PROVIDENCE

10 days before christmas in 2007, my dad crashed his dirtbike and died at our motocross track. i was 13. i watched it happen.

everyone told me there was a reason for it - god had a plan.

at the time, i tried to make sense of it by assuming god wanted me to learn to rely on Him now that i was fatherless. i poured myself into the bible and christianity. it was a salve for that wounded kid's heart until the studies and life experiences led me to unanswerable questions. that's partly why i write hungry ghost. it's been an outlet for me to air out the issues that unraveled my faith.

in providence, i explore one of the key threads that pulled open the seems of faith for me. is god all powerful? does he direct every moment of my life or is he more of a big picture guy? do i choose him or does he choose me? did he kill my dad to teach me a lesson?

i would love to hear your thoughts on the topic and continue a discussion below, especially if you disagree with my conclusions.

CHOOSE

“i was running a multi-million dollar trucking company, but god spoke to me. he told me to go to bible college”

“i never wanted to be a pastor but god had other plans.”

these were direct quotes from my lyft driver as he told me about his ministry. how he had healed a woman of her arthritis in his car once - his proof being that she could move her fingers a bit better after he said amen. god tells him things about people. apparently he was so vital to the cause that god almighty plucked him from a good life to do his bidding.

“if god tells me anything you need to hear, i’ll let you know”

i thanked him and couldn’t wait to hear THE WORD OF THE LORD channeled through this man.

“i am sensing bitterness in you.”

fuck! i’ve been discovered.

maybe he felt the condescension in my tone or saw the goat head tattoo on my knee. or i was tired from my long day and was annoyed to be locked into 14 minutes of proselytizing. if i could tithe monthly to get a life in america without christianity ads, i would. or maybe god really did tell him about my bitterness and i need to repent…

i told him i grew up in church. he asked why i left. i gave him my standard response. “once i started looking into the faith as an adult, it stopped making sense to me.” he pressed further so i went into my thoughts on the shakiness and vagueness of the salvation process which leads naturally into the problem of evil.

he had the classic, canned response: “it’s all about your relationship with god and he wants you to choose him freely.” he asked if i had a girlfriend. assuming where this was headed i said “yes, but, i did not design her and her entire world from scratch with a booby trap she could fall into. nor did i build a place where she would be tortured and burned consciously for eternity if she doesn’t love me.”

i told him, with no apparent effect, my take on the whole relationship with god thing. he kept bringing it back to the importance of CHOICE. god really wants us to choose him freely. like we chose to eat of the forbidden fruit and sin against him.

well, i asked, what about my pakistani friends who will die and go to hell for the crime of being born to muslim mothers? again, their choice.

so you’re telling me the god who extracted you from your allegedly successful business and forced you to be a pastor regardless of your own desire or free choice is the same god who will slow roast you for eternity if you don’t crack his riddles and choose freely to love the faceless god who has a gun to your head? ok.

maybe the big guy is inconsistent. and if he DOES call some while leaving others to whither away under allah in some sweltering backwater even though he possesses the power to intervene, can we call that god good?

“who can know the mind of god? that isn’t for us to discern,” is the christian’s response. so you know the tingle in your left arm was god telling you, literally, to start a church and you know exactly how his riddles work and you can tell me the eternal fate of my soul but his cruelties are off the table for our understanding?

so the basic structure in my pastor driver’s mind is the following:

• i am daddy’s favorite
• he chose me and guides my every step by hand
• i do his direct bidding
• everyone else can choose to be one of daddy’s kids
• if they don’t, daddy tortures them every day forever
  • which they deserve for not choosing the right daddy, even if they got close as a jehovah's witness or a mormon

a muslim and a jew and a buddhist died today, statistically. they didn't convert to christianity at the last second. why didn’t god steer them to himself at the last minute? or at least whisper?

how can you believe in a god who is obsessed with people making a decision to follow him while simultaneously giving certain people no say in the matter with 100% sovereignty over their every breath?

