@KarlLB , the point I was making is that we have free will. So if we married someone not good for us, and the marriage turned bad, that's on us, not God. I doubt that God had much to do with arranging my failed marriage, for instance. That was all my own fault.
I think the coincidence thing only "works"* for certain personality types. And nobody it doesn't come naturally to should try to force it. But that's true for most things in life, isn't it?
* putting "works" in quotation marks because even people who feel very comfortable with this idea can't point to absolute incontrovertible proof that they're getting it right with regards to God's thinking...
I can posit Love (I don't like the meaningless, anachronistic, obsolete, emotionally unintelligent word God, and no the Greco-Latin versions aren't much better) as the ground of infinite being, I mean I can really, nearly make Them work. Excluding all of the desperate, crazy excuses above. Nearly. As long as we ignore @KarlLB. But no matter how good a Love story, without an instance of the fingerpost, we can't ignore the meaningless horrors of infinite natural existence that blissfully end in
If God has guided me he has not done it by coincidences.
I am married to the person I'm married to at least in part because God apparently arranged it that every other woman I had previously tried to start a relationship with made it clear she'd sooner put her legs in a blender than be romantically associated with me. That's how he "guided" me away from them. That eventually someone I liked wasn't horrified by the very thought seemed like something of a miracle, to be fair.
I'm in the job I'm in (IT) because I was pretty shit at everything else.
In church my "role" is singing in the choir or playing the organ if they're really, really desperate. Again, I do that because I enjoy it rather than any coincidences or convictions leading that way.
I dunno; I just find most people's talk of this area just doesn't resonate with my experience at all. I can't find points of correspondence.
I get all that.
I'm sure your experience isn't unique and much of it resonates with my own.
I don't think I'm 'ignoring' @KarlLB nor do I think anyone else is on this thread 🤔 as @Martin54 seems to infer.
I'm still trying to process KarlLB's 'mountain of dead babies' comment rather than covering my ears up and going 'la la la la la la I'm not listening...'
Today's the day the Orthodox commemorate the Massacre of The Innocents. I don't know how to begin to process that but perhaps there's something about becoming attuned to suffering and pain in the world and trying to alleviate it as far as we can in however small a way.
I don't presume or pretend to understand any of this stuff.
I suppose it's about how we deal with the cards we are dealt. My wife died at the age of 56. I face retirement without her. What do I do about that? Mope around feeling sorry for myself? Or find positive things to do with my time that help me cope or which hopefully can benefit others?
Lots of people have faced, face and will face far worse.
On the coincidences, strange providences and the idea of guidance and 'promptings' and so on. No, I tend not to go in for any of that in an 'over-realised' way but there have been times, such as the book thing I mentioned, when that sort of stuff seemed to occur.
When it comes to things like jobs, life partners and so on I don't see it as God micro-managing things on our behalf but as I tried to indicate with reference to my adopted Orthodox tradition, tend to see it as God being involved from the 'inside' in some mysterious way rather than some kind of 'external' zapping in a charismatic sense or cold, calculating chessboard manoeuvring that we might associate with certain (I said 'certain') forms of neo-Calvinism.
I responded directly earlier, so I agree that the point about the horrors of the world is not being ignored.
But positing the absence of God does not solve the problem of suffering - it just makes it all meaningless and unredeemed, and underlines our own failures in preventing and alleviating it.
It seems to me that if one has a philosophical objection to the idea of God (or just God active in human lives), that will rule out seeing coincidences as meaningful in any way. It’s a (logical enough) filter. So those with such views have of course answered that coincidences are just that, and have explained why.
Whereas different views about God allow 2 or 3 to be considered. I tend to lean towards the inner prompting mentioned by @Gamma Gamaliel but with a healthy awareness of our capacity for seeing patterns everywhere.
It is this question of judgement that seems to be the tricky bit.
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
Have you read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books (or at least the first 2-3 before being overwhelmed by sniffing and braid-tugging)? One of the themes is that certain individuals leave a trail of coincidences in their wake - a spate of sudden marriages in one village, freak accidents in another - both good and bad and indifferent.
Once one has faith, like at least two thirds of humanity, one is bound to interpret life in its wake. Folk belief, superstition is in parallel in all cultures, so the faithless one third are not immune. As ChatGPT says, "faith comes by the hearing of the word", and as that will vary with every click,
Romans 10:17
The phrase "faith comes by hearing of the word" is from Romans 10:17 in the Bible1. It means that faith in God is produced in a person's heart by hearing the Word of God. The word "faith" is translated from the Greek word "pistis", meaning "belief, trust, or confidence in someone or something". Hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ is necessary to understand and believe in it. Faith cannot exist unless there is a message or report to be heard or believed
We like a good story. And we build on it with what we bring to it. All perfectly natural.
