God created the universe, and planet earth, with an inherent quality of free-play. Free-play is where energies, gravity, animals, weather and more all have their ability to move and be and impact reality. Given that, is life a matter of chance? Still more, is life a matter of unruly randomness? Both the Reformed and the Arminians have a high emphasis on the sovereignty of God; too often that is taken so that God is a kind of secrete puppet-master. But that doesn't jive with the existence of free-play. So how do we go about making sense of all those apparently competing elements? That's the aim of this show. I roll out a high view of God's sovereignty in light of the existence of free-play, chance, and even randomness. Let's laugh together as we think about complex matters!
The Uncensored Unprofessor
374 Ref. vs. Arm. (12) Randomness in Life
(upbeat music) Hey, welcome. My friend, you have so many choices. Church sermons, devotionals, YouTube, TikTok, political commentary. Thanks for downloading a pod that once to go deeper in the Christian life seeks to integrate Christianity across all of life. The truth is our post-Christian culture wants us to closet our faith and beliefs. They want us to box all of that up in the privacy of our homes. Keep it out of the public square. But we here at the UU, we know that to do that is to betray the majestic lordship of Christ. And frankly, our first audience is the Lord, not our bankrupt culture. Anyway, thanks for joining me. God bless and strengthen and inspire you today. This is just the coolest thing. The UU has infiltrated the FBI. No, I'm not kidding. The UU has just infiltrated the FBI. (audience gasps) And I can't tell you how or I have to kill you. Or more accurately, if I told you how the FBI would come and kill me. But I still think it's cool. We have a mole in the FBI. (laughing) And speaking of the FBI, Toni and I just watched a three hour dark horse. That's the name of the podcast, the dark horse podcast. It's hosted by Brett Weinstein. He was a biologist up at Evergreen College. When that all blew apart a few years ago, we watched a three hour podcast on the attempted assassination of Trump there in Pennsylvania. And you guys, the podcast was mind blowing. Again, it's dark horse podcast with Brett Weinstein, and he was interviewing John Colan. And the whole show was about ballistics and angles and holes in the single shooter narrative that's out there. Could there have been another shooter? Why? What's going on? Is it true there was just a single shooter basically out in the open? A 20 year old kid, they had a 20 year old kid who knew how to get an offshore bank account? Single shooter narrative? Well, I was gonna say the narrative that the FBI is selling us, but they aren't selling as much of anything. They're almost mute. A former president was just shot. A bystander, fireman was murdered. Other civilians were hit. All was sniper, by a sniper and secret servicemen and state police troopers were everywhere, and we're getting pretty much no meaningful information at all. And sorry, I suspect we won't get much more than that a dorky 20 year old was successful at getting shots off at a former president with that much security all around. I mean, where, oh, where are the interviews of the eyewitnesses in the crowd? Where are the interviews of the people who were hit or grazed by bullets? Where's the public interview of the red shirt wearing woman who was video recorded saying they shot the men on the water tower? There's no thing. (crickets chirping) The silence is deafening. And my worry, like 2017's Las Vegas shooting, we won't get any meaningful official information at all. (chuckles) But still, you can't make this up. The shooter's last name was Crooks. A would-be assassin with the last name of Crooks. Oh my goodness, and the Secret Service Director's last name is Cheetal Cheetal. You can't make this stuff up. (upbeat music) Me? I'm so appreciative of this week's do you episode sponsor, Gallerini Riffing. Do you live in SoCal? The OC. Need some roofing work? New worker repairs. Gallerini Riffing is your highly experienced, bonded, insured. They have over 35 years of professionalism. They're your roofing company. Call 714-244-6567. 714-244-6567. And the cool thing? They even know how to walk on pitched roofs. (chuckles) Yes, she should've been fired for just that most in name of all excuses ever. (chuckles) But, but (chuckles) Garsh, but dog-aided. No goofy old boy? No, that old saw isn't nearly as absurd as it was a pitched roof. I don't know, incompetent or conspiracy. I don't know, you decide, but hey, tell Gallerini Riffing, the U.U. sent you. Okay, wow, this is the 12th episode already in my Reform vs. Arminian debate show series. Who are the elect? How'd God go about determining who'd be saved? Why'd God predestined some to salvation? Why is God's pre-eternal decree foundational? Why is the legal, juridical understanding of salvation so central for both the Reformed and Arminians, all of those angles are central to the RNA debate? So also is the question of determinism. Now in an earlier episode, I dismissed on biblical grounds that all things happened for a reason. I dismissed a kind of divine fatalism that runs through and around and beneath the RNA debate. And with all that in mind, I thought a good to plow through the issue of chance. Is given that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God? Is there