How involved is God?

[Thinking]

I grew up in Southern California so most of my social media friends are non-LDS. Many of them are religious and I read similar statements about God being in control that I used to hear in talks and testimonies when I was still attending LDS services.

I read this today from one of my friends.

Quote

No matter how the world looks God still has us in his hands.

Sometimes after a tragedy those affected will claim that it was somehow part of God's plan. God being in charge of what happens seems to conflict with the LDS concept of agency, IMO.

What do you think?

[ksfisher]

6 minutes ago, Thinking said:

I grew up in Southern California so most of my social media friends are non-LDS. Many of them are religious and I read similar statements about God being in control that I used to hear in talks and testimonies when I was still attending LDS services.

I read this today from one of my friends.

Sometimes after a tragedy those affected will claim that it was somehow part of God's plan. God being in charge of what happens seems to conflict with the LDS concept of agency, IMO.

What do you think?

God has asked us to be his agents here on this earth (hence the agency).  He has given us the stewardship, but we will one day have to account to him for that stewardship.  Being in charge does not mean that you make every decision or play a part in every event.

[JAHS]

If it's one person doing something against another person God usually does not intervene because of agency. The act perpetrated by that person will stand as evidence against him at the final judgment.
I don't think God actively controls everything little that happens in the world. He set things in motion and allows them to take their course. The only thing that is in God's plan is that we experience life and the hardships and tragedies that come with it which He allows to happen. But He rarely causes any specific bad thing to happen to a person; although the scriptures do relate accounts where that has happened on occasion. God offers his hands for us to find refuge in but we have to place ourselves in them and choose to remain there. 

[Ahab]

Involved in the whole plan of salvation for all of us while allowing us to learn from our own actions and the natural consequences of our actions, as well as the actions of other people that may affect us.

And every good thing that we get, including every good thought, comes to us because of God.

 

[Gray]

A favorite on this topic from Rabbi Ted Falcon:

 

Quote

If person and planet are connected, then what about our actions? Certainly, the planet is either benefited or damaged by our activities, and we are impacted both positively and negatively by the sometimes shifting ground beneath our feet. But does the larger universe respond to the moral and ethical actions we take in our dealings with each other? And, does the universe respond to our observance, or lack thereof, regarding religious imperatives?
 
According to this parashah, there are rewards and punishments awaiting us depending on whether or not we follow the commandments we have been given.
 
You shall make no idols nor graven image, nor erect a pillar, nor shall you set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Eternal your God. You shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary; I am the Eternal. If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. (26:1 - 4)
 
Not only are we told that the natural world will respond to our performance of religious obligations, but we will achieve those most sought after qualities of life: peace and safety from both human and animal enemies.
 
And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will remove evil beasts from the land, nor shall the sword go through your land.  (26:6)
 
Of course, if there are rewards for fulfilling those commandments, there must also be punishments in store for those who do not follow them.
 
But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; and if you shall despise my statutes, or if your soul loathes my judgments, so that you will not do all my commandments, but that you break my covenant; I also will do this to you; I will appoint over you terror, consumption, and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. (26:14 - 16)
 
The list of terrors that await disobedience is extensive. The land will no longer bring forth food. We will besieged by enemies and routed from our land. Nothing we do will succeed, and we will be diminished as persons and as a People.
 
While we can understand that such threats might be designed to inspire adherence to community standards, it is challenging to believe that there is a Deity who rewards and punishes in these ways. From our standpoint, such a God who rewards and punishes seems a projection of our own ego consciousness onto the universe. Reward and punishment, as motivations for proper thought and action, are ego functions, reflections of the way we teach our children before they are ready to better understand and to make their own choices and decisions.
 
If there were a God who could respond to human actions in this way, that God would have stopped the Shoah, the Holocaust, long before six million of us were murdered. That God would prevent natural disasters that claim thousands of innocents across the planet.
 