I must admit I'm still most intrigued by the story of Paul and his interactions with the well established Church within a handful of years of its foundation. No commas. All one history. What, who explains the earliest Church? I can explain it naturally, in the novel, but it stretches credulity... Anyone would think that Incarnation is the simplest explanation...
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
But at one level, isn’t that just making the obvious point that everything that we do not deliberately plan is a coincidental experience?
A more difficult point would be if people recounted feeling an inner prompting (or suchlike) arising from a coincidence, before choosing to stand in the spot where the bus would hit (or other disastrous outcome). I have not heard examples of that so far.
I would go as far as to say that if I saw significance in some of the coincidences in my life I'd have a real problem with God.
Or put it another way, I am trying very hard not to see significance in some coincidences in my life because of the implication about God.
Yeah, I have changed my mind on this over the years. I used to think that finding new jobs when I needed it was a sign of Gods helping me. The problem is, all of these jobs turned sour - sometimes very very badly so - meaning that this suddenly seems very cruel.
I think, these days, I would probably argue that God has told us what he wants: "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" - or other such variations of this.
The big pictures - the big stories of what we should do, what our aims should be - are clearly set out in the Biblical texts. Co-incidences can be ways of prompting us in specific areas - we seee the coincidences and they can show us a way of doing these big things in specific cases.
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
But at one level, isn’t that just making the obvious point that everything that we do not deliberately plan is a coincidental experience?
A more difficult point would be if people recounted feeling an inner prompting (or suchlike) arising from a coincidence, before choosing to stand in the spot where the bus would hit (or other disastrous outcome). I have not heard examples of that so far.
As it happens, coincidentally @Schroedingers Cat has a possible example in the post immediately following yours.
I suppose it depends how "led" the elusive feline felt to apply for those jobs.
I think temperament and personality type comes into this a great deal. I'd temper my comments about 'inner promptings' with caution.
On a softer note, here's a set of coincidences that were very striking but to which I attach no special significance whatsoever.
I was once walking along a particular stretch of river bank with my late mother in law on Christmas Day when I observed that kingfishers had been seen there. That moment, as if on cue, one flashed viridescent from one bank to another.
A few years later, walking with a friend at the same spot I recounted the tale. Lo and behold, at that instant another flashed across from bank to bank.
Then, a few weeks ago, I recounted both instances online to another friend and to the elder Gamaliette on her recently purchased narrowboat. Guess what? Another one flashed in front of where her boat was moored.
Now, some people would 'read' something into an occurrence like that. Some kind of sign.
I wouldn't but there you go.
Getting a particular job because you are 'shit' at anything else isn't necessarily unprovidential as it were. At least you are good at something and haven't starved to death.
My wife is pagan and is positively enthusiastic about coincidences, although she tends to refer to synchronicity. I ventured that pagans might not think in terms of an over-arching intelligence, but she reckons many indigenous people talk of the Great Spirit.
An interesting point about "failed marriages", that in therapy you might see them as attempted solutions to childhood trauma, so not really failures. So, you seek out a situation that will enable that, or repeat it. Well, it's a less gloomy view.
My wife is pagan and is positively enthusiastic about coincidences, although she tends to refer to synchronicity. I ventured that pagans might not think in terms of an over-arching intelligence, but she reckons many indigenous people talk of the Great Spirit.
An interesting point about "failed marriages", that in therapy you might see them as attempted solutions to childhood trauma, so not really failures. So, you seek out a situation that will enable that, or repeat it. Well, it's a less gloomy view.
Not sure about that - it sounds gloomy if you phrase it as "prone to entering into unsuitable marriages because of childhood trauma". And of course given that parental divorce or unhappy marriage can itself be a source of childhood trauma my God that's depressing I think I need a beer.
My wife is pagan and is positively enthusiastic about coincidences, although she tends to refer to synchronicity. I ventured that pagans might not think in terms of an over-arching intelligence, but she reckons many indigenous people talk of the Great Spirit.
An interesting point about "failed marriages", that in therapy you might see them as attempted solutions to childhood trauma, so not really failures. So, you seek out a situation that will enable that, or repeat it. Well, it's a less gloomy view.
Not sure about that - it sounds gloomy if you phrase it as "prone to entering into unsuitable marriages because of childhood trauma". And of course given that parental divorce or unhappy marriage can itself be a source of childhood trauma my God that's depressing I think I need a beer.
Now you've made me laugh. I think seeing a failed marriage as an attempted solution, helps me to see it more positively. It's true that you might have a chain of traumatic relationships, can that be broken? It doesn't have to be endless repetition.
I think you find what you look for. I’m not convinced that people of faith have more good coincidences than other people do, but they appreciate them and thank God for them, and this gets them into the habit of looking for good things. Which I guess is good in itself.
Conversely, people who are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them will find more and more evidence of that.
