What Does God Allow: A Response to God’s Will and the Coronavirus by Thomas J Oord

When I woke up this morning the first thing that my wife told me is that here in Amarillo, Texas we have hit Coronavirus threat level red. For weeks now I have been monitoring the threat level just wondering how much it would take for us to reach a level where the city is forced into a mandatory shut-in. The answer is twenty-five. As of this moment there are twenty-five cases of confirmed coronavirus and another twenty cases of quarantine. My wife and I are among those twenty people that are in a doctor ordered self-quarantine. I am still awaiting my test results to come back. So, when I got the news from my wife my anxiety level jumped a couple of levels itself. I laid in bed a little while longer just thinking about how things were going to be moving forward. What was going to happen to my current work? What about the job that I was newly offered that has the potential of being life changing? All the thoughts in my head had me wondering just how things are going to get better. Then that still small voice of the Lord reminds me that He’s got this.

Is God in control of our situation? This is a question that many over the last few months have asked repeatedly, and there are so many differing opinions on this subject. Some schools of thought believe that God is the cause of this as perhaps, a way of judgement. Others would state that while God may not be the cause of the situation, He does allow it. Then there are those that belong to a form of theology called open and relational theology that believe that neither does God cause nor does He allow the situation. This situation is out of God’s control and he cannot fix the situation on His own. One of the loudest voices in this camp be long to Thomas J Oord. What follows is a copy of His blog God’s Will and the Coronavirus.

God’s Will and the Coronavirus March 17th, 2020

I’m not surprised some people are blaming God. Maybe “crediting” God is more accurate.

I’m reading social media posts saying the Coronavirus (Covid 19) is God’s will. Our current suffering is part of some predetermined divine plan.

One post put it this way:

“Sorry to break up the big panic, but the Coronavirus will not take anyone outta this world unless that’s the good Lord’s plan. And you’re not gonna change that no matter what you do or what you buy.”

If this view is true, no need to worry. No need to prepare, defend, protect, sacrifice, or act. It’s all in “the good Lord’s plan.”

Not the Plan!

I don’t believe the Coronavirus is God’s plan. God is not causing a pandemic that kills some, makes many miserable, and has widespread adverse effects on society.

God did not cause this evil!

Those who say, “God is in control” often claim all that happens, good or bad, is part of a master plan. Every torture, murder, rape, disease, war, and more are part of the divine blueprint.

Your sister’s rape? God’s plan. That miscarriage you suffered? God’s plan. Every ruthless dictator or fascist system? God’s plan. Cancer, meth addiction, leukemia, severe disability, and so on? God’s plan.

The Coronavirus? God’s plan.

I don’t buy it. I can’t believe a loving God would design that kind of plan! If that’s what God’s love is like, I want nothing to do with God!

God Allows the Virus?

Fortunately, a large number of people today reject the idea God is causing the current pandemic. Unfortunately, a large number believe God allows or permits it.

Does that make sense?

Those who say God allows evil imply God could stop it singlehandedly. If God wanted, God could end this pandemic with a solo act of control. For some reason, say these people, God is allowing death, illness, and widespread harm.

Suppose one of my kids began strangling another of my children. Suppose I could step in and stop this act of violence. But suppose I allowed it – and the death of my child – saying, “I didn’t cause this killing, so don’t blame me!”

No one would consider me a loving father if I failed to prevent the evil I could have prevented. Fathers who allow their kids to strangle one another are not loving.

Those who say God permits the Coronavirus make a major mistake. They undermine our belief in a perfectly loving God. Just as a loving father wouldn’t allow his kids to strangle one another, a loving God wouldn’t allow a virus to wreak widespread death and destruction.

It makes no sense to say, “It isn’t God’s will, but God allows it.”

“See the Good that’s Come…”

Many who claim God causes or allows the Coronavirus will see some good that comes from our current crisis. They’ll point to stories of self-sacrifice or the good that comes from people cooperating to combat this pandemic.

Upon seeing the good that comes from the pandemic, some will use a “greater good” argument. “We’ve learned something valuable from the Coronavirus!” they might say. “This pandemic has taught us we don’t need all the stuff we thought we needed.” “It took a virus for us to learn to slow down and focus on what’s important.”

Good things will come from the evils we currently face. Count on it. But we shouldn’t say God causes or allows evil for this good. It isn’t part of some predetermined plan.

Instead, we should think God squeezes some good from the bad God didn’t want in the first place.