In some ways, we might wish such a system of clear rewards and punishments operated in our world, but that would render us always children, never growing to take responsibility for our own life choices. The process of evolution would be eclipsed by the need to adhere to unchanging rules and regulations.

An externalization of an inner reality
 
So what are we to make of such passages? Like many other places in this spiritual text, we need to appreciate the deeper levels from which the words speak. On a surface level, this is a description of an ego-motivated god, perhaps the view of the majority of what were then called the Children of Israel. On a more general level, the text teaches that there are consequences of our behaviors -- the very characteristic that marks true freedom. We are only free when our actions have consequences, and the text clearly marks this required characteristic of our freedom.
 
Probing more deeply, we honor the text as it portrays an externalization of an inner reality. The rewards and the punishments are internal realities that accompany our level of consciousness.
 
The greatest peace and joy in life come when we know ourselves to be connected in meaningful and purposeful ways to the whole of Life. Idolatry, as an inner reality, is the awareness of disconnection, of aimlessness, of uncertainty, and unclarity. There need be no external authority delivering the rewards and punishments, since both are simply aspects of the activities themselves. It's the way Life works.
 
The extravagant rewards pictured in the ancient text are inner realities, quite as real as their negative counterparts. When consciousness opens in loving and compassionate ways, it is "rewarded" with the consciousness of love and compassion. When our focus is on the negative, we are also rewarded, although those rewards feel more like punishments.
 
What is reassuring is the final statement of reconciliation.
 
And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor will I loathe them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the Eternal One their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God; I am the Eternal.  (26:44 - 45)
 
No matter how far we drift, we are always held in the Presence of Life. At any time, and perhaps, most likely, at the worst of times, it is possible to return to the true nature of our being, and to the true nature of Eternal Being, from which we are only separated by our own beliefs.

 

[cinepro]

12 minutes ago, JAHS said:

If it's one person doing something against another person God usually does not intervene because of agency. The act perpetrated by that person will stand as evidence against him at the final judgment.
 

I've never understood this reasoning.  Why is it okay for me (or a policeman) to "intervene" and stop someone from hurting someone else, but it's not okay for God to it?  Either way, their agency is limited, and they can't be judged for the act they might have caused.

It also presents situations where someone's agency is honored, but only at the expense of someone else's agency being severely limited.  So God doesn't stop the mass murderer from ruining the lives of a crowd of people (and severely impacting the lives of their families as well) because He doesn't want to infringe on the agency of the crazy guy with a gun.  So God is saying "I'm going to allow that person to brutally limit a bunch of other people's agency because I want to be able to really throw the book at them on judgement day."

 

This also touches on the idea of "cultural agency."  Meaning, so many of our options are determined by our circumstances that it's almost impossible to judge based on a universal standard.  For example, we have millions of people addicted to pornography in the past 10 years largely in part to technology putting a pipeline to unlimited pornography on everyone's desk and in their hands almost every waking moment of their day.  Go back 150 years, and compare this to a farmer living in rural Utah.  Perhaps that farmer would also love to be addicted to porn, and would gladly take advantage of any technology to do it, but he just never has the chance.  So on judgement day, Susan living in 2017 gets punished for looking at pornography while Farmer Fred living in 1867 is considered righteous for never having looked at pornography, even if he totally would have were he given a cell phone and unlimited data plan.

In other words, our agency is severely limited by many different factors, all of which God seems perfectly okay with (or at least "okay" to the point of not needing to do anything).  The idea that God would be tilting the universal balance by giving Hitler a fatal heart attack in 1924 is hardly convincing.

[bluebell]

5 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I've never understood this reasoning.  Why is it okay for me (or a policeman) to "intervene" and stop someone from hurting someone else, but it's not okay for God to it?  Either way, their agency is limited, and they can't be judged for the act they might have caused.

It also presents situations where someone's agency is honored, but only at the expense of someone else's agency being severely limited.  So God doesn't stop the mass murderer from ruining the lives of a crowd of people (and severely impacting the lives of their families as well) because He doesn't want to infringe on the agency of the crazy guy with a gun.  So God is saying "I'm going to allow that person to brutally limit a bunch of other people's agency because I want to be able to really throw the book at them on judgement day."