Yes, and you could say that you generate auspicious circumstances, or negative.
Danger of falling into victim blaming there.
Indeed, or some kind of 'sympathy magic' or 'positive thinking' techniques ratcheted up to an unhelpful degree.
I would posit that we can regulate or moderate our responses to circumstances to some extent but not necessarily create those circumstances in the first place.
So, we've moved from God (not Love) moving in mysterious, statisticallly indetectable ways to not. How can we tell the difference?
God is Love?
Very good. But the concept of God is still tainted, toxic from the OT and Germanic translation. It would have been Theos is Agape would it not? The Greek takes it away from the barbarous OT at least.
And does that answer my question? I don't see how.
Love wouldn't hide in natural chaos as if it weren't there, doing undetectable things, as in all of infinite nature, that only those with ears to see could feel.
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
But at one level, isn’t that just making the obvious point that everything that we do not deliberately plan is a coincidental experience?
A more difficult point would be if people recounted feeling an inner prompting (or suchlike) arising from a coincidence, before choosing to stand in the spot where the bus would hit (or other disastrous outcome). I have not heard examples of that so far.
As it happens, coincidentally @Schroedingers Cat has a possible example in the post immediately following yours.
I suppose it depends how "led" the elusive feline felt to apply for those jobs.
From the description, it sounded like at the time each was the only job available - which would be a bit different from a coincidence leading someone to choose one job over another. But I think the final conclusion @Schroedingers Cat arrives at seems like a pretty reasonable one anyway.
Perhaps interpreting coincidences (or other ‘signs’ or internal promptings) needs to happen in the context of larger narratives (which could include scripture as they suggest, but maybe not only that?)
I think you find what you look for. I’m not convinced that people of faith have more good coincidences than other people do, but they appreciate them and thank God for them, and this gets them into the habit of looking for good things. Which I guess is good in itself.
Conversely, people who are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them will find more and more evidence of that.
This seems to be a good point - hope is a pretty powerful lens (as is despair) and how we feel is likely to have some impact on the sense we make of things. Perhaps hope could be seen as an outcome of faith (or grace?) at least sometimes…
I think you find what you look for. I’m not convinced that people of faith have more good coincidences than other people do, but they appreciate them and thank God for them, and this gets them into the habit of looking for good things. Which I guess is good in itself.
Conversely, people who are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them will find more and more evidence of that.
This seems to be a good point - hope is a pretty powerful lens (as is despair) and how we feel is likely to have some impact on the sense we make of things. Perhaps hope could be seen as an outcome of faith (or grace?) at least sometimes…
Plenty of Christians and other faithists 'are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them'. They have to have hope of transcendence to offset that. The universe, that gave us life, will certainly kill us all and fulfil the hope of the Buddha.
My wife is pagan and is positively enthusiastic about coincidences, although she tends to refer to synchronicity. I ventured that pagans might not think in terms of an over-arching intelligence, but she reckons many indigenous people talk of the Great Spirit.
An interesting point about "failed marriages", that in therapy you might see them as attempted solutions to childhood trauma, so not really failures. So, you seek out a situation that will enable that, or repeat it. Well, it's a less gloomy view.
Not sure about that - it sounds gloomy if you phrase it as "prone to entering into unsuitable marriages because of childhood trauma". And of course given that parental divorce or unhappy marriage can itself be a source of childhood trauma my God that's depressing I think I need a beer.
I recommend that therapy. And the truth of what @quetzalcoatl says. Cheers!
Yes, and you could say that you generate auspicious circumstances, or negative.
Danger of falling into victim blaming there.
Indeed, or some kind of 'sympathy magic' or 'positive thinking' techniques ratcheted up to an unhelpful degree.
I would posit that we can regulate or moderate our responses to circumstances to some extent but not necessarily create those circumstances in the first place.
Your second point seems to be something that is generally true of life. Modifying @KarlLB ’s point a little, the answer most of the time is likely to be ‘shit happens’ whether we will or no. But we still seem to have choices amid the randomness and constraints, and I guess that is going to lead us back to looking for weak signals sometimes.
Our faith gives us the possibility of hope that all will one day be well.
Sometimes hope is what makes things well, or at least enables the possibility.
Case in point: Brown and De Graaf conducted some research with terminal cancer patients - and found that hope (of something meaningful in the time that was left to them) was key to these patients wellbeing.
So if hope allows coincidences to be meaningful possibilities or finding meaning in coincidences supports hope, maybe that is a good thing either way.
No question. Finding enduring worthwhile meaning in meaningless existence is the best I can do. The best there is. No truly meaningless distractions. 'Beliefs'. Tho' I'm on the cusp of another moment of doubt at the moment...
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
But at one level, isn’t that just making the obvious point that everything that we do not deliberately plan is a coincidental experience?
