Divine Provision, an illusion – Philippians 4:19, “And my god will meet all your needs..” The notion that bible god will provide for our basic needs is a comforting idea. However, reality often contradicts this belief.
The story of Elijah being fed by ravens (1 Kings 17:4-6) is often cited as evidence of divine provision. Yet, this narrative raises questions.
Do birds truly provide for humans? When did you last observe birds or any other animal delivering sustenance to human residences?
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In nature, birds struggle to feed themselves and their vulnerable offspring. The fundamental rule of survival is clear: individuals must fend for themselves or risk starvation.
The same god acclaimed to have promised you divine provision also promised this “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat”. It’s crucial to recognize the difference between allegorical stories and the realities of our existence.
Credit: Nath Hanson Hans
On Quora, Dan wrote,
It’s a heady cocktail of wish-thinking and mythology. There’s no evidence such a thing happens or has ever happened. The historical accounts are clearly mythology and where testable by archaeology either utterly refuted or entirely unevidenced.
In modern times people lay claim to interventions in their personal lives. These are both entirely without evidence and make no sense.
There’s no reason to think that praying or praying for people helps any more than a placebo. There’s no evidence faith-healing through the power of God works any better either. People a whipped up into a frenzy and feel cured but long term outcomes show nothing of the kind happened.
But it makes no sense that God might be swayed by prayer. If there’s a way for God to achieve God’s ‘grand plan’ without causing suffering, surely a loving God would take that route. It shouldn’t take prayer to make God ‘realise’ they can do something some other way.
It’s also entirely incompatible with a loving God that they might test us by giving people fatal diseases and only intervene if sufficient prayer is received. That is particularly when there is no clear bar as to how much prayer or what prayers tip the balance. There’s no sign that people who have prayed in a particular way or more than others have better prospect than anyone else.
Indeed the whole idea risks making people feel guilty for things they have no control over. Imagine feeling if you’d done a bit more prayer you could have saved a loved one. This man survived a plane crash and it was a miracle. But your husband was for reasons you’ll never know deemed expendable.
In science divine intervention is a null-hypothesis. It works unless it doesn’t. People pray, something good happens, they say it was God. They pray, something good doesn’t happen, they it wasn’t meant to be.
At the end of the day it would be narcissistic of God to only help people if they show the right amount of the right kind of worship.
Divine intervention isn’t a thing and it makes no sense as a thing for any loving God.
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