 

This also touches on the idea of "cultural agency."  Meaning, so many of our options are determined by our circumstances that it's almost impossible to judge based on a universal standard.  For example, we have millions of people addicted to pornography in the past 10 years largely in part to technology putting a pipeline to unlimited pornography on everyone's desk and in their hands almost every waking moment of their day.  Go back 150 years, and compare this to a farmer living in rural Utah.  Perhaps that farmer would also love to be addicted to porn, and would gladly take advantage of any technology to do it, but he just never has the chance.  So on judgement day, Susan living in 2017 gets punished for looking at pornography while Farmer Fred living in 1867 is considered righteous for never having looked at pornography, even if he totally would have were he given a cell phone and unlimited data plan.

In other words, our agency is severely limited by many different factors, all of which God seems perfectly okay with (or at least "okay" to the point of not needing to do anything).  The idea that God would be tilting the universal balance by giving Hitler a fatal heart attack in 1924 is hardly convincing.

Maybe it's not about whether or not God is perfectly o.k. (or not) with agency being limited, but it's about God being o.k. if agency is limited, but not by Him?

Maybe it's kind of (because no analogy works at every angle, and i'm not sure that this one works all that well yet) like the referee in a sporting event.  The referee does intervene sometimes, but only to make sure that the event takes place under very specific conditions.  In a sporting event it may be perfectly acceptable for one opponent to kick another, but it would not be acceptable for the referee to kick someone, nor to aid or prohibit an opponent from doing so.

 

[Duncan]

That's the big question, how involved is God? is he out of the picture, then life would be so chaotic or merciless but if "God is in the details of our lives" then how is he in the details if you were abused or your dad was a murderer or any other awful thing. on another note how can God make promises to people if a billion factors come into play that haven't happened yet I guess how does God know what he knows and promise accordingly and why do people not live up to their promises, didn't God know that too? I read a blog post earlier about a member of the Church in Oregon who's Bishop was flirting with her and she temporarily left the Church, like what the heck? why did that all hit the fan?

[CV75]

44 minutes ago, Thinking said:

I grew up in Southern California so most of my social media friends are non-LDS. Many of them are religious and I read similar statements about God being in control that I used to hear in talks and testimonies when I was still attending LDS services.

I read this today from one of my friends.

Sometimes after a tragedy those affected will claim that it was somehow part of God's plan. God being in charge of what happens seems to conflict with the LDS concept of agency, IMO.

What do you think?

I think the expression "in His hands"  comes from the Bible, meaning that He does not forget His children, no matter what happens. "Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." (Isaiah 49:13-18).

I don't think everyone that thinks that God in charge of everything necessarily connects that idea with coercion, but to find His will and meaning in dealing with what has happened to them.

[CV75]

22 minutes ago, cinepro said:

In other words, our agency is severely limited by many different factors, all of which God seems perfectly okay with (or at least "okay" to the point of not needing to do anything).

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Maybe it's not about whether or not God is perfectly o.k. (or not) with agency being limited, but it's about God being o.k. if agency is limited, but not by Him?

I think God is OK with whatever happens in our probation because of the Atonement. I also think that whatever happens is sometimes a function of His agency, manifest in His planning, influence and intervention (both general and specific as the case may be), out of respect for the Atonement.

[JAHS]

16 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Why is it okay for me (or a policeman) to "intervene" and stop someone from hurting someone else, but it's not okay for God to it?

Because God wants us to use our agency do it for that person. And if we do intervene we have proven ourselves worthy and since the perpetrator still had it in his heart to do it, he will be judged accordingly.

"And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." (John 9: 2-3)

The works of God are manifested through us as we help others. 

The farmer 150 years ago had his own unique challenges to deal with that we now don't have. Perhaps there is something in the idea that people are sent to earth at a time that is right for them to be tested according to what they should be able to handle. 