such a thing in the universe in daily life as chance? Is randomness real? Or are we just projecting our interpretation of reality onto the universe? Well, first, since I do like to think systematically, first we know that the universe was not created by chance. Using chance to explain reality is a non-starter. It doesn't work statistically. It doesn't at all work heuristically. That means as an explanatory device. I mean, none of the ancient civilizations explain reality through and appeal to chance. Chance doesn't do any justice to the irreducible complexity of life. Chance doesn't explain beauty, truth, life's mysterious depth, or goodness. Chance doesn't explain love. Chance can't explain a hummingbird. And if we were to agree that chance created life, we might as well abandon trying to say anything meaningful about reality at all. And no wonder so many live empty, nihilistic lives today, right? Roll me up and smoke me when I die. No, we assert, following the Bible, following real science, following the wisest philosophy, we assert that there is a super genius creator, art is too fast in the universe. Life as we know it, he created out of love, out of grace. And he rules the universe, theologian Donald Blush wrote, he rules the universe for the sake of bringing it redemption from the evil that has intruded into it through demonic and human sin. End quote. Again, God didn't create because he had to. Nothing forced him. He didn't create because he needed to somehow express himself. No, he was eternally perfect, having no lack. So that means that the universe is, life is all a created gift. Holy, holy, holy. But that only gets us so far, right? Sure, God created it all magically so, but what about what happens when a toddler chases or dog out in front of an oncoming car? What about when a compassionate and faithful husband is diagnosed with prostate cancer? And isn't it true that a foul ball at an MLB game can hit some unsuspecting fan and crush their orbital socket? Why was Jeffrey Dahmer born when he was? Isn't chance real, randomness real? Or to go back to biblical framing, isn't God Lord the owner? And if so, doesn't that mean he owns everything? Doesn't that mean everything is under his control? And just so you know my listener, I'm asking these questions both in light of the RNAs 500 year old debate, but also because I truly believe most Christians, I don't know what to do with the 80% of the church whose lives in no way comport with a biblical worldview, but I truly believe most Christians think that God is a kind of secret puppet master. And they, whether they realize it or not, they agree with Martin Luther, God has a secret will wherein he wills evil, wills cruelty, suffering and wounding in it. Oh, apparently from having listened to Christians across my whole life, it just cannot be that events occur apart from God, either directly willing them or giving them permission to happen, right? But if that were true, God wouldn't be Lord, right? I mean, it's confusing. What, well, what? Maybe, but look, it depends on what kind of Lord he is. What we could do, like most of the Western post-Christian world, what we could do is project our own best qualities onto God and then say he must be like that. So he must be tolerant and inclusive and fair. We were merely freshmen, we won't be held responsible. Or, or to set this up, we could ask what are the most honorable characteristics of being are and then say God must be those. But interestingly, the Bible doesn't start like that. The Bible, as we saw in earlier episodes, the Bible begins to reveal God to us through his interactions with people, people as agents, people as beings. And what do we learn when we read those stories? We learn that whereas God is the primary actor in the story, as the story unpacks and develops and shows its teleology, God's the primary actor in the story of reality. He's not the only actor. The Bible shows us. And of course, I agree that God is in ultimate control of nature and history, but not in a deterministic manner. So God gives us agency. He allows us to do things and choose, act, live. And all of that involves a certain amount of space, as I've said in earlier episodes, a certain amount of room, free play. And right up front, I want you to know my listener. I want to be clear. I believe in miracles. I believe in providence. I believe in divine coincidences. I've experienced them events arranged by God. I believe in divine appointments, encounters arranged by God. I believe God is so sovereign that he can do whatever he wants as long as he doesn't violate his own nature. He's God, we're not. But God, God in creating what he did, he placed limits on himself. That's the kind of Lord he is. Right, again, in an earlier episode, I noted that God is sovereign over his sovereignty. I agree with the Armenians on that. God is sovereign over his sovereignty. And in his sovereignty, he can decide to limit his sovereignty. He can, and from the Bible in daily life, we know he has made it so we can act and do and move in ways that affect both creation and other human beings. So as we set up, whether there's chance or randomness, my point this far is that between God and people, there's a big dollop of freedom. God respects the agency he has given us. Do you need some, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek, ek examples? Okay, sure. God won't save us against our will. God won't force us to love