A more difficult point would be if people recounted feeling an inner prompting (or suchlike) arising from a coincidence, before choosing to stand in the spot where the bus would hit (or other disastrous outcome). I have not heard examples of that so far.
As it happens, coincidentally @Schroedingers Cat has a possible example in the post immediately following yours.
I suppose it depends how "led" the elusive feline felt to apply for those jobs.
From the description, it sounded like at the time each was the only job available - which would be a bit different from a coincidence leading someone to choose one job over another. But I think the final conclusion @Schroedingers Cat arrives at seems like a pretty reasonable one anyway.
Perhaps interpreting coincidences (or other ‘signs’ or internal promptings) needs to happen in the context of larger narratives (which could include scripture as they suggest, but maybe not only that?)
Sure, not only that.
I'd suggest that scripture is certainly central, but it's not the only means available as it were. I'm thinking of Tradition as a metanarrative here.
Some Protestants would protest of course, but scripture is never 'alone'. Sorry, but the 'solas', although understandable in context, are capable of causing unintentional harm I think.
Scripture is there to provide guiding principles - and much ele of course - and not as a sweetie box of promises and proof-texts.
The Orthodox put a lot of emphasis on 'nouse' - on what some evangelical Protestants wisely call 'sanctified common sense'.
We need to use our noddles.
Yes, there is a place for 'gut-feel', for intuition or even 'inner promptings' at times. I'm sure these things equally apply within all faiths and none. It's not as if Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Buddhists or atheists aren't going to experience coincidences or have hunches or flashes of insight.
I think it's inevitable that Christians are going to 'interpret' coincidences, apparent providences and so on within the framework of scripture and Tradition or traditions. Muslims are going to interpret them in line with Quranic teachings and glosses.
It doesn't mean, though, that we have to apply that to every single coincidence or apparent pattern. I don't see the need to apply scripture or Tradition / tradition in any specific way to my kingfisher incidents, for instance.
Yes, I'd see them as delightful incidents in a beautiful world where God has placed us. But I wouldn't look for any more significance than that.
I think the key thing is to develop how we think and act 'Christianly' - are there opportunities to serve or help others or demonstrate the Kingdom or the fruits of the Spirit?
The problem with personal promptings and inclinations is that they are just that. And they can inconvenience other people.
A retired clergy person I know and her husband are involved with a charity whereby they allow missionaries on furlough or clergy needing a break to stay in their home. So, if they go off on holiday a stressed minister or missionary can move in.
One day, a very evangelical woman booked some time in their house. Then, on the eve of her arrival after the couple had put themselves out getting everything ready for her stay, she emailed saying that she 'didn't feel right' about it and that this was God's way of telling her not to go.
It's a shame the Almighty didn't see fit to warn her hosts, thereby saving them time and effort getting everything prepared.
Anyone here got faith without being superstitious? Like emergent Christian thinkers? I'm not aware of Richard Rohr, Red-Letter Christians, Patheos as well as the others I listed recently, engaging in folk religion anywhere near as badly as above, if at all.
As I look over the edge again, I don't see a God, a theos, who messes with our heads in ever in- and de-creasing circles of cold reading. I see Love. In this magnificent person. I don't see it in real social justice anywhere yet.
I once had a professor who did work among indigenous people in Central and South America. He would tell of the many times of things that would seem coincidental to him were taken very seriously among the villages he worked in. One example I remember was when some shaman in a village put a hex on a family that lived thousands of miles away. He thought nothing of it until he happened to visit the village where the family lived. The patriarch of the family had an unexplained illness that developed around the time the hex was made. Once my professor realized this, he had the family see another shaman to remove the hex. Shortly after that the patriarch of the family returned to health.
The professor said he could not explain what had happened. He did point out that perhaps we Westerners are limited in our three-dimensional understanding of the world. The indigenous people he worked with had many different dimensions. To them, there was no such thing as a coincidence.
A pity he couldn't send them to the local Christians to have the hex prayed against. We've had to do that, and it's very much appreciated. And effective.
I don't understand this story, @Gramps49 . How did the professor know that a particular shaman had 'placed a hex ' on a particular family at a particular time? ( and only the 'patriarch' became ill).
Getting a particular job because you are 'shit' at anything else isn't necessarily unprovidential as it were. At least you are good at something and haven't starved to death.
I meant to pick up on this point earlier - maybe the least bad of available options might be the only good that’s available sometimes. I can think of more than instance when a job was the only one I could get at the time.
Also, while they weren’t great, the things that opened up afterwards depended on that path. Where I am now (a good place) is something I could never have foreseen when I started working decades ago. So much so, that I struggle to line it up into a coherent narrative - almost too many coincidences.