[Ahab]

We have the agency to try to stop anyone from doing anything we don't want them to do. Whether what they're doing or saying is good or evil.

[Duncan]

Just now, JAHS said:

Because God wants us to use our agency do it for that person. And if we do intervene we have proven ourselves worthy and since the perpetrator still had it in his heart to do it, he will be judged accordingly.

"And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." (John 9: 2-3)

The works of God are manifested through us as we help others. 

The farmer 150 years ago had his own unique challenges to deal with that we now don't have. Perhaps there is something in the idea that people are sent to earth at a time that is right for them to be tested according to what they should be able to handle. 

how do you explain addiction? to me addicts aren't handling things well or people who commit suicide, they wanted out, they couldn't deal with whatever life was at the moment-God would know all that but why make life too much to handle for those two groups of people and yet other people aren't addicted and don't commit suicide? 

[Black Moclips]

I don't think God changes the normal course of events. We are put here to live and experience the good and the bad. To interfere with that would skew the results of the test. For me, its all or nothing - he is either in charge and governing everything or nothing. Based on the known history of the world, I think its evident we are left to our own devices. Having god be somewhere in between (acting sometimes to prevent tragedy but other times not) is just incomprehensible. But I wonder whether there is a caveat. Maybe humans themselves can sometimes touch the divine or spiritual in such a way that sometimes it does impact the outcome of some event. It's not God doing it or causing the action, but simply the natural consequence of following a spiritual principle. Maybe there is an actual equation that when a person exercises X amount of faith, and has Y level of spirituality, and a Z christ-like coefficient, their prayer is answered, or the crisis they are in is averted, or whatever. It's not God whimsically deciding to act or not, just a consequence like gravity. 

[JAHS]

25 minutes ago, Duncan said:

how do you explain addiction? to me addicts aren't handling things well or people who commit suicide, they wanted out, they couldn't deal with whatever life was at the moment-God would know all that but why make life too much to handle for those two groups of people and yet other people aren't addicted and don't commit suicide? 

I don't know. Glad God is the judge and not me. I am sure He will be very merciful in His judgment and is aware of what is in our hearts and each individual circumstance.

[Johnnie Cake]

4 hours ago, Thinking said:

I grew up in Southern California so most of my social media friends are non-LDS. Many of them are religious and I read similar statements about God being in control that I used to hear in talks and testimonies when I was still attending LDS services.

I read this today from one of my friends.

Sometimes after a tragedy those affected will claim that it was somehow part of God's plan. God being in charge of what happens seems to conflict with the LDS concept of agency, IMO.

What do you think?

IF there is a God...he/she/It is absent and off golfing in some far away galaxy...

Edited March 7, 2017 by Johnnie Cake

[Ahab]

6 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

IF there is a God...he/she/It is absent and off golfing in some far away galaxy...

And what's really Neato is that we can still keep in touch with each other wherever we are!

[Darren10]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

And what's really Neato is that we can still keep in touch with each other wherever we are!

God uses an omnipotent cell phone. :)

[Ouagadougou]

6 hours ago, Thinking said:

I grew up in Southern California so most of my social media friends are non-LDS. Many of them are religious and I read similar statements about God being in control that I used to hear in talks and testimonies when I was still attending LDS services.

I read this today from one of my friends.

Sometimes after a tragedy those affected will claim that it was somehow part of God's plan. God being in charge of what happens seems to conflict with the LDS concept of agency, IMO.

What do you think?

Go to Africa or the Middle East (or other poor areas of the world) and you will think otherwise, IMO.  

[Ahab]

2 minutes ago, Ouagadougou said:

Go to Africa or the Middle East (or other poor areas of the world) and you will think otherwise, IMO.  

Not if he understands how God is involved with all of us here.  God being involved doesn't mean he imposes his will on us though, which is why we often encounter resistance from people who aren't really interested in doing God's will.  

