The other day I was playing a card game called 313 with some of our dear retired church ladies. I was the appointed shuffler since we played with two decks and that task was difficult for them. I would shuffle each hand, and would deal when it was my turn.
At one point in the second game I realized I had shuffled and passed off the cards to the next dealer, accidentally skipping my turn to deal. As that and future hands played out, I got to thinking about how my mishap impacted not only that first hand but each to follow. In that first case, I realized that everyone ended up initially what would have been his/her neighbors cards. Then as players made decisions about drawing and discarding the ripples of my mistake carried on into the result of the hand. It changed multiple decisions and outcomes. That got me thinking about God's sovereign will and our free choices that flow from it.
Anyone who takes a biblical position on these matters will readily agree that there is mystery in the interplay between God's sovereign decrees and our free will. Any orthodox position will say what the Bible says, that God is sovereign, knowing everything and frustrated by no one in carrying out his will, and that man is responsible for his free choices. Many are uncomfortable with the tension between God's choosing and our own, and want desperately to feel there is no precise point where the overlap between these realities is perfectly expressed. Most talk systemically about where they are on the TULIP scale between the extremes of Calvinism and Arminianism. Usually the conversations (often arguments) come to a head with one's view of sovereignty.
I'm not going to wade into all that discussion per se. There is much good information available to help one think both intelligently and biblically about the issues. My goal here is to expose the beautiful reality of the dance, as it showed itself to me in this game of cards. I also enjoy exploring how far an analogy can be applied before it falls short of the reality to which it points. So, here are my observations.
God is the Dealer. Of course he is more than that. He invented the game, and he made the rules. He made the cards. He made the materials from which the cards were made and from which the plant was built, and the planet, and so on. But for the sake of analogy God is the Dealer. Whatever possibilities there are in all the hands that can be dealt, they come from his hand. He orders the deck with his shuffling, and then he deals out the cards to each of us. So, the range of possibilities in play are set already by his dealing.
Then we Players consider the hands we've been dealt. We think of how we'd like things to play out, and we make our choices. We choose which cards to hold and which to discard. We react to the choices of other players, some of which benefit us and some of which thwart us. The range of choices available are limited in these ways, by what was dealt and by the choices of others. Still, given that range of options, we make truly free choices as we play our part in determining the outcomes. Sometimes we win the trick. Other times we get caught with points counting against us. Whatever the case, this game is not rigged, so we cannot blame the Dealer if things don't go our way.
Now, one's view of sovereignty nuances the application of the analogy. Since chance or luck does not fit a biblical paradigm, we would see God's deliberate will determining the exact cards that are dealt to all. God is not shuffling cards to let chance decide what is dealt but rather orders the options and distributes exactly the hands that accomplish his perfectly wise and benevolent will. Someone with a high view of sovereignty would say that God not only decrees what cards he will deal to each player but also decrees exactly how that player will (the most extreme view would say must) respond to those options. A biblical view does not necessarily demand that strong a view. Many would allow that only the range of choices is predetermined and that all the choices that follow are free choices by each player. These free choices would also include the reactions to the free choices of others.
God created the players. How much of each player's nature did he determine? That this one would be super-aggressively trusting his gut with his choices while that one would be conservative, holding cards based on the best odds? That this one could bluff her way to a jackpot while another would be riddled with "tells?" Theologians have wrestled with these questions for centuries, but in all biblical options there is mystery. We are trying to understand how the transcendent God operates in the world, and much is beyond us. (A large range of the views implied above fit under the theological category called compatibilism, though there are other views of sovereignty.)
What is clear from Scripture is, once again, that no one by his or her free choices can ultimately thwart God's plan, and that we cannot blame God for the final outcomes. We have played our own role in reaching those outcomes. That brings me to one other observation from the card game analogy.
For this, I must shift from 313, a game where winning depends on getting caught with the fewest points over 10 hands, to the kinds of card games where bets are placed, like Texas Hold 'Em. In that game, one's success can ebb and flow over the course of many hands depending on how much one bets. When a player is emboldened by a great hand (or tired of playing, and ready to be done with it all), they go all in. This means they are betting everything they have left that they have a winning hand, or at least that they can bluff any remaining players into believing they have a winning hand. If they scare everyone else into folding (giving up what they already put in that hand's kitty), or if they do in fact have the winning hand, they can win the whole pot. But if neither is true, they lose everything - game over.
This is the other beauty from this analogy. With God, winning or losing is determined by one and only one wild card - Jesus. We either go all in with Jesus or without him, but at the end of this age everyone is all in. We only have this life to decide whether to hold Christ or to discard him, and we never know which hand is our last. Without Christ all is lost, but with Christ all is won. And from the perspective of human responsibility, the Bible is clear. The Christ wild card is available to everyone, and each one will choose to go all in with Jesus or to discard him. Win or lose. Live or die.
So, I celebrate how God awakened me to his amazing work and my incredible privilege to go all in with Jesus. I'm not so lucky in card games. I'm very grateful that God has called me to himself through the hand I've been dealt, and has given me the opportunity to choose eternal life through his Son. All praise to him for the beautiful analogy, and the spiritual reality to which it points!
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