I once had a professor who did work among indigenous people in Central and South America. He would tell of the many times of things that would seem coincidental to him were taken very seriously among the villages he worked in. One example I remember was when some shaman in a village put a hex on a family that lived thousands of miles away. He thought nothing of it until he happened to visit the village where the family lived. The patriarch of the family had an unexplained illness that developed around the time the hex was made. Once my professor realized this, he had the family see another shaman to remove the hex. Shortly after that the patriarch of the family returned to health.
The professor said he could not explain what had happened. He did point out that perhaps we Westerners are limited in our three-dimensional understanding of the world. The indigenous people he worked with had many different dimensions. To them, there was no such thing as a coincidence.
This vague and improbable anecdote involves (among other things) Othering and exoticising another culture. You might as well talk about a professor who did some unspecified work amongst the superstitious and ignorant inhabitants of Henley-on-Thames and encountered a soft-spoken but wild-eyed elderly man in a three-piece suit who believed he had been tricked into having himself vaccinated during a fantasy pandemic and was convinced that he and his family would have their DNA permanently altered by the vaccine. The professor immediately rushed off to find a conspiracy theorist on the other side of Henley-on-Thames and was referred to a New Age healer who gave the patient a spoonful of adulterated turmeric and with 24 hours he was fully recovered and one-dimensional again.
And @Cameron, coincidences are more common than we think. As in the coincidence creating mechanism is a universal component of (human) nature. Minds inevitably search for causal structure in reality, and find it by 'seriality' and 'synchronicity'. Statistics never does. Ever watched Derren Brown? It obviously has high survival value.
The Orthodox put a lot of emphasis on 'nouse' - on what some evangelical Protestants wisely call 'sanctified common sense'.
We need to use our noddles.
Yes, there is a place for 'gut-feel', for intuition or even 'inner promptings' at times. I'm sure these things equally apply within all faiths and none. It's not as if Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Buddhists or atheists aren't going to experience coincidences or have hunches or flashes of insight.
I think it's inevitable that Christians are going to 'interpret' coincidences, apparent providences and so on within the framework of scripture and Tradition or traditions. Muslims are going to interpret them in line with Quranic teachings and glosses.
...and when it gets to the poetic development of tradition, the different religions can speak across the divide. I've found that reading the late Jonathan Sacks on Judaism (which undid a lot of presumptions on my side, as well as providing inspiration) or Rumi's poetry with its roots in Sufism. I have a lot of admiration for people who draw inspiration from across the boundaries, while keeping their feet firmly planted in their own ground.
It doesn't mean, though, that we have to apply that to every single coincidence or apparent pattern. I don't see the need to apply scripture or Tradition / tradition in any specific way to my kingfisher incidents, for instance.
Yes, I'd see them as delightful incidents in a beautiful world where God has placed us. But I wouldn't look for any more significance than that.
I think the key thing is to develop how we think and act 'Christianly' - are there opportunities to serve or help others or demonstrate the Kingdom or the fruits of the Spirit?
The problem with personal promptings and inclinations is that they are just that. And they can inconvenience other people.
That is a good point (as with your example that follows) - and perhaps that's another 'test'. If the coincidence / prompting is unkind, unfair or harmful to others then maybe we have not interpreted it correctly.
The professor I referred to was an anthropologist. He gave the story, and repeated it a couple of times in class with little variation. This was 50 some years ago. I may not recall the story as clearly as some would like. Sorry.
I think your story was well-intentioned @Gramps49 but it did trip into the pit-falls @MaryLouise listed as far as I can see and FWIW.
I think you could have made the point that different cultures interpret coincidences differently and that there are things we can't (yet?) explain without getting tangled up.
Be that as it may, I remember a Shipmate from a very liberal Protestant background relating a story from somewhere he'd been a missionary where the crocodiles mysteriously withdrew from a particular stretch of water for sufficient time for people to fish there whenever a shaman performed a ritual there.
Yes, it's an exotic tale and plays to certain stereotypes and expectations but from what he said, it occurred regularly at a particular time of year and nobody has so far found an explanation.
Whether it is true, partly true or complete hokum I don't know. I wouldn't build any great superstructure on it and neither did the original poster.
I think what is more pertinent - and tricky - is dealing with superstition within our own traditions. Within the Orthodox tradition people from parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans are seem as particularly prone to superstition - but then what about Western converts who can take a 'hyperdox' or fundamentalist approach?
I have no idea whether Richard Rohr, Red-Letter-Christians (whoever they are) or Patheos or whoever else go in for superstition or not - probably nowhere near as much as people in my own Tradtion / tradition or my former affiliation.
From an atheist perspective anyone with religious faith of any kind is going to look superstitious.
I have no idea where the boundary line lies between what might be considered legitimate faith and superstition. I've known of a loopy convert to Orthodoxy who lives in Greece and tries to out-Greek the Greeks who believes that those Orthodox priests who condemn beliefs such as the 'Evil Eye' have succumbed to nefarious Western scepticism. As if such a belief were part and parcel of Orthodox Christianity.
