Suzy Student

Mr. Maite

British Literature

9 April 2001

The Will of God

As I continued to chat with my pastor that day, I really sensed the hurt in his eyes – the anger that comes from an unsolvable injustice, the tiredness of a problem. “What’s wrong?” I finally asked, “Having a bad day?” Sensing that I was truly concerned, he let the truth be told. “I talked with a woman today whose baby died suddenly of unknown causes. As we worked through her grief, she talked about how numerous friends and family, even a religious leader had patted her on the back, shook their heads and said, ‘It was God’s will.’ I find few things worse to say to a grieving parent. Saying nothing at all would be of more help.” It was obvious from our conversation that he had an understanding greater than I about God’s will, and his insight created in me a curiosity and desire to learn more.

There is so much mystified confusion surrounding the will of God in today’s society. It is evident in the ways that people use the term that views about it differ widely; there is even contradiction in two things the same person might say. It is because of the recommendation of my pastor and others that I decided to read The Will of God, written by Leslie D. Weatherhead.

This book was published only after it was first a series of sermons delivered in England right after World War II. According to Weatherhead, God actually has three types of will: intentional will, circumstantial will, and ultimate will, which are all distinct from one another.

Intentional will is defined as God’s will for humans from the very start on a personal level with each human being, and as a wider goal for humanity. It is the way he would like for human life to play out. But because of the free choice humans were granted from the very beginning, humanity often interferes with this original plan. It is here that many people become confused. They wonder how a good and loving God could simultaneously be wishing good and evil for His people. One example of this confusion that many suffer is that of a man who has just lost his wife to disease. Weatherhead relates this story: “When she was dead, he said, ‘Well, I must just accept it. It is the will of God.’ But he himself was a doctor, and for weeks he had been fighting for her life. He had called in the best specialists in London. He had used all the devices of modern science, all the inventive apparatus by which the energies of nature can be used to fight disease. Was he all that time fighting against the will of God? Yet surely we cannot have it both ways. The woman’s death and the woman’s recovery cannot equally be the will of God in the same sense of being his intention”(9). Weatherhead claims that it is by the ills of evil, humans’ free choice, mass ignorance, and disorganization that adversities fall upon us, not by the direct will of God. It is after we have caused this adversity that God tries to transcend it. This he labels circumstantial will.

Circumstantial will is what God hopes for us to make an already fouled situation better. Herein lies God’s will for us to triumph and grow from adversity: the event does not happen by God’s will to bring about a better people. Weatherhead gives the example of a father sending his son off to war and being proud. While he may never have chosen a military career for his son originally, he may feel it the best course of action amidst the evil the war has produced. The most prominent example of this difference of wills can be illustrated in the story of Christ. It was not, of course, God’s intentional will that Jesus would die on the cross. He was to be a teacher for the people, leading them to better ways of life – but in the evil circumstances created by the ways of the world, the cross was the best way to mend the situation. Because of God’s circumstantial will, it must be noted that it is impossible for a person to say that because they are suffering from adversity, they cannot do God’s will.

No one, you see, can say to God: ‘Well, of course I wanted to do this and that, but I was the victim of illness or sorrow or frustration or war or death or loss. So what could I do?’ For there are no circumstances which will be so deadly as those Christ had to face. No possible situation can ever arise which of itself has the power either to down us or defeat God – no, not even death. For although thousands of deaths happen that are not the intentional will of God, he is not beaten by any juxtaposition of circumstance. Probably death, and therefore the fact that we serve him in heaven instead of on earth, does not make more difference to the ultimate plans of Go than whether we serve him in London or Manchester(26).

In this way Weatherhead claims that God’s will can therefore be done in another form to the same extent it would have without the adversity occurring at all. This is the idea behind God’s ultimate will.

Ultimate will is this good will for the universe that can never be defeated. Here, Weatherhead uses the analogy of a flowing stream.

The picture in my mind is that of children playing beside a tiny stream that runs down a mountainside to join a river valley below. Very little children can divert the stream and get great fun out of damming it up with stones and earth. But not one of them ever succeeds in preventing the water from reaching the river at last. … In regard to God we are very little children. Though we may divert and hinder his purposes, I don’t believe we can ever finally defeat them; and, though the illustration doesn’t carry us so far, frequently our mistakes and sins are used to make another channel to carry the water of God’s plans to the river of his purpose.

In this way, Weatherhead explains the Ultimate will of God, and continues with reasoning similar to that of St. Thomas Aquinas justifying the free will of man.

The omnipotence of God, you perceive, does not mean that by a sheer exhibition of his superior might God gets his own way. If he did, man’s freedom would be an illusion and man’s moral development would be made impossible. No ‘end’ which God has in mind can be imposed from without; for his end, the at-one-ment of all souls with him, must come from man’s choice to God’s way, not the imposition of God’s will in irresistible might which leaves no room for choice. Power means ability to achieve purpose. Since the purpose is to win man’s volition, any activity of God’s which denied or suppressed man’s volition, in that it would defeat the purpose, would not be a use of power but a confession of weakness and an acceptance of defeat (34).

Thus, nothing can happen that will eventually defeat God’s will as he is omnipotent.

To me, all of this seems to line up well with the serenity prayer: “Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Our task as humans is to discern these wills in our lives and separate them. We must not become embittered, but rather empowered, clinging to the knowledge that there is an ever-benevolent God constantly working for our good, and that he always has a plan for us amidst trial presented by life on earth. In order to discern this will though, we have to be on the lookout for it with an awareness of its separateness from our own fears and desires. This discernment is also difficult because of our limmitted perspectives as humans, and thus we need humility in our search. The most important thing, however, is the search itself: we must all continue to search for the will.

(Works Cited page removed.)