Divine Intervention

I struggle with how to think about divine intervention. While I certainly want to believe that God intervenes in the world and in my own life, there are many terrible things that God doesn’t intervene to stop (including many things not caused by humans, thereby making human free will an unsatisfying explanation).

In his new book, Evolving Faith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist (published by the Maxwell Institute), BYU biology professor Steven Peck shares some thought provoking ideas related to divine intervention.

By way of background, Peck acknowledges the reality of evolution, and he also believes there are “deep and unavoidable theological implications for incorporating into our theology the belief that natural selection structured the way life evolved on our planet.” Some of these implications are related to the brutality of natural selection: “It is hard to imagine that evolution by natural selection is a reasonable choice for creation if other methods were available,” he says. Peck suggests that perhaps “God … is subject to certain natural laws,” and natural selection may have been “a natural law necessary for the creation of a diverse and fully functioning universe.”

Peck then expands upon this idea in connection with God’s intervention in the world:

If God, of necessity, used evolution to achieve his purposes, what does that say about his being able to act in the world? … [I]f we embrace an evolutionary perspective, God’s intervention, our petitionary prayer, and divine action to bring about his purposes become thorny issues. … [I]f God can and sometimes does intervene, then why doesn’t he do it all the time? Why didn’t he do it during the Creation? This question opens an intriguing possibility: the necessary place of consciousness in divine interventions.

In Mormon thought, getting a physical body is important. … [T]here seems to be something deeply important about physicality and spirit coming together. Could it be that the physical world can be manipulated only through consciousness-mediated direct action? Or through this kind of body that unites spirit and physical matter?

If I understand correctly, Peck is suggesting that the primary way — and perhaps even the only way — that God acts in the physical world is by inspiring people to act. Peck continues (emphasis mine):

When I read the scriptures, I see a God who makes arrangements for irreplaceable records to be kept, preserved, and maintained through conscious effort. He implies that, if they are not, this knowledge will be lost and not brought back through his intervention. I see the Lamanites languishing in unbelief until the sons of Mosiah are inspired to go among them. Angels bear messages to other consciousnesses but do not seem to manipulate the world in interventionist ways. Almost all of the scriptures can be reinterpreted as acts of consciousness acting in the world. Christ’s miracles, especially his resurrection, seem to be an exception, but much of how God works in the world seems to be that he communicates to and through conscious beings who then use their agency to act.

In an interview with KUER’s Doug Fabrizio, Peck shared a personal experience that illustrates his perspective about divine intervention:

Fabrizio: Do you believe in miracles?

Peck: Yes.

Fabrizio: David Hume, the philosopher, said a miracle is a suspension of natural order, not a part of natural order. … You believe that natural order was suspended in your favor, that God did that for you?

Peck: Yes, but in a way that modifies that a little bit. When I was on my honeymoon, I was in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. My wife and I were within minutes of dying. The first car to the scene happened to be a couple of guys going fishing who had all their EMT equipment with them. They were EMTs. They were the very first car, they jump out, and they save us. That was, to me, a miracle. And the reason it’s a miracle is because God got through to somebody’s consciousness to say, “Put your stuff in the car.” … I see God acting mostly in my life in miraculous ways through the actions of others. … I’ve never had a boulder suddenly stop rolling toward me, or anything like that. … I don’t think God is in charge of manipulating things. … We can’t easily expect God to interfere in the natural world, but when [God] does, it seems to me to be through other people, through consciousness. … The miracles that I’ve seen sort of escape the Humean idea….

I certainly don’t know if Peck’s perspective on divine intervention is correct, but it’s an intriguing possibility to consider, and it’s consistent with how I believe that God has acted in my own life.

It also reminds me of a story that appeared in the news a few months ago. The following description is taken from an ABC News report:

Nicole Mayhew was at work … when she says she had a strong feeling.

“I had this feeling come over me that I needed to go home and check on my husband,” Mayhew, of Saratoga Springs, Utah, told ABC News.

Mayhew left work and went home, where she found her husband, 43-year-old Scott Mayhew, in serious trouble. He had been working on the family’s SUV when it slipped off the jack and crushed him. … With six broken ribs and internal injuries, Scott Mayhew lay trapped, calling out for help for more than an hour.

“There was a lot of pain. I felt the car crushing me,” he said. “I just knew if I hung on long enough, my prayers would be answered and she would know to come home.”

Nicole Mayhew … and her neighbor lifted the vehicle off Scott's chest and called 911.

“I consider him extremely lucky,” said one of the paramedics, Chad Pate. “I really think with her coming home as fast as she did in the time that she did, he could have lost his life had he been under the car much longer than that.”

Scott believes he’s alive because of his wife’s intuition, and his wife attributes his survival to their faith. …

“I think God was watching us that day,” said Nicole Mayhew. “I'm so thankful for that.”

For those who believe that God intervened in this situation (as I do), it is interesting to consider how that intervention occurred. God didn’t directly manipulate anything in the physical world. For example, God didn’t prevent the SUV from slipping off of the jack, nor did God lift the SUV off of Scott. Instead, God communicated to Nicole that her husband was in danger, and she used her agency to rush home and, with the help of a neighbor, lift the vehicle off of Scott.

This perspective on divine intervention gives new meaning to a talk that President Uchtdorf gave a few years ago, titled “You Are My Hands.” In that talk, President Uchtdorf encouraged us to “commit to become [Christ’s] hands, that others through us may feel His loving embrace.” Perhaps this is more than a metaphor? As Peck says: “Stories of people inspired to stop and help a widow take on new meaning if God cannot help the widow without us.”