can find absolutely no Scriptural reference to randomness
or purposelessness, it is totally foreign. It does not fit into the Christian
worldview, it only fits into the atheist’s worldview.
So this puts things into a better perspective: If God has
perfect control over the movement of even all the atoms, then it makes perfect
sense that God would direct the motion of all things in the universe to do His
will; the movement of the atoms, the planets, the clouds, and the winds: Everything is in His control and is used
to achieve his will. So not only does it seem nonsensical to me for a God who
has total control over everything to allow random movements of things, I actually
question if it would even be possible for
there to be randomness if God has total control! It seems to me that this would
be a logical contradiction, just like a ‘married bachelor’ or a ‘straight
curve’. So if there is no randomness in the world, then nothing can be purposeless
either.
For me, believing in randomness in the
universe became a spiritual ‘wall’ in my heart which was preventing the Holy
Spirit from fully working in me. How could I fully embrace and believe in the
reality of things like miracles and God working through events in everyday life
-even though I wanted to- while at the same time holding the contrary belief
that the way the world works is random? The simple fact is that God’s actions
can not be found in random events.
The spiritual effect of me now
believing that God’s will is in everything has resulted in a total revolution
of my attitude in life. Stress, anxiety and the burden of expectation has
vanished. Believing that absolutely everything is God’s will means that there
is nothing worth fretting over. This is no longer an unobtainable fantasy for
me, it is now a reality, and the peace in my heart and the joy in my
stride that this reality brings is beyond what I thought was possible.
“To everything there is a season, and a time
for every matter or purpose
under heaven” Ecc 3:1
“The Lord has made everything [to accommodate
itself and contribute] to its own end and
His own purpose—even the wicked [are fitted for their role] for the day of
calamity and evil.” Prov
16:4
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