 

[rpn]

God can control everything but mortals.   Mortals He does not control.   Mortals have agency and they are careless with each other, with natural resources, with technology, with their health, with their covenants often.    And the things that happen because of all those mortal mistakes and carelessness, and sometimes sin He could stop, but doesn't absent a specific need for the overall effectiveness of His plan for all or one.

But I also think that for a specific person who is trying their best to submit their will to His, and quickly repenting and getting better, His watchcare can feel a lot like His being in control of the follower's life despite all the thing around them that that person cannot control.

[Ouagadougou]

59 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Not if he understands how God is involved with all of us here.  God being involved doesn't mean he imposes his will on us though, which is why we often encounter resistance from people who aren't really interested in doing God's will.  

 

Please elaborate how God is so involved with the millions who are starving across the world (which has nothing to do with people not wanting to do God's will, IMO).  These people just want to eat, have clean water and survive.  

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/world/famine-fast-facts/

"Number and Prevalence (%) of Undernourished in the World:
(Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
1990-1992 - 1,010.6 million (18.6% of the world)
2000-2002 - 929.6 million (14.9% of the world)
2005-2007 - 942.3 million (14.3% of the world)
2010-2012 - 820.7 million (11.8% of the world)
2014-2016 estimates - 794.6 million (10.9% of the world)"

http://kutv.com/news/nation-world/somalia-110-dead-from-hunger-in-past-48-hours-in-drought

The malnourished in the world are over 50 times the size of the LDS Church.  The only thing that will help those suffering are other people...not God.  

 

[mrmarklin]

13 minutes ago, Ouagadougou said:

Please elaborate how God is so involved with the millions who are starving across the world (which has nothing to do with people not wanting to do God's will, IMO).  These people just want to eat, have clean water and survive.  

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/world/famine-fast-facts/

"Number and Prevalence (%) of Undernourished in the World:
(Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
1990-1992 - 1,010.6 million (18.6% of the world)
2000-2002 - 929.6 million (14.9% of the world)
2005-2007 - 942.3 million (14.3% of the world)
2010-2012 - 820.7 million (11.8% of the world)
2014-2016 estimates - 794.6 million (10.9% of the world)"

http://kutv.com/news/nation-world/somalia-110-dead-from-hunger-in-past-48-hours-in-drought

The malnourished in the world are over 50 times the size of the LDS Church.  The only thing that will help those suffering are other people...not God.  

 

Please note the statistics are getting better. Not only in percentage terms, but in actual numbers as well.   Why do you think God is not trying to ameliorate this situation?

I think God works on a macro level. An example of this is placing the people from the spirit world at the right time and place in history to create the US constitution.  An event unique in the world at the time, and even now. 

This laid the foundation for not only the restoration, but the modern political world as we know it today. 

It's not hard to see the hand of God in history, if one knows where to look.

 

Will God prevent that truck from hitting you?  I would say it depends,:-)

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

IF there is a God...he/she/It is absent and off golfing in some far away galaxy...

My experiences today contradict that conclusion. Or, at least, that God can still lift my burdens while golfing in said galaxy.

[Rivers]

This is a question that I have been wondering about lately. I listened to a a couple of recent Mormon Matters podcasts in which the Mormon view of God was being discussed. Brother Wortherspoon and the other panelists are very attracted to the idea that God is not omnipotent since it would solve the problem of evil.  If God is not all powerful and cannot intervene, then He can still be a loving God.  According to this theology, God empathizes with our suffering and can lovingly persuade but cannot do more than that to stop evil.  God would make everything right if He could but he cannot.  

I agree that this does solve the problem of evil.  In my view however, it sacrifices belief in miracles.  I'm not comfortable with that.  I like to believe that miracles happen.  But then I have the problem of evil to deal with.  If God can intervene, why is there still so much pain and suffering?  Why does God help me find my car keys but let kindergarten children get gunned down by psychopaths?

Edited March 8, 2017 by Rivers