Faith, Fatalism and the Great Cop-Out
By Joe Dallas Published on October 8, 2016
https://stream.org/faith-fatalism-an...great-cop-out/
“It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!” – Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand
There’s
faith and then there’s
fatalism.
Faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8) whereby we trust the promises of God (Galatians 3:6) based on consideration of His nature (Luke 12:28) and abilities. (Hebrews 11:19) It enables our confidence in Him to do what we cannot, without avoiding our commission to do what He’s commanded.
So the evangelist who’s called to preach first prepares, then delivers, a message. He doesn’t sit back and “trust God” to do the talking. Instead he trusts God to bless the sermon, convicting and drawing people to Him through it. He believes in God to do what he can’t, yet obeys God by doing what he should,
thereby exercising both faith and stewardship.
Fatalism is another matter. Webster defines it as
“the belief that what will happen has already been decided and cannot be changed.” It can show up in the conversations of Christians who avoid their responsibilities by saying, “The Lord will take care of that.”
We Still Have Real Responsibility
Well, sure, He can. But when we apply that phrase to things we’re responsible to manage, there’s no assurance that He will.
If I neglect to eat the right foods, although the Lord could take care of my body, He probably won’t. I’ll get fat and sickly, not because God can’t take care of me, but rather, because He commissioned the
stewardship of my body to me, and I failed.
God can likewise save my neighbor, but if I’m the one commissioned to share the Good News with him, should I really presume that if I don’t, God will save him anyway? If I refuse to train my children, should I figure God will shape them into responsible citizens despite my negligence? Or, for that matter, if I withdraw from the political process, am I really right in saying,
“Well, whoever God wants running the country will wind up running it?”
Surely God can save my neighbor, shape my offspring, and raise up leaders without me, no argument there. But it’s foolish to count on Him fulfilling commands He gave to me.
A Biblical worldview can’t be founded on presumptions that if we neglect God-given responsibilities, He’ll somehow fill the gap and cover for our sloth.
Is Everything That Happens God’s Will?
Which raises the question of whether or not everything which happens is God’s will. I don’t for a nanosecond think it is.
Much of what happens, in fact, is the outcome of man’s wrongdoing, and I think it’s a holy cop-out to say “God allowed it so it must be what He wants.” ...