him. Won't force us to serve him. Won't force us to obey him. And from studying history, he usually doesn't intervene to stop evil deeds. Not usually. Elections get stolen. Vaccines get forced on people who don't want to lose their jobs. God doesn't always intervene. And that means we can frustrate God's aim for our life. We can ruin God's goals for our lives. God is so sovereign over his sovereignty that he grants us the gigantic space to even if we so will wreck and destroy ourselves. He won't force us to love or to obey. And we know, because we watch history, we know that entire communities, entire nations can by their God give an agency, destroy themselves, plunge headlong into ruination. And when we do that, we frustrate the plans of flourish and fullness and wholeness and shalom that God ultimately has for us. We can, communities can, thwart the hopes of God for us. And yet, having said all that, doesn't that mean God's omnipotence has been diminished weakened? No, God is sovereign over his sovereignty. God out of love limits his power. God motivated by grace limits his rule in life, not over life, but in life. And how does that happen? How if God is omniscient, does that happen right? Because if God sees and knows omniscience, right? Siancia, all knowing, all seeing. If God knows everything that will happen, doesn't he work constant redirects of our circumstances or willing so that it always turns out to the good? No, he doesn't. He respects the agency that he has granted to us. Think of it like this, you guys. My three kids, oh, when they were what? Eight, six, and four, because the movie was released in 1988. Maybe they were even younger than that, I don't know, but they would watch land before time. They would lay down in the living room on pillows and they'd watch it over and over and over. And in fact, they'd watch it so much that they got to where they would be saying the characters, the young dinosaurs lines, out loud together. My three kids liked that movie so much that they'd be saying the lines out loud exactly when the character in the movie would be saying the lines and it was fun to watch them. Well, except that me, the dad, grew weary of the movie itself, but it was fun to watch my kids enjoying a story that much. And each time, apparently, they were seeing it and watching it with the same joy as the first time they'd seen it. It was crazy to me. But, and here's my application. Even though they knew and could see what was going to happen, their knowledge, even their childish children's foreknowledge, didn't change the way the story played out. God can see the future, see all of time, see all the possibilities without changing the story, unless he wants to. You see, both the Reformed and the Arminians placed their assurance of their salvation in the power, in the pre-creational decree of God. They say God, through his foreordination, through his predestination, has determined who will be saved, individuals Reformed, or the Church, Arminians, and nothing will prevent God's decree from working out. And so, both the R and the A have high views of God's sovereignty. But me, the Trinitarian, my view of God's sovereignty is higher still. Nanny, nanny, nanners, why? Because in my worldview, God can allow his will to be frustrated, ruined, and wrecked in time, and in the end, it will still all turn out, as God said it would at the beginning. God is indeed the Lord, holy, holy, holy. He's so much the Lord that he can grant actors, persons, their agency, an agency that can cause them men's suffering. And in the end, it'll still all turn out, as he said it will, in the beginning. It'll still all turn out, as he said it will, his kingdom on earth. Despite the red horror of Chairman Mao, God will still be the Lord at the end of history. Despite the national political mayhem, foisted on us by Anthony Fauci, Jesus will still be king at the end of history. Despite Joseph Stalin having ruined the lives of tens of millions, Gulag Archipelago, holy spirit will still blow the resurrection and lead us into the eschaton. To quote Donald Blush again, quote, God is in ultimate control of nature and history, but this isn't to be interpreted deterministically. Close quote, God's in control, ultimately, but not deterministically. Again, God works with and through and around and in human free will and agency to accomplish his purposes. He can use our evil acts for good without himself being either the cause, the amen, the agreement, the driving will behind those acts. Romans 828, famously, right? And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. God can use all things even without having caused or willed them. God is sovereign over his sovereignty. Or if we wanted to frame that still differently, God is absolutely free. Oh, so there's some theologizing about human contingency. What about contingency randomness, chance in everyday life? So first, I think it's helpful to define chance. Real quick, I don't say this enough. On my webpage, www.uncensoredunprofessor.com, there's a link where you can sign up for my occasional newsletter. Frequently, I'll use those newsletters to update listeners about a new series. I just sent one out last week, encouraging people to check out a key episode in this series. And sometimes on those emails, I'll announce a UU speaking engagement. But I'd love to have you on my email list. Just go to uncensoredunprofessor.com and sign up. It's easy. And