Into the Depths of Why? 3

Adam Hamilton’s new book, Why?: Making Sense of God’s Will, explores one of the more existentially relevant to (some) Christians: What is God’s will? or Why can’t I see God’s will for my life?

The number of times I’ve had students bring this topic up with me is beyond my memory, but it’s common enough. What Hamilton writes in this chp is more or less what I’ve said, but the images he uses will become my standard ones.

What about you: Is God’s will for your life predetermined? a script? or do we collaborate with God as God reveals a prescriptive will?

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players…” (Shakespeare, As You Like It).

Adam begins with a view of God’s will that is nothing short of the strong Calvinist view: predeterminism. Your life has been scripted by God. It’s a form of determinism. Adam critiques this view: God ultimately becomes responsible for the world’s evil. [I have never been convinced that Calvinism can escape this accusation.] We become robots which God stages for his own enjoyment. But this mocks the justifiability of judgment — how or why judge what God himself already determined? These are the standard criticisms, and I summarize what Adam has said.

Another view is that God has a script for us — a specific script — but he gives us freedom to do what he wants or not do what he wants. While his view is not that far from this view, this specific script creates a problem if we stray from it significantly one time? Does God then re-script us? Or, or …? Why doesn’t God just tell us what he wants specifically?

This leads Adam to the view he defends: God has a prescriptive will — Ten commandments, the Jesus Creed, etc — and each day we discern by listening to God and paying attention to life how to live out that prescriptive will.

“I believe God’s plan for our lives is not so much a manuscript already completed, but an idea and outline for a story that God hopes we will choose to follow, filling in the outline with God each day” (62). When we invited God in or listen to God our story can become redemptive.

His image: Parents. Kris and I both had big ideas for our kids, but we never really determined in advance what kind of life they would choose. (Other than being Cubs fans, I jest.) It is more about how and why we make decisions than the specific decisions we make.

As we listen to God in life we see not “coincidence” but “God-incidents.”