-

i told my friend i think the god he “hears” is no more than his own thoughts and feelings that he’s categorized as the voice of god. not unlike if i was hungry and thought god was telling me to eat. i told him i see this as one of the most unfortunate and problematic psychological shortcomings we human beings carry - to ascribe our thoughts as direct instruction from the almighty.

but, i don’t know, i said - did god tell me to say that to you or was satan speaking through me?

he agreed it might be satan using me as a vessel.

still, how does god choose some as direct servants while playing hard to get with others?

GOD’S WILL

“lord willing” is a phrase anyone who grew up near the south understands. we say it anytime we don’t know how something will go but we want it to go our way. it’s in the same vein as knocking on wood. a recognition of uncertainty while hoping not to curse your chances by saying out loud what you want.

my flight will get to DC on time, lord willing. i’ll land the deal with that big brand, lord willing. my favorite rider will win the championship, lord willing. it’s feigned humility, paying lip service to surrendering control while crossing your fingers behind your back hoping THE GOD OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE tips the scale your way, including at the expense of other people not getting their way.

it’s a request for favoritism.

funny, how we should expect favoritism and intervention from the same god who’s apparently obsessed with free will.

this mindset, when taken seriously, assumes:

1. god shapes your reality live like a DJ mysteriously dialing knobs
2. god has time, interest, and energy to intervene in your petty affairs
3. god will favor you over some other poor soul

people pray to understand god’s will for their life.

i’ve had an employees quit, siting as part of their reason, that they prayed about it and felt led to the decision. i find it’s common for christians to mention prayer in their decisions. oh wow, GOD wants you to quit? i guess it’s settled then! i’m so jealous of their direct line to the author of the universe’s playbook. i would feel such relief being off the hook for my decisions if it was THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY cosigning for them.

people of most faiths seem to think this way. the belief that an invisible hand guides our path seems to be the majority position. muslims say “inshallah” meaning “if allah wills it.” my more new-aged yogi friends would say “whatever spirit decides.”

perhaps it’s a neurological shortcut.

grappling with the randomness and uncertainty of life costs your brain a lot of calories. maybe it found a way to reduce all of the floating, unknowable factors and forces behind it all into one clean concept. our brains didn’t stop there - we started looking for how our behaviors influence the unknown.

if i have a personal relationship with the unseen blackjack dealer, if i behave in ways that please him, i’ll get more aces to stash up my sleeve. can our brains not handle the fact that there’s no dealer - that we’re sitting in front of a table with all the cards spilling out in front of us at rapid fire?

i recognize this search for good favor in my work. if i believe in the vision i have for my company and act in all the right ways, i will be granted more aces. my enemies will be dealt a losing hand because i’m the dealer’s favorite. if i work hard enough and get it just right, my hope is to be rewarded for my efforts and protected from catastrophe. if i don’t, i will be punished.

control and perfectionism are my biggest struggles and sources of stress. my mind burns an enormous amount of energy worrying about how to achieve or avoid outcomes. at points in my life i’ve felt like god had my back, that i was receiving my due reward. nowadays, i see the feeling of “knowing” what to do next or certainty about the future to be works of fiction, even if they turn out to be true.

one day i will be able to drop these fictions, lord willing.

is the good stuff the lord’s will and the bad stuff satan’s? when a baby in africa is born with aids, is that the work of the devil? if there is a possibility for satan to win a fight with god, causing your uncle to die of cancer or your coffee to spill on your lap, that must mean satan is equal to god or even capable of getting the upper hand. if god can be beaten, who’s hands are on the wheel?

worse yet, perhaps god allows his foibles. a christian might say that’s on us for sinning in the garden - directly disobeying god.

original sin takes the cake as the biggest case of consumer guilt on record.

"hey god, why do bad things like volcanos and genocides happen? how does hell keep admitting new souls?" you may ask.
“oh, that’s your fault,” is heaven’s reply. "you’re still paying off the original debt."

"but didn’t you have us kill your son to pay for that?" you insist.

"well, yeah, but we’re going to let this cursed earth thing play out."

if god truly is fully in control, i’d be very careful how much of his will you ask for.

