SAINT ANDREW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIANITY
a monthly forum on the third Saturday of each month
with Dr. Richard T. Nolan
Retired Honorary Canon of
Editor of www.philosophy-religion.org
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT GOD TO DO FOR US?
Will God protect us from calamity, help us pass exams, cure all our ills, make people behave themselves, provide peace among nations? How do we distinguish wishful, even magical thinking, from reasonable expectations?
I. EVOLUTION OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
a. whether in physics, the law, or theology, human understanding is evolving.
b. speculation, fantasy, and superstition give way to more informed insights - which no doubt will continue to be matured.
c. For example:
"The gods control the weather" to "God controls the weather" to "The weather functions according to (God's) laws of nature."
II. WE HAVE CHOSEN TO BELIEVE THAT GOD HAS ALREADY DONE SEVERAL THINGS:
a. God has created the universe to this very moment.
b. God has provided evolving laws of nature resulting in a reasonably stable world in which to live.
c. God has provided clues for human beings to discover that:
i. God cares about creation (is not indifferent).
ii. "...in Jesus a creative process, which is the essence of God's love, was illuminated in a unique way." *
iii. Jesus as “God’s Word” is the clue to the meaning and purpose of human existence.
d. God has provided human beings with the freedom to make significant personal decisions, the power to initiate and carry through with their choices. Human beings are responsible for the consequences of their choices.
e. God has been at work non-coercively in human lives in ways not open to us through the rest of our experiences. God has provided Spirit, "loving-kindness," influence, inner strength, power, and HEALING, or in other words GRACE.
Healing: Individuals participate in the rite of laying-on-of-hands for healing as an expression of their readiness to accept God’s future. They pray for especially for inner spiritual healing (for comfort, for strength to cope, and for the healing power of Christ’s love), and they hope for whatever cure may be possible.
Grace: What does “grace” mean? During the 1958-9 academic year at the Berkeley Divinity School in New Haven, Visiting Lecturer Dr. Leonard Hodgson (Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford), commented: “We begin by repudiating all notions of grace which think of it as a something given by God to work mechanically, after the manner of a medicine given by a doctor to be taken three times a day after meals. We think of God’s grace after the analogy of that help which one can give to another in personal relationships, help which does not set aside or supersede a man’s own freedom but enables him to be more truly himself and more fully free: the sort of help which leads him to say with gratitude, ‘I could never have been what I am but for X.’”
In the Bible, grace is synonymous with “favor,” “mercy,” “compassion,” “kindness” and “love.” Because of our human limitations, individuals are unable to establish truly personal, faithful relationships with God solely by their own efforts. God’s grace is extended to us that we might become more aligned with God’s purposes and to mature toward a fuller communion with the Creator and each other. Neither controlling nor coercing, God’s freely given grace enables, strengthens, and empowers. Recipients of grace remain free to respond or not; otherwise, God-given human freedom would be shackled.
f. God has been merciful: "This is my beloved child, even if I am not completely well pleased." (forgiveness to the penitent)
III. WHAT WE CANNOT EXPECT FROM GOD:
a. Although God is able, it is unlikely that any of the above will be changed; at least, we cannot EXPECT such changes.
b. that life will automatically be a bed of roses for people faithful to God.
c. that God will take responsibility for controlling anyone’s life.
d. that clear and satisfactory answers will be forthcoming as to “why bad things happen to good people” (such as natural disasters, illnesses, etc.). Job’s faithfulness is a model.
IV. WHAT CAN WE EXPECT GOD TO DO FOR US?
a. More of the same!
b. God, without infringing on the freedom given us, can, at our request, enter our lives with the result that we find it possible to do what we could not otherwise do.* We can expect to ask for and receive God's grace.
V. WHAT SHOULD WE PRAY FOR? (discussion)
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*insight from Bertocci, Free Will, Responsibility and Grace