I'd love to have you on the on team. So let's define chance. A, chance is an occasion that allows something to be done. Like the boy didn't get a chance to go swimming on Saturday. But that's not really our focus today, so let's move on. Chance is B, the level of possibility that something positive or negative will happen. Example, there's zero chance that the Anaheim Angels will make the playoffs again for the 10th year in a row. Or what is the chance you will win the megabucks lotto? Oh, about one in 302 million. And probably how we're wired will ascribe an event's outcome to the existence of chance when something happened that is statistically highly unlikely. The way our brains are wired to recognize order, we will, ek, ek, ek, ek, especially ascribe causation to chance if there is some appearance of disorder. So philosophers say chance is the possibility of something happening. Yes, there's a chance you'll be struck by lightning. Lightning flashes strike all around the earth. People do live on earth. Eventually, someone gets struck by lightning. But I think what disturbs us is not so much the existence of chance and unlikelihoods. I mean, we know we can minimize the chance of getting hit by lightning by not golfing in the middle of an electric storm or staying in a car or a house when lightning storms roll past. We can minimize the chance of getting hit by a car by looking both ways, by practicing safe walking patterns when we're pedestrians. So it's not the existence of chance or unlikelihoods that bothers us. No, what is more troublesome to us is randomness. And chance is not mere randomness. There is now, thank you, Joe Biden, a decent chance that Kamala Harris will become president. And just, it's just amazing, right? That in what, two days? She went for being a three and a half year old nothing burger to the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr. (audience cheering) Folks, the media is one powerful machine. Don't let it eat your heads. There's a decent chance that Kamala Harris will become president, but it'd be totes random if Taylor Swift were elected president. She's not on the ballot. Random events are things that we don't can't even mix into the equation of possibility. I mean, random events don't happen for a reason. And that's a solid definition of random. Happening for no reason. And honestly, as I think of it, most events in life are not, in fact, random. Right, my on listener? We may not think of it that way, but it's the truth. Most things are not random. They may have had a miniscule likelihood of occurrence, but there are reasons things happen. It is possible to call heads a hundred times in a row on the flip of a nickel and be correct, but that has a miniscule likelihood of occurring, but there is a chance. Still more events and circumstances may arise that were beyond our anticipation, but even that doesn't make them random. That a burglar chose to break into my house and not any other house in the neighborhood may seem random, but he had a reason, whatever that reason was, what? I had a nice front door, so he thought we had more money inside than all the other homes or the porch light on my house was off, so he figured it'd be easier to get in and out without anyone spying him. To me, it seemed random, but in actuality the robber had his reasoning. It wasn't in the end random. And by the way, in a biblical worldview, the robber is subject to the full prosecution of the law precisely because it was his decision and agency to violate my home, my space. He wasn't acted upon by random forces, he chose to smash through my back window, so he's entirely culpable for his actions. So there's an example of something appearing random, but actually not being random. One philosopher I read argued that randomness because it has no reason is unruly. Think with me. If a painter decided to paint in a random manner, we should expect that there would be no discernible image, no organized pattern to her work. After all, she's randomly applying the paint apart from reason or logic or prior image in her head, no pattern. And then what? Well, that ugly random painting would look like most art I see inside of low churches today. Right, a blob of gray paint with a caption. Jesus gets me. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm so sorry. But the genuinely random in life which surely has to be most difficult to discern precisely because it's unruly, the genuinely random in life is rare. And thank God, right? We don't want unruliness to be commonplace. And when it does occur, we're right to recoil. It's appropriate to react in horror to unruliness. A 9.2 Richter-scale earthquake caused tsunami, 2004, wiped out 225,000 people across some 12 countries. And given that it was extremely difficult to predict, many Christians were right to wonder if A, if it was the act of evil forces, or B, and much more commonly uttered in my hearing, B, the work of God. Now, me, the better explanation for random and unruly and devastating events, I'd be more likely to ascribe it to the work of evil. Even evil entities, demons, archons, principalities, powers, please go listen to my spiritual world series from 2022. It's true God, out of his omnipotence, can do devastating things. But usually when we read the Bible, those are for the sake of judgment on a person, family, group, nation, or for the sake of instruction to his own covenant partners. So there should be some