This is one of a bunch of political items I didn’t get around to doing when the story was fresh.
Palin says election result rests in God’s hands
This is the sort of rhetoric that some eat up like ice cream, but gives others the chills. Neither the election, nor Iraq, nor the economy are in the hands of God. He’s got control over things like earthquakes and meteors colliding with Earth.
Sarah Palin may as well be saying “Inshallah”, or “God be willing”. When I was in Saudi Arabia on business, coming up on 20 years ago, I heard that word a lot.
“Inshallah” was said in reference to all sorts of things that were completely under the control of men, from the need for a computer room window to be repaired before equipment was delivered, to the delivery of the equipment when it was delayed in Germany.
The election isn’t up to God. It’s up to voters. And if people think their hand is being guided by God, as if they were using a Ouija board, that’s their business, but I prefer to exercise my own free will.
What a glib, ill-thought out remark, no matter how you slice it. From a strictly theological viewpoint, it flies in the face of free will – man’s choice of good or evil. To follow Palin’s line of thinking to its intellectual conclusion, therefore, you might as well say that in the book of Genesis, God made Cain kill his brother Abel, and God made Eve eat the apple.
Palin’s statement works out great for her, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins. But if Obama-Biden win by a wide margin, does that mean God was very clearly against what Palin and McCaiin stand for? That would mean God was FOR George W. Bush for 2 terms in office, but now is AGAINST McCain.
However, what if McCain becomes our next President, but later it is determined that there was substantial vote tampering in the election? Does that mean God would stoop to using fraud in order to get “His man” McCain into office?
Many theologians, of various religions, believe that Man makes his choice of good or evil. And that God ultimately brings order out of our chaos, turns the lemons into lemonade, however you want to think of it… Just not necessarily during our lifetime.