Saw a fabulous BBC documentary 30 odd years ago, showing masai warriors and lions studiously ignoring each other but above all a more south easterly tribe wrestling crocodiles every sunday afternoon. The latter always let the former win. The rest of the week they studiously ignored each other. Crocodiles are vastly intelligent. Matched predators leave each other the hell alone.
Comments
* putting "works" in quotation marks because even people who feel very comfortable with this idea can't point to absolute incontrovertible proof that they're getting it right with regards to God's thinking...
I get all that.
I'm sure your experience isn't unique and much of it resonates with my own.
I don't think I'm 'ignoring' @KarlLB nor do I think anyone else is on this thread 🤔 as @Martin54 seems to infer.
I'm still trying to process KarlLB's 'mountain of dead babies' comment rather than covering my ears up and going 'la la la la la la I'm not listening...'
Today's the day the Orthodox commemorate the Massacre of The Innocents. I don't know how to begin to process that but perhaps there's something about becoming attuned to suffering and pain in the world and trying to alleviate it as far as we can in however small a way.
I don't presume or pretend to understand any of this stuff.
I suppose it's about how we deal with the cards we are dealt. My wife died at the age of 56. I face retirement without her. What do I do about that? Mope around feeling sorry for myself? Or find positive things to do with my time that help me cope or which hopefully can benefit others?
Lots of people have faced, face and will face far worse.
On the coincidences, strange providences and the idea of guidance and 'promptings' and so on. No, I tend not to go in for any of that in an 'over-realised' way but there have been times, such as the book thing I mentioned, when that sort of stuff seemed to occur.
When it comes to things like jobs, life partners and so on I don't see it as God micro-managing things on our behalf but as I tried to indicate with reference to my adopted Orthodox tradition, tend to see it as God being involved from the 'inside' in some mysterious way rather than some kind of 'external' zapping in a charismatic sense or cold, calculating chessboard manoeuvring that we might associate with certain (I said 'certain') forms of neo-Calvinism.
But positing the absence of God does not solve the problem of suffering - it just makes it all meaningless and unredeemed, and underlines our own failures in preventing and alleviating it.
It seems to me that if one has a philosophical objection to the idea of God (or just God active in human lives), that will rule out seeing coincidences as meaningful in any way. It’s a (logical enough) filter. So those with such views have of course answered that coincidences are just that, and have explained why.
Whereas different views about God allow 2 or 3 to be considered. I tend to lean towards the inner prompting mentioned by @Gamma Gamaliel but with a healthy awareness of our capacity for seeing patterns everywhere.
It is this question of judgement that seems to be the tricky bit.
Or put it another way, I am trying very hard not to see significance in some coincidences in my life because of the implication about God.
I don't think it's just, therefore, about whether we have a philosophical objection to there being a God. There being a God who is active in human lives comes closer, but I think we cannot ignore the question of whether the coincidences we have seen have been positive or negative. @Lamb Chopped gives a striking example of a positive coincidence, but that has to be taken with the context that other people have coincidences that are less so - being just in the right place at the right time for that bus to mount the pavement.
Have you read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books (or at least the first 2-3 before being overwhelmed by sniffing and braid-tugging)? One of the themes is that certain individuals leave a trail of coincidences in their wake - a spate of sudden marriages in one village, freak accidents in another - both good and bad and indifferent.
We like a good story. And we build on it with what we bring to it. All perfectly natural.
I must admit I'm still most intrigued by the story of Paul and his interactions with the well established Church within a handful of years of its foundation. No commas. All one history. What, who explains the earliest Church? I can explain it naturally, in the novel, but it stretches credulity... Anyone would think that Incarnation is the simplest explanation...
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Not been here before.
But at one level, isn’t that just making the obvious point that everything that we do not deliberately plan is a coincidental experience?
A more difficult point would be if people recounted feeling an inner prompting (or suchlike) arising from a coincidence, before choosing to stand in the spot where the bus would hit (or other disastrous outcome). I have not heard examples of that so far.
Yeah, I have changed my mind on this over the years. I used to think that finding new jobs when I needed it was a sign of Gods helping me. The problem is, all of these jobs turned sour - sometimes very very badly so - meaning that this suddenly seems very cruel.
I think, these days, I would probably argue that God has told us what he wants: "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" - or other such variations of this.
The big pictures - the big stories of what we should do, what our aims should be - are clearly set out in the Biblical texts. Co-incidences can be ways of prompting us in specific areas - we seee the coincidences and they can show us a way of doing these big things in specific cases.
As it happens, coincidentally @Schroedingers Cat has a possible example in the post immediately following yours.
