Does God Have A "plan"?

[aalpha1989]

It seems like everyone I know believe God has a "Plan". With a capital "p". For every single person on the planet. And those off of it, I suppose.

I believe that God has a "plan" with a little "p". I believe that "plan" involves us following our vocation, being holy, becoming saints, and so going to Heaven.

The people to whom I refer believe that God's "Plan" is that he has every single detail in our lives planned out. Like... "I stubbed my toe today because God wanted me to know pain in this instant".

That's overly simple. Really I'm talking about bigger things like spouse selection.

These people believe that God has one spouse picked out for us from the time we are born. From the beginning, my parents Leigh and Jeff were meant to meet and to marry. If they're meant to marry, they will. If they don't, it just wasn't "meant to be".

To me this view seems too deterministic. It does not leave room for free will. I kinda think that God calls us to a certain vocation, and then lets us kinda do some choosing. I mean, there are different types of girls who would work better or worse with my personality, but does God really have just one picked out? What if she makes some different life choices and ends up on the other side of the world?

I guess this question works with orders, too. If I am called to a religious vocation, does God call me to a specific community, or does my looking around allow me some choice?

Are the two situations different?

[Alycin]

What you are describing sounds very Calvinist to me.

I never understand people that think that is something happens, not matter what that something is, that it is the way God intended for things to be.

I think common sense obviously proves this theory wrong. Abortion comes to mind. Suicides. Etc.

I think people that think like that probably do so based off a misunderstanding of predestination.

[aalpha1989]

I agree, it IS pretty Calvinist. I don't necessarily think that the people I know have based it on predestination. Maybe it started that way in the beginning, but the people who I know are Catholic, they just haven't really thought about it. They know predestination is wrong, but they haven't thought about their own views.

I think the whole idea is pretty prevalent in American culture. Does anyone else find that to be the case? Maybe it's just the people I hang out with...

It might be an American thing. American thought is heavily influenced by calvinism (ever wonder why saying "mushy mud pie" is often considered a sin? oops, maybe going too far...).


Oh, also, on the evils. Their defense would be that God allows and wills these evils only to bring a greater good.

Edited June 26, 2008 by aalpha1989

[rkwright]

I have a thought to further complicate matters...

First I think we agree that just because God knows something, it does not cause it to be so. For example God knows the religious community you will go to (if you do) yet that doesn't cause your decision to be made.

Here is my question, which I think I have asked on here but don't remember a good response...

God at the moment of creation knows the 'possible worlds'. That is He can create world X where people freely choose to sin Y, or He can create world A where people freely choose not to sin. Has God become the 'author of sin'? Keeping with the original post, has God created a 'Plan' simply by the world He has chosen to create?

[Nihil Obstat]

I think in our personal lives, we have free will. Sure, God knows what we will do (being outside of time and omniscient), but He doesn't control it, he hasn't made it happen.
At the same time, I believe that God has a much bigger 'Plan' than what happens in our daily lives, even in the entire world.
We can't understand the extent of this, at least I can't, but I think it's far and away above our limited idea of "I stubbed my toe because God wanted me to".

[HisChildForever]

I think that God does have individual plans for each of us, and that we were created with a specific purpose. He expects Susie to become a sister and Peter to become an awesome father (and husband) to three children. He has given both Susie and Peter gifts that they will use in their vocations and perhaps gently shows them some signs along the way so they know what is expected of them. When people say they have heard the Call, clearly they know that entering religious life is God's ultimate desire for them. Thus, God "made" Susie to be a sister.

But we do have free will. Perhaps God knows that Susie will like two orders, and both will suit her, so He allows her the complete freedom to pick which one she will enter. Yet which ever she picks, since God knows all, He already knows what she will pick. (Question: Isn't this like predestination? He knows exactly what will happen, even if it is stubbing a toe?)

I like to look at is as a picture. Say, a lanscape. God has drawn the plan, say the outlines of the trees (our births). He then may color the trunks brown and the leaves green, which is what His plan is for us. Susie may have a light brown trunk (religious life), and Peter has a dark brown (fatherhood). But Susie may decide to paint apples (her order), and Peter may decide to paint oranges (his job, his location, etc.)

[Saint Therese]

I think that you actually have two questions here: Does God have a Plan? and Does God have a plan (for you)?
I think that studying salvation history makes it pretty clear that God definitely has a Plan. A Plan of salvation and redemtpion culminatinating and beginning with Jesus.
Does God have a plan (for you or your life)? I think the obvious answer is yes. However I don't think that it in any way infringes on your personal freedom. I think God's plan for you or your life is holiness and union with him. I think that each person probably has great freedom in which to live that out, in method that is.
I don't think this is in any way like the predestination of Calvinism, because that is a total denial of man's free will.
I think man's free will is something that works with God's will in a creative way.

[LouisvilleFan]

I'll go with both. Why not?

