Dear People Whom God Loves,
GOD’S INTERACTION WITH THE WORLD – VI
Last time we started to look at miracles. We will now look at the way that God works in and through nature and is not interrupting the natural process.
We speak of God as Love. Indeed…as self-emptying Love. Love allows freedom and stability. For example, loving parents will not be totally demanding nor totally permissive. It’s the blend of firmness and flexibility that allows for healthy growth in a child.
This world and universe are the creation of Infinite Love. There are laws of nature that are firm. If this were not true, we could never have been able to go to the moon. There are laws of nature that are flexible. Evolution reminds us that the way that life and humans came about was a flexible and chancy process. Our universe is both necessity and contingency.
A phrase which describes this is the free process of the universe. Also, as humans, we have free will. This is also a part of our world. This free process and free will offer the space for God to act. Our world and universe are both stable and flexible, both determined and free. What we call miraculous could be the working of God within the free-spaces.
When speaking of free will, Thomas Aquinas said, “God moves us freely.” In other words, there are circumstances where God can influence what happens and circumstances where God cannot. That does not diminish God’s power because God-being Love-has chosen such a universe. God loves freedom as well as stability. But we may argue that there are situations where the circumstances are the same and God works a cure in one and not the other.
There are so many variables and so much unpredictability in humans and the rest of nature that we cannot really tell very well whether these circumstances are the same or not. God does not jump in magically.
The point of all this is to show that miracles are possible. Modern science- with its discovery of spaces in a universe that is not just mechanical-does not rule out the possibility of miracles.
Science does not say that we have to believe in God. It also does not say that we should not believe in God.
Belief in God is a belief. Not believing in God is also a belief. Believing in God is reasonable.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
Leave a Reply