I suppose it depends how "led" the elusive feline felt to apply for those jobs.
On a softer note, here's a set of coincidences that were very striking but to which I attach no special significance whatsoever.
I was once walking along a particular stretch of river bank with my late mother in law on Christmas Day when I observed that kingfishers had been seen there. That moment, as if on cue, one flashed viridescent from one bank to another.
A few years later, walking with a friend at the same spot I recounted the tale. Lo and behold, at that instant another flashed across from bank to bank.
Then, a few weeks ago, I recounted both instances online to another friend and to the elder Gamaliette on her recently purchased narrowboat. Guess what? Another one flashed in front of where her boat was moored.
Now, some people would 'read' something into an occurrence like that. Some kind of sign.
I wouldn't but there you go.
Getting a particular job because you are 'shit' at anything else isn't necessarily unprovidential as it were. At least you are good at something and haven't starved to death.
An interesting point about "failed marriages", that in therapy you might see them as attempted solutions to childhood trauma, so not really failures. So, you seek out a situation that will enable that, or repeat it. Well, it's a less gloomy view.
Not sure about that - it sounds gloomy if you phrase it as "prone to entering into unsuitable marriages because of childhood trauma". And of course given that parental divorce or unhappy marriage can itself be a source of childhood trauma my God that's depressing I think I need a beer.
Now you've made me laugh. I think seeing a failed marriage as an attempted solution, helps me to see it more positively. It's true that you might have a chain of traumatic relationships, can that be broken? It doesn't have to be endless repetition.
Conversely, people who are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them will find more and more evidence of that.
Danger of falling into victim blaming there.
Indeed, or some kind of 'sympathy magic' or 'positive thinking' techniques ratcheted up to an unhelpful degree.
I would posit that we can regulate or moderate our responses to circumstances to some extent but not necessarily create those circumstances in the first place.
Yes, it's a danger, but blaming isn't inevitable.
God is Love?
Very good. But the concept of God is still tainted, toxic from the OT and Germanic translation. It would have been Theos is Agape would it not? The Greek takes it away from the barbarous OT at least.
And does that answer my question? I don't see how.
Love wouldn't hide in natural chaos as if it weren't there, doing undetectable things, as in all of infinite nature, that only those with ears to see could feel.
From the description, it sounded like at the time each was the only job available - which would be a bit different from a coincidence leading someone to choose one job over another. But I think the final conclusion @Schroedingers Cat arrives at seems like a pretty reasonable one anyway.
Perhaps interpreting coincidences (or other ‘signs’ or internal promptings) needs to happen in the context of larger narratives (which could include scripture as they suggest, but maybe not only that?)
It's about degrees of freedom isn't it?
This seems to be a good point - hope is a pretty powerful lens (as is despair) and how we feel is likely to have some impact on the sense we make of things. Perhaps hope could be seen as an outcome of faith (or grace?) at least sometimes…
Plenty of Christians and other faithists 'are convinced the universe is out to get them and that other people dislike them'. They have to have hope of transcendence to offset that. The universe, that gave us life, will certainly kill us all and fulfil the hope of the Buddha.
I recommend that therapy. And the truth of what @quetzalcoatl says. Cheers!
Your second point seems to be something that is generally true of life. Modifying @KarlLB ’s point a little, the answer most of the time is likely to be ‘shit happens’ whether we will or no. But we still seem to have choices amid the randomness and constraints, and I guess that is going to lead us back to looking for weak signals sometimes.
Sometimes hope is what makes things well, or at least enables the possibility.
Case in point: Brown and De Graaf conducted some research with terminal cancer patients - and found that hope (of something meaningful in the time that was left to them) was key to these patients wellbeing.
So if hope allows coincidences to be meaningful possibilities or finding meaning in coincidences supports hope, maybe that is a good thing either way.
Sure, not only that.
I'd suggest that scripture is certainly central, but it's not the only means available as it were. I'm thinking of Tradition as a metanarrative here.
Some Protestants would protest of course, but scripture is never 'alone'. Sorry, but the 'solas', although understandable in context, are capable of causing unintentional harm I think.
Scripture is there to provide guiding principles - and much ele of course - and not as a sweetie box of promises and proof-texts.
The Orthodox put a lot of emphasis on 'nouse' - on what some evangelical Protestants wisely call 'sanctified common sense'.
We need to use our noddles.
Yes, there is a place for 'gut-feel', for intuition or even 'inner promptings' at times. I'm sure these things equally apply within all faiths and none. It's not as if Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Buddhists or atheists aren't going to experience coincidences or have hunches or flashes of insight.
I think it's inevitable that Christians are going to 'interpret' coincidences, apparent providences and so on within the framework of scripture and Tradition or traditions. Muslims are going to interpret them in line with Quranic teachings and glosses.