SUFFERING

a few years after my father died, i started wondering at god’s power.

was he stronger than satan? why did bad things happen like my father’s early demise? would i go to hell if i did more bad than good? i was raised by a man after god’s own heart so i was given quite a few answers to these questions. ask a theologian why god allows suffering in the world and you will get a few common responses.

redemptive suffering
god allows suffering because it makes way for redemption. how could humans appreciate the gift of christ without having suffered the evil of a world without him? they offer this view as a way to form meaning out of painful experience.

authentic relationship
they will say it’s man’s punishment for the fall. we turned our backs on god and he cursed us for it. we deserve it. we have free will and god wants a genuine relationship with us. he invites us into relationship and asks us to love him and believe in him. but he won’t force us to.

power struggle between good and evil
some may say we live in a realm ruled by spiritual forces at battle. satan manufactures suffering and humans bear it like sheep in line for slaughter. satan and his armies are at war with god’s angels for the fate of our souls, the battle over our cancers, the results of our favorite football teams at the superbowl.

REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING

is it necessary? why couldn’t god have designed a system where we came hardwired with every life lesson we needed and had just the right balance of neurotransmitters so we felt content and pleasant at all times? if we look at suffering without the narrative, it is merely pain. since we have never experienced another form of reality, it would seem obvious that pain is a staple in the same way rocks fall toward the earth. surely, if there were a loving designer, suffering would’ve been negotiated at a developer meeting and considered to be taken away.

there are many forms of suffering with no redemptive qualities. alex o’connor famously used the example of the deer with it’s antlers stuck in branches in the wilderness. darkness falls for the 10th night in a row. it’s starving, scared, cold, and lions approach, attracted to it’s bleating cries for help. the lions close in and the deer dies in horror between the jaws of multiple lions with their teeth sunk into it’s arteries, bleeding it dry.

where is the redemptive moment for the deer? did it learn a valuable lesson, convert to the correct religion as a response to a sudden revelation caused by his circumstance? or perhaps god’s purpose for the deer was to provide the lions with dinner. yet if that were his purpose, why was pain a necessary part of the plan? lions could have been vegan.

another example - if i learn something useful, it will aid my existence. for that to be seen as “good,” we have to agree on quite a bit. first, that i ought to continue existing. second, that i am a net good for the overall narrative. third, that this is the final outcome to measure with no future plot points to consider. my business fails and i learn a lesson that helps my next business succeed. the first business was a small flower farm but the next business is a plastic bottle factory with terrible emissions. i sell the plastic bottle factory when i retire. the money goes to my five grand children. one becomes a nobel prize winning researcher who effectively solves our climate crisis and saves humanity from death by rising oceans. with our new prosperity, humanity outgrows the earths supplies and we descend into wars over scarce resources and billions starve to death. was it a good thing that my flower business failed?

a theologian may respond “who can know the will of god?”

surely there is no more common or frustrating form of intellectual suicide. they explain the rules of the game as if they were obvious facts, then in the same breath state that you can’t understand the rules, intention of it’s maker, or the point of the game - and you never could - yet you should believe the game is real.

filling in gaps in your logic with “i am too humble a creature to know the mind of god” invalidates your argument and admits a lack of care for intellectual honesty.

you cannot say you know without a doubt that god is responsible for everything we experience and simultaneously say you are too small minded to understand why god would do such a thing - to assume he has a plan that makes all of our suffering make sense is insanity and utterly too generous.

AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

you will often hear people get choked up about their relationship with jesus, how special it is to them. they will say god made us and all of creation so he could be in relationship to us. he holds such tenderness for us, like a loving father or a gracious lover. see my essay, “fisher of men” for my thoughts on jesus being the biggest catfish of all.

they will say he gives us the opportunity to choose him, just like we leave room for each other to choose. how creepy would it be for a guy to tell a girl she had to love him by her own choice or suffer eternally? what kind of love would that be?

we compare a relationship with god to our human relationships because it’s all we know but the comparison doesn’t come close to describing the reality of our situation. this is more accurate:

a guy is lonely, so he want’s to create a lover. he wants her to deeply appreciate him so he gives her the choice to not choose his love. however, he also made a rule that if she does not choose him, she will suffer eternal loneliness, torture, and fire in a place he designed for those who reject him. because our god is a jealous boyfriend and she shall have no other boyfriends before him - as stated by most of the ten commandments. so, the guy creates his girlfriend out of thin air and says, “freely chose to love me, or else.” when she asks why she’s even involved with him, he says “for my glory.”

does this sound like a love story or a kidnapping?

here is the correct analogy:

god built a sandbox and populated it with children and toys that could corrupt them. he told them to choose to play with him or else he’d fire the gun pointed at their heads.

