What role, if any, does God have in our daily lives? This could be rephrased to ask, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” and “Does God answer our prayers?”.
Let’s start by examining the premise of choice and free will. Either our lives are totally pre-determined from beginning to end (perhaps with a master plan in mind, perhaps not), or we have free will. (The great Albert Einstein believed in determinism for at least part of his lifetime.) Sorry Einstein, but I believe that God does allow for random acts and choices of falling in love, violent acts, kind and charitable acts, and seemingly unimportant acts that can have huge, unseen and unforeseen consequences. This is what makes the world scary and joyous and unpredictable (at least to us), and what gives us hope, motivation and courage.
Free will, however, does not necessarily rule out predictability or intervention by God. Certainly God the Creator would know that atmospheric conditions on Earth allow for extremely deadly combinations of air & water, hot & cold, fire or ice. Certainly God could predict that some “tragic soul” born into poverty, neglect, abuse, discrimination, a particular culture and environment, and a genetic makeup including low IQ and biochemical imbalances could and would be capable of “evil” and violent acts, whether out of ignorance, frustration, or mental / emotional disease. God, being God, could also know everything that has ever happened and will ever happen before it happens, even though we are writing the script as we go, through our choices.
So why would God allow an innocent 3 year old riding a tricycle to be suddenly sucked up and killed by a violent tornado? Why would God permit a high school basketball player, being cheered on by friends, family and community, to suddenly fall to the floor, dead from a hidden aneurysm? What could possibly make sense about a devoted, hard-working husband and father of several young children getting a deadly cancer in his 40’s and being gone in 6 months? Why would God create a world where war, serial killers and terrorists kill innocent people? As all powerful Creator, God knew what he was creating and could certainly predict these things, yet they happen. God could just as easily have made Heaven on Earth, where these and other tragedies would not occur. So is this a cruel joke or some kind of test? I believe that God is not cruel.
So, here we have a world with both tremendous good and tremendous evil that God has created, and God does not seem to be interfering, otherwise bad things would not happen to good and innocent people. Conclusions we have made elsewhere in this discussion are that this is God’s challenge or test for us, not a cruel joke, and that God has given us, collectively, all of the tools and power that we need to cure these ills, and create our own Heaven on Earth.
I believe that we should be channeling all of our collective God-given talents and resources into eliminating the evils of our world, instead of investing our time, energy, money and talents into fighting each other and destroying the planet in the name of “progress”.
Lastly, we have all witnessed, experienced, or heard stories of minor or major “miracles” which seem to be evidence of at least occasional spiritual intervention in our world. Yet every day we hear tragic stories where there was no intervention. One possible explanation follows logically from our creed. If God has empowered us, collectively, to cure the ills of our world, then could that power extend into our “after-life“? Perhaps everyone who has ever lived is able to contribute to the mission in some way after our deaths. Even further, perhaps the amount and / or type of power that you have earned is determined by the good things accomplished during your life on Earth. Let’s call it karmic power. We will discuss this further in the “After-Life” section, but perhaps this explains why so many people pray to Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, saints, and even family members, and many feel that their prayers are answered.