By Fr. Sebastian Athappilly
Graz, Austria, May 1, 2020: According to theistic religions, the world was created by God. But after God created it, is He still active in it? After creating human beings, does God still engage with them, in their lives? Does He play an active role amidst all the many challenges that they face? Is He active in the world today?
According to most theistic traditions, God continues to act in the world after creating it and the human species. God, they believe, directly intervenes in history or acts in human history.
In these various traditions, instances of what are believed to be God’s intervention or acting in the world and in human history are described in detail in their religious text(s). These instances are generally linked to key figures of a particular religious tradition. And since in almost all these traditions these key figures are believed to have lived centuries ago, these claims about God’s intervention are about events that are believed to have happened a long time ago. For instance, according to the Jewish tradition, God intervened in history by delivering the Children of Israel, led by Moses, from the tyranny of Pharaoh. Or, in the Christian tradition, God acts in history through Jesus, who is sent as a savior—and that is said to have happened several centuries ago. And so on.
Now, if God acted in history, or intervened in history, in the distant past, at particular moments in time and through particular people (such as prophets and saints), one might ask, “Does God still act or intervene in the world today too, or was His intervention limited to certain key moments in the past and through key prophetic or saintly figures in that past?” Another question one could ask is: “Does God act only through the lives of pious people like saints and prophets, or does He act in and through the lives of every person and through everyday events and processes?”
If God continues to intervene in history, in the world, in the lives of human beings today too, in what form or forms do you think God might do so? Given the multiple crises that the world faces today, in which ways do you think God may be acting in the world today too?
A: You want to know if I think God still acts or intervenes in the world today. And since you have given above the example of the Christian tradition, according to which God has acted in history through Jesus Christ, and since I am a Christian believer, it would be comfortable for me to answer the question only from the Christian perspective.
First of all, God is able to act or intervene in history at any point of time, irrespective of past, present or future. He can act directly, or indirectly, through mediators such as prophets and saints, and even ordinary human beings. Whether in the case of physical evils (such as natural calamities and diseases), or social or moral evils (such as injustice, oppression, wars and tyranny), God saves or redeems or liberates people usually through human agents, but even through other creaturely causes. Redemption and liberation, peace, shalom, justice and prosperity, are all gifts of God. Unless God acts in history, the above situation will not emerge. That is why we pray to God in every need. He is the Lord of nature and history. Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
The common or banal things of this world we usually take for granted. But God is behind each new life. What a wonder it is how a plant or tree grows and produces yield! We are daily surrounded by different kinds of wonders and miracles! This, one may say, only points to God’s activity in nature.
But your specific question concerns God’s activity in human history. Does God still act in history as He did through Moses or Jesus? If the question is not restricted to the purely religious realm and interpretation, I would say that I see God’s liberating intervention, for instance, in the liberation of slaves under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln in the USA, in the independence of India from British colonial rule through the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, and in the emancipation of the blacks of South Africa through Nelson Mandela, to mention just a few examples.
Social activists such as America’s Martin Luther King Jr., Bengal’s Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Kerala social reformer Sri Narayana Guru are similar examples. So, too, are great philanthropists or heroic persons of charity, such as Father Damien of Molokai and Mother Teresa of Kolkata. This activity is still going on in different parts of the world, though often unnoticed and without any publicity.
In short, God is still acting through various human persons for the liberation and well-being of the people, especially the poor and helpless.
You want to know that if God continues to intervene in history, in the world, in what form or forms do I think He does so. My answer would be that God can intervene in this world in any form or forms—but ordinarily, however, through human beings. But God may also intervene in the world through angels. He can make use of other created beings as well to intervene in the world.
In the case of rational or spiritual beings, God inspires them to do a certain mission, and in the case of using subhuman beings, like animals and the elements, God directs the course of things in such a way that the natural powers and elements work for the desired end result.
For instance, in the case of the story of Daniel in the Bible, the lions did not eat him! Or, during the Exodus, the waters stood like pillars. Or, the sea and the wind became still at the command of Jesus. Or, God let sulphur and fire come over Sodom.
The subhuman beings have got an inherent possibility within them to “obey” God. This is called in scholastic theology “obediential potency” (potentia oboedentialis). This is what happened when, according to Christian belief, Jesus transformed water into wine or calmed the raging sea.
God can extraordinarily mobilize the power of natural bodies or hasten their activity in an unusual way (for example, by bringing clouds to rain abundantly in order to overcome a drought or too heavily in order to cause a flood), or suspend the natural property of a thing (such as letting fire not burn, or letting the sun not shine for a while).
Such extraordinary occurrences are called miracles. God can act through his messengers (for example, through prophets, who warn and criticize). He can also act through just and pious persons who set a good example, or even the angels, who offer unusual forms of help.
God and the world are intimately related. The God of the Bible is a God who is concerned and considerate about this world. He is a God of pathos, a God of sympathy and of empathy. He is not a dispassionate God, who keeps aloof of the world, as is the case with the God of deism, who is not involved or interested in the world. That is why Jesus speaks of God as one “who clothes the grass of the field” (Mt 6:30).
God wants us also to be His agents and ambassadors to help the people on His behalf. If God gives someone much wealth, this is meant also for others who are in need. The prophets have always called our attention to this dimension of social justice. Seeing the misery in this world, there is no use in blaming God for it. We have to see in it God’s appeal to each one of us to respond to it proactively.
We are also instructed to pray to God, so that He may help us in our needs. And God does this in His own way, directly or indirectly, by a miracle or an ordinary event. Social activists and prophets of charity and heroic love of neighbor are to be seen as God’s emissaries in the face of evil and misery in the world.
(Father Sebastian Athappilly is a Catholic priest from Kerala belonging to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) religious congregation. He has been teaching Systematic Theology from 1985 at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, a leading center for higher Catholic learning, located in Bangalore [now Bengaluru]. He served there as the president, dean (Faculty of Theology) and registrar. Since 2009 he has also been serving as hospital chaplain at the University Clinic, Graz, Austria, besides being a visiting professor at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram. He can be contacted on athappillys@gmail.com)