The fact that we have free will attests to the claims that God is not a micro-manager. That path tends to lead down towards Calvinism and predestination, which exalts God's omnipotence to an extreme that seems to makes free will meaningless (of course, a Calvinist would disagree, but none of them has explained it in a way that makes sense to me).

On the flip side, it's clear from Scripture that God sometimes intervenes to bring two specific people together (Isaac and Rebecca, Peter and the Ethiopian euneuch) for a particular purpose. We have every reason to believe God continues to intervene in our ordinary lives. Maybe he does play a little matchmaker at times, but for other couples maybe it isn't his specific will that they got married.

God clearly called St. Francis of Assisi specifically to a life of poverty and service, but he calls most of us in more ordinary ways that speaking from a crucifix. But did call specifically tell St. Kolbe to step out from that line to save the life of a married man with kids? Maybe, but probably not.

So even if God has a specific plan for someone's life, He doesn't restrict their freedom to act against his will. Maybe Martin Luther was called to reform the Church, but he refused obedience in contrast to St. Francis who embraced obedience, though both acted out of free will. Our responsibility is simply to grow in holiness and love, and what God does through us is up to Him to decide.

[Theologian in Training]

You have to remember, you are trying to determine God's Will while, simultaneously, trying to embrace the mystery that is God.

God is God, He can do what He wants, but He has chosen to not influence our free will. He may know what we are going to do before we do it, but He cannot force us to do one thing or the other. If that were the case, Mary would not have had the freedom to respond: "Be it done unto me according to Your Word." or Jesus: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done."

There is something that seems to be missing in this little discussion and that is that doing God's Will is knowing what He wants. If we stub our toe, I don't know that He necessarily wanted that, but maybe He could have, to teach us humility, given the situation or the context of the stubbing of our toe.

The best way to look at it is we have free will, God presents us with choices, for or against our free will, the more we choose to conform ourselves to His Will, the more our will and His Will become one. That is not deterministic, but rather, a free action on our part, to make His Will ours and our will His. If we do something, insignificant, like stub our toe, but have fully conformed ourselves to His Will, then what might be insignificant and small to us, may be big to God, for if He knows, as we heard in our Gospel last Sunday, when a sparrow falls to the ground, or each hair upon our head, how would He not know about that as well. All too often we can fall into the idea that the little things are indeed little, but if we look at them, through God's eyes, as it were, they might not be as little as we may think.

The deterministic idea comes when we have not reached that full conformity and say "God Willed that," but not sure hat He actually did. However, when we understand His Will, and are truly conformed to it, He may have actually intended this or that, and the more conformed we are, the clearer that usually becomes.

The saints strived to do this constantly, and miracles occurred as a result, not because they willed it, but God wanted to work through them, in essence, miracles, holiness, and the rest, is merely a "side effect," as it were, of full conformity to the Will of God.

I would suggest reading "Uniformity With God's Will," by St. Alphonsus Ligouri, to get a clearer picture of this.

God bless

[MissyP89]

Thanks, Fr. Brian.

[rkwright]

Fr. you should post more often, I like reading them... in threads other than your current video games!

[Paddington]

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1583582' date='Jun 26 2008, 04:58 AM']That's overly simple. Really I'm talking about bigger things like spouse selection.[/quote]

I like a girl who is engaged. Maybe I should go to the wedding with a boombox and wreak havoc.

[Madtown Sem.]

I say yes, and that plan is Jesus Christ

[Maggyie]

I think the whole "God has a plan" thing especially with regard to spouse selection has a lot to do with the way modern secular society views marriage. The romantic idea is that we are all supposed to be looking for a "soul mate." Marrying anyone other than this individual is "settling" and if you do it you are a sell-out, a phony with a dry husk shell that resembles human features but which conceals an inner core made entirely from porridge. I think some Christians have adopted this view and "christianized" it in the way you describe, although it has its roots in more pagan concepts like Fate.

The reality is that any number of people would make good husbands and/or wives for each other, in fact I read somewhere the comment that almost all marriages are almost certainly "mistakes" in that somewhere on the globe there could probably be found someone else who was better looking, funnier, more even-keeled, more perceptive, more kind, or otherwise more "perfect" for you. Of course the most perfect marriage is the one you're in.

The idea of marrying a soulmate, or marrying for love at all, is of relatively recent vintage. For most of history, including the Christian era, this was not usually the first priority! I don't think God micromanages whom we marry, and even doesn't particularly care who it is, so long as the relationship leads to the cultivation of virtue and the glory of God.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Maggie' post='1584497' date='Jun 26 2008, 11:43 PM']The idea of marrying a soulmate, or marrying for love at all, is of relatively recent vintage. For most of history, including the Christian era, this was not usually the first priority! I don't think God micromanages whom we marry, and even doesn't particularly care who it is, so long as the relationship leads to the cultivation of virtue and the glory of God.[/quote]
Are you saying that marrying for love is bad?
...
My dreams have been crushed.
Lol.