POWER STRUGGLE

the devil is at your doorstep. beware, after all - the thief looks only to kill, steal, and destroy. he’s looking for you, waiting for an opportune moment to sneak up and strike you with temptation.

i grew up with these messages everywhere. a painting of an angel in my childhood hallway depicted him as a giant man with wings, a spear, and a ball of fire. he was watching over a young boy. this inspired horror for me. why must i be provided such fortified bodyguards? what evil lurks in the night?

i would often wake up wondering if demons made the noise above my bed. maybe they are yet plotting to come from under my bed and drag me to hell.

the struggle between good and evil is what christians like us called spiritual warfare. there are plenty of passages about it and you have to stay on guard. this explanation of suffering confused me as a child. am i on the powerful team or not? is god powerful? is satan building an army that could win in the end? or was the game rigged because the big man on my side made the rules?

powerful god

were any of these explanations real, they would all come down to one fork in the road:

is god completely in control, or is he not? totality is a binary option. there’s really no room for nuance.

if god is indeed the designer of everything - every grain of sand, each mathematical constant that explains why stars explode and reform across millions of year, each relationship dynamic, every electron swirling around an atomic nucleus - then it stands within reason to say he ultimately designed the very structure of reality. our experience of time, consciousness, suffering, hunger, death, ecstasy and each possible experience of all beings everywhere.

this would imply he created the very mechanism by which we would be punished for turning away from him.

let’s grant for now that god designed this system. he laid out a world where his creation would have free choice, even the choice to mock him. if we chose this, we would be punished for it and experience suffering as a result. then, if we didn’t hear his gospel - which, by the way, billions upon billions of dead humans have not - we would be damned to separation from him for all eternity.

if he truly designed it and it is going according to his plan, he is responsible for all of it. that means he chose not to make a universe without pain and death and explosions.

he chose to make a bloody fucking nightmare.

if he is all powerful, he is surely evil.

weak god

if he set things in motion but grants power to his creation to buck his authority in ways that surprise him, and he can’t or won’t intervene, then he is simply less powerful than his creation, therefore not what i would consider an authority and certainly not a powerful god. if he were powerful and truly wanted the highest good for everyone, he would cut to the end of the story and undo all of our mistakes, including his.

but no, he likes riddles.

so he just let’s it all happen and it’s possible satan might win? is this really the best reality he could come up with? how did it get so off the rails if he is not simply impotent?

one may be tempted, as in the relationship analogy, to compare god to the ruler of a nation or a corporation. but the analogy falls short at this fact: the abrahamic god supposedly knows our thoughts, our hearts, and every deed of our mind, tongue, and body. what CEO knows every thought of those in her employ (whom she created) while having the power to mark their eternal soul as fit for abomination or salvation? it is one of our gravest mistakes to make god in our image.

thus we arrive at three possible scenarios:

A. god is impotent
B. god is evil
C. god is a story we made up to personify the unknown

my conclusion, then, is this: suffering has no ultimate redeeming quality outside of our personal narrative. a personal relationship with god is a hostage situation; if god has ultimate power, he is the source of evil and unredeemable suffering.

if he exists, our blood is on his hands.

-

was my fathers death by design, meant to bolster my faith? was it the work of satan, or the work of an evil god, perhaps?

when you believe in god as i did at 13, you come up with justifications about why god would do such a thing. after all, if he is all powerful he must have been in control of that too. so many people had things to say like “god has a plan” and i wanted to reply:

“well, i have some notes”

WHY did my father die? because his bike glitched and his body impacted the earth with too much force. the bike auto-shifted from 3rd to neutral on the face of a jump, sending him tumbling forward. he hit his head too many times throughout his life and at 43 you don’t always get to land under a motorcycle and walk away with a harrowing story.

if god had something to do with dropping his bike into neutral, he can go fuck himself.

but no, it was an accident.