Can you read God’s mind? I know I can’t
I woke up early Friday morning to our house shaking. Realizing it was not in a tornado or something that required an immediate evacuation, I thanked God for the safety we were in and tried to go back to sleep. But this strange question popped up in my mind: Were there any gay parade scheduled in a near by city?
Of course, this is not my usual reaction to geological phenomena. It just happened that a couple of months ago I read something linking gays to earthquakes, and I wanted to write a posting about it. The latest realignment of tectonic plates in the Midwest seemed to be the right backdrop for that posting. Here it is.
Religious people feel a strong connection with God. A personal and warm sense of proximity to our creator gives many of us comfort, strength, and enough boost to carry on when the going gets tough. Some people, unfortunately, get a bit too close.
I, like many others, may occasionally feel tempted to gage how much God is happy (or unhappy) with me. If I have a good week at work, is it because God is smiling upon me? If my car breaks down in a very untimely fashion, is it because I did not focus enough on my duties to God?
I think a tiny little bit of that is not bad. Being aware of God’s presence, and that He notices us, is not a bad thing as long as we do not jump to conclusions about Him immediately responding in a divine fashion to every thing we do - that is to say, as long as we do NOT claim we KNOW why God did, or did not do, something to us or to someone else (for example, neighbors’ car stolen because they do not go to church, or a boss deserving a serious heart attack for being mean to his/her employees).
Unfortunately what may be, in a very limited fashion, OK for each of us individually, could become a seriously dangerous thing to do by someones who claims, or are perceived, to have a special connection with God.
Main Street Methodist Church
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
The images of Hurricane Katrina are in our collective memory, with close to two thousands killed, whole cities destroyed, and hundreds of thousands uprooted from their homes.
But to some, it was not the laws of physics, meteorology and statistics at work. It was a Divine decision to teach us a lesson. Pat Robertson seems to think Hurricane Katrina is related to the legalization of abortion (see video there). He and Jerry Falwell blamed September 11 terrorist attack on abortionists, gays, and the ACLU. John Hagee stated that the hurricane was an act of God, punishing New Orleans for “a level of sin that was offensive to God” and that it was actually meant to disrupt a gay pride parade in New Orleans.
Seven thousand miles away, another ‘man of God’ disagreed with Hagee regarding why God’s wrath descended on the poor people of New Orleans. It was not the gay pride parade. It was the US foreign policy.
“Hurricane Katrina is a punishment meted out by God as a result of U.S. President George W. Bush’s support for the Gaza and northern West Bank disengagement”, Israeli Shas Party spiritual leader and former Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said.
But when it came to gay people and their impact on the laws of nature, Hagee found an ally in a member of the Israeli parliament from the same Shas party who blamed gays for earthquakes in Israel: “A cost-effective way of averting earthquake damage would be to stop passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the State of Israel, which anyways causes earthquakes”. That funny statement was the reason behind the weird thought that came to me soon after I felt the quake.
Flawed thinking underlies all these people explaining what God really means when we have a tsunami, a failed space shuttle mission or when tectonic plates find a new position of equilibrium. This is not restricted to Christian or Jewish hyper-religious figures. Similar efforts to read God’s mind occur amongst some Muslim preachers as well. In all of these case, the ‘men of God’ are comfortable telling us that God used nature to send the rest of us a message endorsing the political agenda that they support.
How arrogant of them on one hand, and demeaning to God on the other.
In all the holly books of Abrahamic faiths, God used a lot more reason to persuade us than he used indiscriminate, disproportionate, and actually misdirected forces of nature. The wisdom of God’s actions - be it a natural disaster, a good harvest year, victory or defeat in a war, or simply catching the flu - is impossible to decipher. Could these events, great or small, have a divine reason behind them? Yes, but none of us is capable of reading God’s mind or knowing his specific intent.
The Quran tell a very revealing story about Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, insisting on joining a Holy man to learn a bit of how God works. “May I follow thee on the understanding that thou wilt impart to me something of that consciousness of what is right which has been imparted to thee?” (Quran 18:66). He was warned that it is too difficult for him to fathom, “[The other] answered: ‘Behold, thou wilt never be able to have patience with me for how couldst thou be patient about something that thou canst not comprehend within the compass of [thy] experience?” (Quran 18: 67 & 68).
The story gets more exciting from that point on with the sage killing the child of two God-conscious parents, putting a hole in the boat of orphans that helped the sage and Moses cross a river, and finally the sage helped build a wall for the villagers that were hostile to them. Moses gives up at that point, the sage explains to him the wisdom behind the strange series of deeds and they part (Quran 18:70-82).
If Moses could not understand God’s wisdom of simple everyday events, who are we to claim that we can read God’s mind?
Fellow bloggers and readers: tell me what would be your religious perspective on man reading the mind of God.
Khaled Hamid, 48, is an American Muslim. He was born in Egypt but has lived in Canada and the United States for nearly 20 years. Since 2000 he has worked as a physician in St. Louis where he lives with his wife and two sons. He is especially interested in civil rights issues and inter-faith dialog. 