God never gives up on anyone or any situation. Working with a broken and diseased creation, God works to wring whatever good can be wrung from the wrong God didn’t cause or allow.

It’s a Mystery

A growing number of people recognize the theological problems that come from saying God caused or allowed the Coronavirus. Instead of offering a better way to think about God’s action, however, they appeal to mystery.

“We don’t know why God acts this way,” they say. Some of the more sophisticated thinkers will say God doesn’t “act” in any way we can understand. What it means to say “God acts” is an absolute mystery. Finite beings can’t in any sense understand an infinite God, they say.

Others play the mystery card by saying God is uninvolved. Deists say God created the world long ago but now has a hands-off approach. This God watches the world from a distance as it suffers. This God has the power to stop the mayhem but sits on the sideline eating popcorn.

I wonder why anyone believes in a God of absolute mystery. If we can’t provide plausible answers to our deepest struggles and biggest fears — including the Coronavirus — why believe in God at all?

If God’s ways are not our ways, no way is as good as any other.

A Better Way

There’s a better way to think about God’s will and the Coronavirus.

This way says God wants to defeat the virus. God desires to prevent the deaths and destruction we currently see. This way says God loves everyone and everything, from the most complex to the least. And God always actively engages the fight against the Coronavirus, at all levels of existence and society.

This better way says God can’t defeat the Coronavirus singlehandedly. God needs our help. In this time of struggle, God needs the best of medicine, the best from social leaders, the best from each of us.

I call this view “the uncontrolling love of God,” and I’ve written academic and popular books explaining its details. (For an easier read, see my best-selling book, God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils.) This view says God’s love is inherently uncontrolling. And because God loves everyone and everything, God can’t control anyone or anything.

The uncontrolling God of love is the most potent force in the universe! But because love does not force its own way (1 Cor. 13:5), even the strongest Lover cannot control others.

God’s Will for Us

What is God’s will? In one sense, it’s the same today as every day: to love God, love others, and love all creation, including ourselves.

In our current crisis, God’s specific will changes. God calls each person, each family, each community, and each political structure to unique responses of love. These specific calls are particular to what each creature can do in each situation. God calls us all to act in loving ways in light of what’s possible.

For most, social distancing can be a significant form of love. Sharing provisions – including toilet paper – can be another. Cooperating with health officials can be a powerful expression of love. Taking reasonable precautions can be an act of love. And so on…

We are always called to love. Our present crisis presents new challenges in discovering what love now requires. I commit to doing my best to discern and then respond to God’s calls of love.

I hope you join me. God does too. (http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/gods-will-and-the-coronavirus)

What follows is my attempt to hopefully, put things into more of a biblical perspective. For me to do so I must turn to the book of Job. Other than Jesus, Job suffered more than most people will ever be able to bear. From the very first chapter we see God talking to Satan about how faithful and righteous Job is. Satan tells God to strip away everything that Job has, and he would surely curse Job. It is at this point that God allows Satan to test Job. Satan is given permission to strip everything away from Job that he owns. In one day, Job loses all his wealth and all his children. Job’s response is quite remarkable. He states, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). From the beginning of his trial Job had a belief that God was the one who was allowing the crisis in his life. However, he also believed that God had the right to do such a thing. This falls in line with what we see in the beginning as Satan was given permission to test Job. Satan is given another chance to test Job as God gives permission to strike Job’s body just short of death. If Oord is correct, then why would God openly and blatantly allow Satan to harm one of His children? It seems to me as if either God has something different in mind, or God is not all loving as Oord suggests.

To say that God is not loving would be the greatest mistake we could ever make. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1John 4:8). The issue that I take with Oord is not that he believes in a loving God, but that he sets out to make love into God, and my friends, this is simply not true. There are many facets to God, and His love is Just one of them. We must take into consideration that God is also just and righteous. I am not saying that the coronavirus is a way for us to be punished or corrected. However, if the course of human life was to be changed, then this would in fact, be a good thing.

Lastly, If God, as a loving God, would not allow His children to strangle one another, then why did he even allow his children to hang His only begotten Son on a cross. John 3:16 gives us the clearest picture of this answer, “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only son so that those who believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life”. I love Thomas Oord. I love the love that he has for God. However, God does not “need” our help. He could very easily step in and save the day, just like Superman, but God is not Superman. He is so much greater than that. In the end yes, we must do our part, but it is not for us to ask why. It is for us but to trust God’s wisdom.