Deus providebit “God will provide.” — Gen. 22:8

[post I wrote in 2016]

There were three Delphic maxims inscribed in stone at the ancient temple of Apollo in Athens: “Know Thyself,” “Nothing in Excess” and “Surety Brings Ruin” [ΕΓΓΥΑ, ΠΑΡΑ ΔΑΤΗ]. The first one was made famous by Socrates, whose philosophical quest was born of this maxim. But it is the third that has always captivated me.

“God is in control” is a misleading statement, as it seems to indicate God is ensuring everything that happens, happen as it does. But that is not the case and cannot be the case, or (a) we would not be free and (b) God would be guilty of all evils carried out in creation. And if you say, “the evils are ours and the rest is God’s,” then you still have no creaturely freedom in what is good — which is, well, no freedom at all!

By God’s gift and design, the universe is filled with genuine novelties, with real randomness, with chance and, yes, with freedom. Yet, it is in and through all of these “wild” things that God himself has established as part of creation’s design that he accomplishes the ultimate good he has planned for creation. In this sense we affirm with Saint Paul that God works “all things together for good” (Rom. 8:28). Saying “all will be well,” as the future tense verb indicates, is an eschatological statement, a statement about the final state of creation beyond the grave.

Chance, randomness and the possibility of abusing freedom constitute God’s present creation, even as he places a certain limit on them. Here is what Pope St. John Paul II says about this point in regard to Nazism:

The Lord God allowed Nazism twelve years of existence, and after twelve years the system collapsed. Evidently this was the limit imposed by divine providence upon that sort of folly. In truth, it was worse than folly-it was ‘bestiality’….Yet the fact is that divine providence allowed that bestial fury to be unleashed for only those twelve years.

This kind of dialectic of chaos and order, present at the dawn of creation in Genesis, allows a wide-open space for genuine novelties, truly diverse things to happen, that God permits to be in view of the goods he draws forth. With the New Creation always in mind. It also permits the space for human beings, made in the divine image, to be genuine co-creators of that new world with God here and now, co-authors of limitless novelties that will endure for all eternity.

This free space of uncertainty is also the arena of trust, surrender, somewhere between what God directly wills to happen and permits to happen. There, people of faith walk.

To this point, my spiritual director from thirty years ago once said to me:

“When you pray, don’t lead with front-ended sets of expected, or what you deem necessary-if-God-is-good outcomes. Doing that will then set you up for a speedy loss of faith. Or show you never had actual faith to begin with.

Instead, before asking for specifics — which you must do, as he commands it — be sure to include the hard caveats Jesus taught:
Let YOUR Name sanctified
Let YOUR Kingdom come
Let YOUR will be done
First, confess him as your Father worthy of all trust. That creation exists at his good pleasure. Then leave the final outcome of your history to his inscrutable wisdom, while still doing your part with all you have.

He continued:

You need to be able to trust the future holds good for you. It does. Faith allows that certitude. But it is a good outside of your immediate control. It’s paschal good. Every dark tomb you enter has already been made into a space for limitless resurrections. But beyond your capacity to ask or imagine. Unimaginably new.

Only a faith grounded in reality, as it is, can preserve hope. Accept reality even as you plead for good to come forth. This reality-facing faith will save you so much wasted energy raging against the darkness. Energy that should be spent doing what good can be done. Uncovering innumerable buried goods waiting to be unearthed by you.

He also said the often quoted words of Abraham, “God will provide,” are often misused. They were spoken by Abraham to Isaac as he was leading Isaac up the mountain to slay him as a holocaust. At God’s command. Abraham spoke those words of trust — “God will provide” — to his son with absolutely no idea God was soon to stop him short. He simply trusted in obedience, unconditionally hoping against hope in God’s pro-vision, his provide-nce.

“God will provide.” It means we give everything about our future over to God, willing to become lost in a cloud of unknowing. Could Joseph of Egypt have known, as he was cruelly sold as a slave by his brothers, that his own future would turn from a tragedy to a divine comedy? Only in retrospect, as he said to his brothers after forgiving them:

Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Gen. 50:20).

And as I write this, I realize forgiveness is a disposition to draw good out of an evil done. A belief that is only possible if there is a creator God who is also a redeemer God, both willing and able to bring a definitive good out of every evil.

In fact, you could say forgiveness gives God permission to do exactly that in your case. “God, I consent for you to ‘intend for good’ what this person intended for evil.” On the other hand, withholding forgiveness prevents God from doing this. That is extraordinary power in our hands.

…and how often I have found it the case in life that God is only able to act in full freedom in my life when I finally let go, surrender the need to control all outcomes. It is as my dad would often say, “Que será, será. Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see.”

Then I think: how perfect is it that Hagar, once brutally cast off with her son by Abraham and Sarah into a hopeless future, chose to name the God who spoke to her: “You are a God who sees” (Gen. 16:13). Provides, pro- ‘before’ + videre ‘to see’.

There’s only one surety. The future is God’s alone.