To all:
As if my previous comment was not lengthy enough, please also read my response to Centrist’s comment on my other posting “Why do Muslims vote Democrat” (http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/civil-religion/politics/2008/04/why-do-muslims-vote-democrat/). The same reader made pretty strong statement and offensive generalizations about Islam and Muslims, that I felt needed a response there as well.
A Centrist:
1. The Koran (Q’uran) is divided into around 150 chapters, or Suras, which are then broken down into verses. There is no “book of Sura”
2. The worldwide Caliphate referred in the Koran is most commonly understood in similar light to the second coming of Christ. It’s part of their eschatology. There are those within in Islam who want to force the Caliphate into being, just as there are those within Christianity who want to force Armageddon to hasten the second coming. (Some of them are advisors to the President of the United States)
Dr. Hamid, you have an excellent knowledge of history. However, how do you explain that currently all the world conflicts are Muslims killing other Muslims or Jews or Christians or whomever they don’t like. Can you give me a current example of where in the world that Christians are killing others just because they want to? Just for the record, I concur that Christians do not have “clean” past and never said they did.
I also respect the Muslim religion and how devoted its followers are. I have no Muslim friends and do not know any Muslims. I don’t have any real reason why. That’s just the way it is. That is why I am asking you questions. Sorry if they disturb you, but I am just going by what I see in the news everyday. That is all I have to go on.
And since you don’t care for the present leadership in this country, what would you like to see the next administration do about Muslim terrorists attacking our country? President Clinton did nothing and look where that got us. Would you prefer to still have the Taliban in Afghanistan terrorizing innocent Muslims? Would you rather still have Saddam and his thug sons still terrorizing Iraqis. Tell me what you would like your country to do?
I am sorry if you were so offended by my strong and offensive generalizations. If I had advertisers I guess you could go after them to shut me up too.
hs - what a simply explanation. I don’t know if you are Muslim, but you give an easier explanation for a lay person such as me. Sometimes I think that Dr. H dost protest too much. I have clearly gotten under his skin. So you are saying that there isn’t a global Caliphate by Muslims to kill all non-Muslims. Is that correct? Or does it just seem that way with so much radical terrorism going on around the world? What really is their end game here according to the Quran? (I made up that book part because I didn’t know what else to call it, but the quoted verses I read came from Sura.)
Dr. Hamid, you conveniently forgot to answer my question about why if Muslims prefer Democrats because they are so compassionate and are called to “share their wealth” with the less fortunate, then why don’t all the Saudi oil sheiks give all their oil money (which God blessed the Arab states with) to their starving brothers in Africa and around the world instead of just building giant castles and lavishing in worldly goods.
Centrist: May be you should look for it where you left your comment about them. Please READ before you you make statements like ‘you conveniently forgot to answer my question‘.
A CENTRIST: I am a Christian who grew up with parents who served as teaching missionaries in a Moslem country (what was then West Pakistan, before East Pakistan became Bangladesh). So, you might say, I’ve seen Islam up close and personal…a long time ago, certainly (over 40 years ago).
The whole question of the caliphate is much too complicated to try to discuss in this space. As I said, it’s my understanding that it’s part of the eschatology. The major Sunni/Sh’ite split in Islam revolves around what it means, and who will be the one to come. I haven’t studied it a lot, but I’ve had the impression that the ‘end game’ as it were isn’t all that different from the Christian vision: A world-wide war that ends with the appearance of a savior who sets all things in order.
HS (comment #5)
I think you made exactly the point I wanted to clarify. Yes, God can use nature to send a signal, but no one on this earth can tell what the signal means so we can collectively’ do something about it. For exampleHurricane Karina message is a result of
A. The local gay parade.
B. Legalized abortion
C. Bush supporting Sharon’s disengagement plan
D. Starting The war in Iraq
E. Us not not taking good care of our environment.
The answer does not matter it it helps us personally (reinforcing or adjusting) our opinions and beliefs. But once we want to extrapolated from that to influence other people’s lives and determine our national policy towards anything, then it is not that simple anymore.
To HS (comment #9)
I agree with you in essence.
I have a very minor correction though (and really just for your info only): the Quran chapter count are 114.
Regarding the Caliphate issue: It is an issue that almost never comes up in a discussion for Muslims (I have not heard about it from any Muslim in the past 25 years) except when someone is replying to the topic raised by a non-Muslim worried about ‘Muslim’s true intentions’.
It is a political term with no roots in theology or early Islamic teaching. The word caliphate is derived from Caliph, simply a successor in Arabic. That was the title given by the community to early Muslim rulers following the Prophets death.
Regarding the Second Coming, there is one verse in the Quran (4:159) alluding distantly to a second coming (as a sign of the end of time) of Jesus, depending on how you read the verse.
The Shi’a have special place for this concept in the belief system with Jesus and a ‘Rightly Guided’ teacher coming at the end of time. Other Muslims simply acknowledge the verse but realize it absolutely has NO impact on anything Muslims do or plan, at a personal level or otherwise.