It doesn't mean, though, that we have to apply that to every single coincidence or apparent pattern. I don't see the need to apply scripture or Tradition / tradition in any specific way to my kingfisher incidents, for instance.
Yes, I'd see them as delightful incidents in a beautiful world where God has placed us. But I wouldn't look for any more significance than that.
I think the key thing is to develop how we think and act 'Christianly' - are there opportunities to serve or help others or demonstrate the Kingdom or the fruits of the Spirit?
The problem with personal promptings and inclinations is that they are just that. And they can inconvenience other people.
A retired clergy person I know and her husband are involved with a charity whereby they allow missionaries on furlough or clergy needing a break to stay in their home. So, if they go off on holiday a stressed minister or missionary can move in.
One day, a very evangelical woman booked some time in their house. Then, on the eve of her arrival after the couple had put themselves out getting everything ready for her stay, she emailed saying that she 'didn't feel right' about it and that this was God's way of telling her not to go.
It's a shame the Almighty didn't see fit to warn her hosts, thereby saving them time and effort getting everything prepared.
As I look over the edge again, I don't see a God, a theos, who messes with our heads in ever in- and de-creasing circles of cold reading. I see Love. In this magnificent person. I don't see it in real social justice anywhere yet.
The professor said he could not explain what had happened. He did point out that perhaps we Westerners are limited in our three-dimensional understanding of the world. The indigenous people he worked with had many different dimensions. To them, there was no such thing as a coincidence.
I meant to pick up on this point earlier - maybe the least bad of available options might be the only good that’s available sometimes. I can think of more than instance when a job was the only one I could get at the time.
Also, while they weren’t great, the things that opened up afterwards depended on that path. Where I am now (a good place) is something I could never have foreseen when I started working decades ago. So much so, that I struggle to line it up into a coherent narrative - almost too many coincidences.
This vague and improbable anecdote involves (among other things) Othering and exoticising another culture. You might as well talk about a professor who did some unspecified work amongst the superstitious and ignorant inhabitants of Henley-on-Thames and encountered a soft-spoken but wild-eyed elderly man in a three-piece suit who believed he had been tricked into having himself vaccinated during a fantasy pandemic and was convinced that he and his family would have their DNA permanently altered by the vaccine. The professor immediately rushed off to find a conspiracy theorist on the other side of Henley-on-Thames and was referred to a New Age healer who gave the patient a spoonful of adulterated turmeric and with 24 hours he was fully recovered and one-dimensional again.
And @Cameron, coincidences are more common than we think. As in the coincidence creating mechanism is a universal component of (human) nature. Minds inevitably search for causal structure in reality, and find it by 'seriality' and 'synchronicity'. Statistics never does. Ever watched Derren Brown? It obviously has high survival value.
...and when it gets to the poetic development of tradition, the different religions can speak across the divide. I've found that reading the late Jonathan Sacks on Judaism (which undid a lot of presumptions on my side, as well as providing inspiration) or Rumi's poetry with its roots in Sufism. I have a lot of admiration for people who draw inspiration from across the boundaries, while keeping their feet firmly planted in their own ground.
That is a good point (as with your example that follows) - and perhaps that's another 'test'. If the coincidence / prompting is unkind, unfair or harmful to others then maybe we have not interpreted it correctly.
I think you could have made the point that different cultures interpret coincidences differently and that there are things we can't (yet?) explain without getting tangled up.
Be that as it may, I remember a Shipmate from a very liberal Protestant background relating a story from somewhere he'd been a missionary where the crocodiles mysteriously withdrew from a particular stretch of water for sufficient time for people to fish there whenever a shaman performed a ritual there.
Yes, it's an exotic tale and plays to certain stereotypes and expectations but from what he said, it occurred regularly at a particular time of year and nobody has so far found an explanation.
Whether it is true, partly true or complete hokum I don't know. I wouldn't build any great superstructure on it and neither did the original poster.
I think what is more pertinent - and tricky - is dealing with superstition within our own traditions. Within the Orthodox tradition people from parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans are seem as particularly prone to superstition - but then what about Western converts who can take a 'hyperdox' or fundamentalist approach?
I have no idea whether Richard Rohr, Red-Letter-Christians (whoever they are) or Patheos or whoever else go in for superstition or not - probably nowhere near as much as people in my own Tradtion / tradition or my former affiliation.
From an atheist perspective anyone with religious faith of any kind is going to look superstitious.
I have no idea where the boundary line lies between what might be considered legitimate faith and superstition. I've known of a loopy convert to Orthodoxy who lives in Greece and tries to out-Greek the Greeks who believes that those Orthodox priests who condemn beliefs such as the 'Evil Eye' have succumbed to nefarious Western scepticism. As if such a belief were part and parcel of Orthodox Christianity.
But where do we draw the line?