I recently took a friend of mine out to dinner for his birthday. As we were eating he was telling me about how he was struggling with the fact that his mentor is very ill with cancer and may be dying soon. Interestingly, when I asked him how he would take it if his mentor did die he said, “I mean, it would suck, but I guess I’d be okay with it since there’s a reason for everything.”
A reason for everything – this is a common belief held by Christians. And by “reason” I mean divine purpose – as if it is all part of God’s plan. I think we believe this because of the fact that we believe in a sovereign God who is in control. Even more, we believe in a God who knows how many days we have left to live and one who works for good all things for those who believe in him. And the end result of the sum of these beliefs is that we somehow believe that everything happens for a reason.
But the biggest reason why I can’t buy it is because if everything happens for a reason, then God is the cause of it all.
And if that’s the case, God is – as my former theology professor would put it - Freddy Krueger. He’s a monster.
Does rape happen for a reason? Genocide? Sex trafficking? Child starvation?
Perhaps we believe that everything happens for a reason because it is our way of coping with the unfortunate circumstances we find ourselves in. We believe that if it happens for a reason then we can get through it. If there’s some sort of cosmological purpose to all the crap we deal with, its manageable. But inadvertently we end up painting God as something he is not.
The truth is that sometimes things just happen. Crap happens. Death and pain happen. They don’t happen for any reason, they are just the result of living in a world we weren’t really meant to live in. There’s not a good explanation about God needing people in heaven, or needing to teach us things – sure, he’ll do that and often through the painful circumstances of life, but he doesn’t find joy in our misfortune. If anything, he is more grieved by it than we are.
So let’s stop saying that. Let’s learn how to struggle through pain and learn what we can from it without having to find a reason for it. Let’s invite God to heal our broken hearts without assuming he had some reason to break them. Let’s call our crap what it is without having to find some sort of reason for it.
What do you think? Does everything happen for a reason? Why or why not?
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Christianity, God, Love, Theology
We live in a fallen world and have free choice. I don’t know that everything necessarily happens for a reason but God has “factored it all in” to bring all things to good for those that love Him. So no matter what happens He can turn it around and use it in some way.
I think there is a reason why things happen, but that isn’t what you’re asking. Yours is a question of a greater purpose, and I have to agree with you that not everything happens to serve a greater purpose. God or no God, there is still room for the meaningless.
J.R.,
Right, I should have distinguished between things that happen as the result of someone’s actions, etc. and things that happen because of some sort of divine/cosmological purpose.