To what extent should "everything" be considered to be God's will/doing?

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

If for instance, if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

For bigger things - let's say you propose marriage to your significant other, and they either say yes or no - I think Christians would wonder if God was working in that person's brain to generate the yes or no. But to what extent is God involved in all the tiny things? Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

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I think it is dangerous to try to think about what God does. He might not will someone to sin but He might allow it for the salvation of someone.

MercyandFaith said:

if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

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That's highly problematic, on two counts. First, it assigns ungodly behavior to God's will. How can God will something against His nature? Secondly, it reduces man to a robot, whereas Scripture tells us we are made in the likeness of God.

I don't see anywhere near that degree of determinism at work. We are created with free will and are therefore accountable for our actions.

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

If for instance, if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

For bigger things - let's say you propose marriage to your significant other, and they either say yes or no - I think Christians would wonder if God was working in that person's brain to generate the yes or no. But to what extent is God involved in all the tiny things? Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

Click to expand...

While it is possible that God directly controls everything, such a scenario effectively eliminates free will. Hence, I doubt very much that we are all puppets on a string.

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

Click to expand...

God planed and currently executes the orbit of each electron in the Cosmos.
All before His morning coffee.

Colossians 1:17
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

MercyandFaith said:

Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

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I would think "orchestrated" is best way to put this. "Controlled" ? Not as some people think controlled means. God does not violate persons free will to choose.

David Neos said:

I think it is dangerous to try to think about what God does. He might not will someone to sin but He might allow it for the salvation of someone.

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DELIGHT in all that Yahuweh does - always according to TORAH. THINK His Way, with the Mind of Christ, as Written in His Word. This Way - His Way - is soooo much better in every way than man's ways, and so much higher also ! as high as the heavens are above the earth He Says in His Word.....

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

If for instance, if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

For bigger things - let's say you propose marriage to your significant other, and they either say yes or no - I think Christians would wonder if God was working in that person's brain to generate the yes or no. But to what extent is God involved in all the tiny things? Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

Click to expand...

I'm Christian and I don't believe God is in control of everything. But he does edify and lift us up at times away from the decay of the natural world.

It is God's will that we have free will to do some things.
This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective which God is doing and allowing all he can to help with. That all He can includes: satan running around, Christ going to the cross, tragedies of all kind, death, hell, and even sin.

Yeah...if Gods doing all this.. all in control.. He really has things goofed up. Yet He is in control. Satan is the god of this world.. but this is a time bubble and Satans time is just about up. We have His word about how this will all go down so.. one can say and its true.. God is in control. But man has a will that GOD will not go against.

For me.. if I wonder what GODS will is.. I read His word. His word is His will.

Some theologians distinguish between different "wills" in God: preceptive, permissible, and decretive. Saint Thomas Aquinas says that "to some effects He has attached necessary causes, that cannot fail; but to others defectible and contingent causes, from which arise contingent effects. Hence it is not because the proximate causes are contingent that the effects willed by God happen contingently, but because God prepared contingent causes for them, it being His will that they should happen contingently." He also says that "God therefore neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is a good."

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

If for instance, if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

For bigger things - let's say you propose marriage to your significant other, and they either say yes or no - I think Christians would wonder if God was working in that person's brain to generate the yes or no. But to what extent is God involved in all the tiny things? Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

Click to expand...

God is not a micro-manager. He gave mankind total control of how they live in the world. If He pulled the strings, no one would have to account for their actions and choices because they could raise a defence by rightfully saying that God controlled their actions and choices and therefore had no choice of their own.

We cannot have free choice and be controlled at the same time.

The truth is, we have the Bible to guide us concerning God's standards for our conduct, and He lets us get on with it. But we all have to account for our actions and choices before God, because He has set a Day of Judgment when that accounting will have to take place.

"So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God" (Romans 14:12).

There will be people in the judgment who will try and defend themselves by saying, "You told me to do it". But the answer will be that they thought He told them, but they listened to the wrong voice. There will be others who will say that they have done great works for God, and He will answer, "Who told you to do them? No Me!"

MercyandFaith said:

OK, but then the only logical reading of this is that, if someone does cut you off in traffic and flip you the bird, that yes, that was indeed God's planning and execution.

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Gen 50

20As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good,

So yes.
The correct response is always, "Praise Jesus!"
I learned this from the one person I know was saved.
If he didn't say it, you could see it on his face.

MercyandFaith said:

Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

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Sin is not God's will.

Blade said:

Y But man has a will that GOD will not go against.

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You might have to ask Jonah, or St. Paul, about God's unwillingness to go against man's will.

MercyandFaith said:

A topic that I've been thinking a lot of about lately:

Most Christians, if you ask them if God is in control of everything, would say "yes" without hesitation. But lately I've been wondering just how much I should apply that to how I view the world.

If for instance, if I am driving on the highway and someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the middle finger, should I really be thinking, "It was God's will for that driver to do that?"

For bigger things - let's say you propose marriage to your significant other, and they either say yes or no - I think Christians would wonder if God was working in that person's brain to generate the yes or no. But to what extent is God involved in all the tiny things? Is truly EVERYTHING orchestrated and controlled by God?

Click to expand...

Not at all. God wills that man has the freedom to choose his own way; we're left "in the hands of our own counsel". And that's what makes life often confusing and uncertain-because we don't always know the best way to proceed. And this plays itself out most significantly, of course, in our choices that involve choosing good or evil, life or death, God or no God. It's a struggle, either way.