Bible Studies

THOUGHTS ABOUT CHANCE AND DEATH PART 1

by GLENN PEASE
01/11/22
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Let me introduce these thoughts by making it clear that the purpose of them is to make chance a reality, and to make death very often the result of chance and free choices of people. The goal of establishing this is to make it clear that much that is blamed on God in this fallen world is not his will, but is, in fact, just the opposite of what he wills.

It has been many years since I flipped a coin to decide anything, but I did it often in my youth. It is one of the best impartial ways of deciding who is to get first choice in a sporting activity. That is why the pros still use it to decide who gets to receive the ball first in a football game. The practice started with Julius Caesar. He had his head on every Roman coin, and if you flipped it and his head came up, you won, for that was a sign that the Emperor agreed with your decision. So it was heads you win, tails you lose. Major decisions were made by the flip of the coin. Marriage, criminal guilt, and property transactions were all decided by a coin flip. People had such reverence for this method because they felt it was the response of the gods, and they accepted the results.

This puts the Christian in something of a dilemma. If they were right, that the flip of a coin revealed the will of God, then there is no such thing as luck, and their coin flipping was a much easier and quicker way of knowing the will of God than our flipping through the Bible to know His will. They had a fast lane, and we are stuck in a long line. If both options are equally valid in discovering the will of God, then it is no wonder that people would rather go the way of chance events, than that of reading, study, and research.

The Christian has no alternative but to reject the validity of coin tossing, or any other act of chance as a way of knowing God's will. To accept it is to make the Bible of little value. Why bother with study of it if all you have to do is flip a coin to know who you should marry, and what you should buy, and which direction your life should go? Get yourself a lucky coin and forget Bible study.

Luck is obviously a reality, for if it is not, then all that seems so is really the wise, intelligent, and planned will of God. The slot machine is the way to go for your financial future. Why go to college or develop a trade? Why go to work at all? Just go to the slot machines, and they will reveal your fate to be rich or poor, and do it so much faster. If it is God's will for you to be rich, you can learn it so much faster by gambling than by education. If luck is really just a synonym for the Lord, and all so-called luck is really the providence of God, then lets give luck a larger role in our life. Let God guide us in the fast lane as we go steady with lady luck.

Christians do not realize the implications when they say, "There is no such thing as luck." They are saying that everything is God's will. If its not luck, or sheer chance, then it is an act of the will, and a choice. That means when I run myself breathless to get to a ball on the other side of the tennis court, and make a spectacular return, and my opponent makes a feeble attempt to get it back, and it hits the top of the net and falls over on my side, and I shout, "What luck!" I am wrong. That was not luck at all, for it had to be God's will. He chose to let my opponent win that point even though I made the best shots and deserved the point. God, for some inexplicable reason, decided that point would not be mine, no matter how good I played.

Luck I can understand, but the Lord making all such decisions just does not make sense, especially when you study the world where luck is a major idol. Why does God favor the casino rather the poor gambler who is hoping for a shortcut to independence, or just enough extra for a few luxuries. The whole thing is rigged, because if there is no such thing as luck, then God has chosen to let the casino rip off the poor gambler. God, according to this view, is on the side of the casino, and is their greatest supporter. If luck is the reason he loses, it is easier to accept, but if God has sold out to the casinos, and is on their side, that is very difficult to swallow. If God is for them, who can be against them?

The point of all this is that we have to believe in luck by which we mean, events which are not determined by God, but by chance. It is a philosophical necessity, for if you reject the reality of luck, you make God responsible for all evil, and all of the negative events of life, including those that God clearly forbids. It is not only a philosophical necessity, but it is also a Biblical necessity to believe in chance, or luck.

The beauty of this subject is that you cannot be wrong. If God determines everything, then He has to have also determined that many be doubters of this doctrine. So if you do doubt it, that too has to be God's will. If God does not determine all things, you are also in the right, so you cannot lose by questioning this issue. A major false assumption is that if one cannot believe something, its opposite must be true. This leads to all the extremes that produce a world in conflict. If the Jews are right, the Arabs must be wrong. If the Arabs are right the Jews must be wrong. If Calvin is right, Arminius has to be wrong. If Arminius is right, Calvin has to be wrong. If republicans are right, the democrats must be wrong, and vice versa, and on and on. The list is endless of issues where the assumption is that all truth is found in an extreme. If your perspective has all the truth, then all other perspectives by definition are false, evil, and thus the enemy. This kind of thinking is what makes this world one of endless conflict.

It is my conviction that the Christian perspective is always a third way of seeing things. There is some truth in every extreme, but what makes it an extreme is its unwillingness to incorporate the truth of its opposite. Paradox is of such great value because it enables one to see the reality of truth in opposites, and incorporate them into a third perspective. Sydney Harris, the brilliant essayist, wrote, "The man who sees both sides of a question is further along than the man who sees only one, but best of all is the man who sees the hidden third side, too." The Bible makes it clear that a wise man is one who can see more than one perspective. Prov. 18:13 & 17 read, "He who answers before listening-that is his folly and his shame." "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him."

