Well of course we all know God is sovereign, which means He is clearly in charge and He does as He pleases. But you know, this is only one side of the story. I’ve noticed that people tend to get theologically ‘lopsided’ from time to time. By being lopsided I mean that we can drift into forcing the rest of the Bible to fit our own view.
I mean, is it all about sovereignty or all about free will? I prefer the term ‘responsiblity’ over the term ‘free will’— but in any case issues such as these turn out to be about mystery. It may seem like a cop-out, but the mysteries are best held as such. Jesus…God or man? Yes! But I say this by way of admitting a mystery that I can’t (yet in this life) explain. I affirm both elements without having to RESOLVE THE TENSION.
The Bible does this in many spots, and in this sense reminds us of Art and not Philosophy. Art holds tension (such as in the use of irony), while Philosophy mostly does not (it must fit well as a system / answer objections). In Art, the Mona Lisa can smile. In Philosophy, we have to define smile and explain her motives (which means we guess)!
So what about luck?
Well, here’s the verse—
“But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by CHANCE a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:29-31, ESV)
I emphasized the word CHANCE so it would be easy to see. Yes, here is Jesus Christ telling the famous story of the Good Samaritan and sticking luck right in the middle of it! Is this really a word that means luck?
Basically, it just means what we think it means; by happenstance, a priest came upon a man after he was attacked, beaten, and left for dead. Things really do ‘just happen’, though I’m sure this happening is not without the permission of God in how He ordained the universe. Personally, I don’t like it because this world doesn’t seem to work right. And yet, I hold out that this isn’t the best world God can make (the next world will be the best world); but that in the meantime, we can give folks a taste of the world to come as the Samaritan did.
Jesus talked in truthful and plan language. Clearly God is not obsessed with over-controlling every detail. Surely we have free will responsibility…how else can we explain what we wear on most days!
Good luck…stuff happens…but the Lord is still above it all,
Fred Lybrand