clear marker if it's to teach us something. Would God leave us in the dark if the point was to teach us? I don't know, but I don't think so. God's not vague. So me, when it's random, I don't believe there's much of anything to learn. But if I have to choose, I'm more likely to assign causation to evil because evil makes no sense. And unrulyness makes no sense. And evil has no reasoning. Reasoning, it's a mystery, 2 Thessalonians 2, 7. And evil doesn't teach us anything of purpose. Oh goodness, quick time out. Given that randomness is consistently unruly, disordered, chaotic. It makes almost zero sense, scientifically, intuitively. It makes almost zero sense that random forces gave birth to our universe none. There's too much information, there's too much ordering, too much complexity, too many happy accidents that needed to happen in a certain order to believe randomness. Unruliness is the root of life. Oh, that was a quick time out. Let's go back time in. And still, all that, we live on planet earth. The earth is characterized by free play. The ocean tides follow a most predictable pattern, one shaped by the earth's rotation, but especially the moon's gravitational pull on the earth. If you've gone crabbing, which I haven't, my back can't take sitting in a boat for hours, but my brother goes crabbing. If you've gone crabbing, you can easily find a tide table. And it will tell you almost exactly when the tide will be high, which is good crabbing time, or low, or slack, the in-between time. It's pretty predictable. But free play and earthquake can play havoc with the tide. Why are the earthquakes? Because we live on a planet that is in flux. We live on a planet that has been fluctuating, ocean depths fluctuating, locations fluctuating, the climate's ever changing and shifting nature. Just one important reason I don't believe the climate change hysteria that rules the emotions of millions today. The earth has been fluctuating for millions of years. It's called free play. Free play helps us to account that, the tectonic plate shift, right? Pangea started breaking apart 200 million years ago. There was Pangea, but now there's seven continents. Things are in motion on earth. Free play can help us to account for why that huge elk herd up around the mountains near Mountain Home can Idaho, Mountain Home, Idaho, that that huge elk herd can migrate in a new pattern, even though that herd of what, 1,000 elk, generally follows pretty standard migration routes. Free play. Free play is enacted when American red squirrels, and there are many of them around here. Free play is enacted when American red squirrels run across the top of my back fence, looking to raid my wife's blackberries, or my neighbor's veggie garden, or our other neighbor's bird feeder. Our golden doodle mercy loves to chase and, oh, barking her brains out. She loves to chase off and scare off the squirrels. And she's also why I don't get to enjoy the variety of birds that used to visit my yard. But we know that squirrels benefit from the things human beings grow. We don't know when a specific squirrel will attempt a daring raid. Why? Free play. Free play is enacted times a million, times a million each day. Bugs, clouds, mammals, reptiles, dust, devil, mini, tornado, winds, cats, and dogs, and squirrels. Unfortunately, running out in front of moving cars, spears of sunlight reflecting off the back of a moving van, and obscuring somebody's vision. Rocks flying out of construction truck beds. (growls) Rocks flying out of construction truck beds. Pop marking, ruining my windshield with a long crack. It can all feel random. But mostly it's the free play. The possibilities, the movement of life and chance and possibility and materiality and gravity and agency on the planet where God has placed us. Earth. Now you guys, having said all that, agency, love, sovereignty, chance, randomness, free play. I know many listening won't find that satisfactory. It's not, it's not tidy. It's not plain. It's not easy to understand. And it's sweetenedly not easy to control. But as I say, during one of the riddle games, I play with my grandkids when we're riding together in the car, buckle up, buttercup. Because the truth bomb is, life's not easy to understand. But it's better, more honest, more accurate to see how complex life is. Life as designed by our beautiful maker and judge. It's more accurate to see life as complex than to pretend it is either all of it a matter of chance or all pre-fated by a divine determinism. And the latter two, chance and divine determinism, have zero correspondence to the biblical portrayal of reality. And so we'll end the show today by saying, oh, praise you, holy God for your providence. Praise you that you can work around and in and through and beneath and beyond all circumstances to affect your goodness in our lives. Praise you that you are so creative, free, so beautiful that you can work in and through and around the free play of nature, the contingency of life, the agency of we fall in human beings. Oh, you are so, so good. And Lord, we praise you that your power is often hidden. Sometimes I cry, your power is too much hidden, but we praise you because we know that ultimately it is all born of love and oh, merciful God, we love you too. My listener, thanks for joining me. Please, until next week, go everyone and turn on your beautiful God-given brain. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music)