The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The optimist says the glass is half full. The fact is, they are both right even though they are opposites. The realist says what's the difference, and he drinks it and quenches his thirst.

Scripture verses that support the reality of chance are quite clear. For example:
1. I Sam. 6:9 The ark was the cause of God's judgement on the Philistines and so they were sending it back to Israel. "Send it on its way, but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance." They saw that some things are of God's doing and other things are of chance. Some bad things happen by chance and not because of God's anger, and this is good thinking in my judgement.

2. If there is no such thing as chance, but all is planned, and each person is born into an environment just designed for them, then there is no evil, for all is just as it is intended by God. If you have an abusive parent, that is not just bad luck, that is God's plan for you. This leads to rejection of all evil and total determinism. If God wills all, then all abortions are also His will, for that must be His planned destiny for millions of fetuses. If you say that is just human choice, then you are saying these potential lives are victims of chance and bad luck. They were conceived at a unlucky time to the wrong people. There is no escape from the dilemma. Either God wills their death, or it is not His will. If He wills it, it has to be okay as part of His plan. If He does not will it, it happens by chance, and is not part of His plan. A child conceived when not intended we call an accident. It was not man's plan, and it would be a dishonor to say it was God's plan, for then He would be the one responsible for all abortions and unwanted children. The reality of chance eliminates this conclusion, and does not make God responsible for evil. If it is not just bad luck for millions to be conceived when they are not wanted, and it is God's will that they be, then God had to also will all sinful sexual acts that led to the conceptions, and this would make him responsible for willing all the things that are against his will. This is bad theology in anybody's book.

The consequences of not believing in chance are these:
1. Anger at God for the bad things that happen, for it is assumed they were intended by God. He did this to me and I can't forgive Him for such cruelty. He let my child die because of a drunk driver going down the wrong way on a one way street. But if you believe in chance you do not blame God, for God does not plan such folly. It is man's choice to do the dangerous things that make accidents likely.
2. If there is no chance, then all is determined by some power, and this makes superstition legitimate, for these things could make a difference if they get these powers on your side. Dr. Robert Lewis in Taking Chances says we laugh at the folly of primitive people and their strange superstitions, and he writes, "Yet those of us who scoff at the superstitions of others may step over cracks on the sidewalk, avoid walking under ladders, or knock on wood for good luck. Americans today spend approximately one hundred and thirty million each year on amulets and good luck charms. A recent Gallup Poll indicated that nearly 32 million Americans take astrology seriously." If some power beyond man's choices is the determining factor, all of this folly could be reasonable. But if life is full of chance and consequences are determined by our choices, then all superstition is folly.
3. If all is determined by God, and there are no chance factors, then there is no hope of changing the odds of bad things happening. Whatever will be will be. But if one believes that all is not determined but is open for chance, you can study and learn and figure out how to change what is not acceptable. For example, Mary Ignes had 16 accidents in a big New Jersey factory. Others doing the same work had no problem. They tested her and learned that she was a hot tempered person with a hot tempered father, and they clashed frequently. Her emotional instability was creating these accidents. Angry people have more accidents in every situation. They persuaded Mary to move into her own apartment, and she stopped having the accidents. God did not will those accidents. They were caused by circumstances and bad choices. Drinking and driving is one of the best examples of terrible things that happen because of human choices and chance, and not because God wills them.

If everything is determined than history is just like a movie on tape. Nothing can be different than what it is. There's no place for change or alteration. Each person has a destiny locked into the film. The bad guys can't change if the script does not permit it. The whole thing is finished and all we can do is play the role assigned to us. This does not fit the experience of life, however. If I see the keys in your car and steal it, I am held responsible. But if God determined that I would steal it then why hold me responsible? I had no choice, but to do what God had determined. But lets remember, God has already told us His will when you see the keys in a car. He said, "Thou shalt not steal." His will is clear, and so if I steal anyway, it is not God's will, but a clear violation of it. I am responsible, and God's foreknowing that I would steal does not determine my behavior.

This story was in the Los Angeles Times: "A three year old boy was killed in a freak accident when steel cables from a blown-out rear tire sliced through the floor of a minibus,and ensnared the child who was sleeping on his mother's lap and threw him onto Interstate Hwy. 5." Events like this happen everyday, and the question is, are they really accidents, or are they part of God's predetermined plan? We can speculate forever, but the only way to really know if all death is God's will is to study His Word on the subject. So let's do it.

YOU WILL FIND THIS STUDY ON DEATH IN THOUGHTS ABOUT CHANCE AND DEATH PART 2