The Role of the Die

You may be thinking my title contains a typo. That will probably happen one of these days, but this isn’t it. No, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the way luck, chance or fortune factor into the Christian life.

Of course, how we view that depends on what we believe about events that to us appear random. To be consistent with their theology, Christian determinists are obliged to assign responsibility for every transaction in the universe — favorable or unfavorable — to God, right down to the atomic level. “All events whatsoever,” wrote John Calvin. Many of his followers take him literally.

Superstition, Unbelief and Pattern Recognition

“On that night the king could not sleep.”

It has been pointed out that Esther is unique among the books of the Bible in that it contains no direct reference to God or religion. There are several indirect references to what appears to be divine providence or at least the potential for it, but nothing explicit.

For example, Mordecai tells Esther, “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place [Hmm, what place might that be?], but you and your father's house will perish” [I wonder how he could be so sure about that]. Esther responds by telling him to have the Jews fast on her behalf for three days. In scripture, a fast is not a fad diet, but rather an appeal to God.

Thought Experiment #4: The Serenity Prayer

Alcoholics Anonymous uses an abridged form of what is called the Serenity Prayer as part of its 12‑step program. There are different versions of the prayer, but the one most people are familiar with goes something like this: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I generally dislike trite formulations, but there is a certain biblical wisdom to this one, which should not surprise us given that the prayer is attributed to a 1930s theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr.

Also, it begins with the word “God”, always a good starting point.

Time and Chance (42)

Forty-two Saturdays into our study of Ecclesiastes, we come at last to the phrase which we have taken as our theme: “Time and chance happen to them all.”

Why do things happen to us the way they do? Ancient mythology makes reference to three goddesses who were thought to assign individual destinies to mortals at birth. The Greeks called them the Fates. The unsaved talk about “Lady Luck”, usually on their way to the casino, personifying an imagined force to which nobody can really appeal, but which every gambler hopes to have on their side. Even atheists find themselves inexplicably using the phrase “It was meant to be”, as if a random roll of the dice could actually signify intelligent purpose.

But in a world without revelation and with no sure way to know if there is a God or how he operates, we can only blame time and chance for the good and bad things that come our way.