A lot of progressives are mocking Christians by wondering how it is that God intervened to save Trump’s life yet also put the assassin on the roof top. You might ask how it was that Hobbits had to deliver the ring when there are eagles who can do it. The alleged paradox is to express a profound ignorance of the faith in question—or the point of the story. I could simplify the point by simply saying that neither Judaism and Christianity are Islam, but I want to say more than that. I’m not a Christian. But that doesn’t mean I’m not charitable. There are tens of millions of Christian Americans and among them are tens of millions of good and reasonable hard-working people. I want a government that reflects their will as much as any other.
Free will and divine providence are inherent in the Jewish and Christian faiths. They’re part of the dialectic of history (which flows through Hegel and Marx, as well). Satan is the personification of an obstacle thrown before righteous people so that they might overcome and rise to a plane of higher unity and ever greater collective self-perfection. There is no progress without struggle. The Old Testament is the story of nationalist struggle, nationalism here defined as a people, the Jewish people. Although the story is often told in metaphor and parable, its heart is the beating heart of living man. That man was cast out of Eden so that he might be free. To realize his potential, he had to confront the world. Christians also believe this.
That a young man would choose to attempt to assassinate a president is, in the arc of history, an instantiation of an obstacle the people overcome and rise above. This brings us to the question of theodicy, a subject I will not touch on here except to say that the young man is made possible by the forces that put that desire in his head. We know what and who those forces are. They’re Earthly. And determined. They’re the obstacle. A people are led to overcome the obstacle this desire makes by men who see and hear, whatever their imperfections (all men are flawed, Moses no less so).
What is providence? It is the protective hand of God or of nature—Nature’s God, as our Founders knew it. It’s the eagles in Tolkien’s story. To reduce eagles to deus ex machina is to miss the point of struggle. But it’s more than this. Providence is timely preparation for future eventualities, the rational overcoming of obstacles to open the way forward so we may perfect ourselves as a people—as a nation. Providence is the emergent truth of the moment we see and hear if we understand. If we do, we step from the path that produced the obstacle and pursue instead the way opened for us. There will be more obstacles along the new path, of course; in the end, men make the history that both produces both obstacles and future paths. But that’s free will. That’s morality’s source. We are responsible for the things we do because we choose to do them. To do the right thing, we have to understand. We have to grasp the hand of providence. Matthew told Jesus’s followers in his gospel (13:17) “that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” Matthew is speaking to those who understand. This is what is conveyed by righteous men pointing towards the right side of history.
As a great Christian man once told us: the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. This is only true because some see and hear and act. They see and hear because they understand. They act because they are restless and dissatisfied. You don’t have to be a Jew or Christian to understand or to act. You just have to listen and work things out. Tragically, the world today is a world where a great many people practice cerebral hygiene, responding to the world not on the basis of knowledge but tribal programming. They are as much an obstacle as those who put untoward desire in the heads of young men. The future of the nature depends on overcoming these obstacles.
freedom and reason 