This is a true story that I used in the book. I think it fits this
discussion.
In the early stages of World War II, a crippled British Lancaster was
returning
from a midnight bombing raid on Nazi Germany. The valiant crew nursed their
war plane back across the North Sea in a desperate effort to reach friendly
soil. Lower and lower they sank until they were barely skimming the waves.
Finally, just minutes before they would have made landfall, the crew was
forced
to ditch, belly landing in the black water just a few miles from the Scottish
coast.
None of the crew was injured in the crash landing, all escaped safely, but
there was not time to launch a life raft from the rapidly sinking plane. An
overcast sky accompanied by a total blackout, part of the defensive wartime
posture, gave no clues to lead them to safety. So they floated together,
supported by their leather bomber jackets, and waited patiently for the first
rays of sunlight to guide them to shore. Then, what had been life support
became life threatening.
Although flotation cartridges were sewn into each leather jacket, what must
surely seem odd to us now, they had not been tested! The jackets floated at
first, but after hours of submersion, the leather soaked up water and became
leaden. To their horror, the buoyant jackets turned to deadly anchors.
Before
daybreak every crew member had been dragged beneath the waves except one.
The navigator, John Haffenden, had been a champion swimmer as a boy. Shedding
his water-logged flight gear, he tread water slowly until the first rays of
sunlight coaxed the faint coastline out of the mist. Then he began to swim.
Stroke after stroke he labored to reach shore seven miles from the ditched
plane. At one point a cramp seized his calf. Treading water with one
hand, he
massaged his leg with the other until the cramp began to ease.
On he plodded through the water until cramps struck both legs. The pain was
more than he could bear this time. Still short of the coast, he gave up and
prepared to drown. Closing his eyes and lying back, slowly, he let his feet
sink. They touched sand!
Though still short of land, he stood on a sand bar with his head barely out of
water until the cramps eased. After a brief rest, he resumed swimming until
eventually he reached shore. Weary and trembling with cold, he clambered out
of the sea only to encounter another peril. The beach was mined.
As if land mines were not enough of a hazard, this particular stretch of beach
was a bird sanctuary, and this happened to be nesting time. Not recognizing
him as anything special, the alarmed birds treated this RAF navigator like any
other predator and began dive-bombing him. With no time to sit around and get
pecked to pieces, he scrambled zigzag fashion up the beach, scooping up
handfuls of sand and tossing them over his back to shoo away the attacking
birds dreading an explosion with every step.
After clearing the hazards of the beach, Haffenden spotted a coastal lookout
post in the distance, and off he hiked across the rocks and sand. An elderly
coast guard volunteer had just begun his watch, and was brewing a pot of
tea to
warm himself and bolster his morale for another day of dreary solitude.
Suddenly the door opened, a man wearing only a wrist watch stood silhouetted
against the gray morning sky, and voiced a quiet request, "I'll have a cup of
that, if you don't mind."
Haffy, as he was called affectionately, received a hero's welcome. RAF bomber
crews were issued American "Mae West" flotation gear they used for the balance
of the war. When a navigator was needed to transport Winston Churchill to
Yalta to meet with President Roosevelt, John Haffenden was chosen.
After the war, Haffenden married and started a business in London. His son,
Raymond, grew up there and became part of the company. He married and had two
sons.
Now, let us ponder for a moment. To what extent do Raymond and his sons owe
their very existence to a sand bar placed conveniently in the North Sea? That
incident in World War II is but one event in a gigantic spider web of
interconnected events that impacted their lives, and mine, and countless other
lives as well.
Who among the living today have fathers or grandfathers who were RAF bomber
crew members, and floated in the ocean waters supported by Mae Wests, and
thanks to American ingenuity, survived the war? Who would have been born, had
it not been for the untimely death of their potential fathers, and thus were
deprived of the opportunity for life?
Was Haffy simply fortunate in contrast to his unlucky crew members? If luck
was involved, then are the offspring the fortuitous results of a
roll-of-the-dice process? How many other, seemingly unrelated, fortunate
events have taken place to bring into being favored creatures who only got
here
because of accidental events throughout eons of time? If that is the answer,
then let us set up an idol, call it Serendipity, and offer our gifts.
Perhaps destiny guided John Haffenden to a submerged sandy plateau that
shifted
into place just so by capricious sea currents. Or was the sand bar itself
shaped by invisible forces planned in advance for a rendezvous that would save
his life and allow for future lives? Was he destined to live? Were the
others
fated to die? If so, why? What has been predetermined, and what has been
left
to chance?
Was there a particular reason why this one man escaped death? Was it for the
benefit of his unborn son or one of his subsequent descendants who will some
day father or mother a future prime minister? Was some special person the
express reason for a series of unseen interventions making this event just one
of many?
Were the winds of fate blowing in the North Sea on that day for the benefit of
someone destined to play an important role in the future - a role which would
have been thwarted had the Nazi gunners achieved total success? Was there a
purpose known only to Providence that required intercession?
Did God, Himself, go out of His way and take special effort to guide one
particular RAF crew member in an act of mercy? Was the fate of the entire
crew
directly in the hands of a sovereign God, who decided on the spot who would
live and who would die? Or had the die been cast since the beginning of
time?
Was it that Haffenden lived and the others died because otherwise, there would
have been no sons or daughters, who had to be born, since God knew them since
before time began?
Did God's hands perform a specific act of clemency and perform a miracle to
ensure future events? If this is the answer, then God must be an
interventionist who interacts from time to time so that what He wants to
happen
will happen. In between would be just free-wheeling.
Instead of the whims of chance, fate, or sporadic divine intervention, let us
look at one of God's characteristics for the answer. We know that God is
omniscient or all-knowing. Matter, space, time, and energy were created by
God, but He is not governed by, nor bound by, His creation. Time is within
God's domain, not the other way around. Thus, God knows the end from the
beginning and all the events in between.
We are bound by time. Completely subject to past events, we are locked in the
present, and experience the future moment by moment as we move through
space-time. God is not so encumbered. He transcends time, the future is as
clearly visible and knowable to Him as the present is to us. To quote
James L.
Christian, author of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering:
In the mind of God, there is no "before" or "after" there is only a "now." In
"God's experience" all events occur simultaneously. To put it another way,
all
the past and all the future "that is, our past and future" exist together in
God's present.
God does not push us along with constant or intermittent intervention to
get us
where He wants us to end up. Seeing the complete rainbow of time, Haffy's
offspring were as known to God when Haffy stood on the sand bar, as they are
today.
This does not negate miracles. God is quite capable of performing miracles,
but even miracles are foreknown. In essence, we live in a miracle. This
universe and the world we live in is a wonder of God's creation. He initiated
a miracle, and sustains the miracle, according to His divine Will. Life
itself
is miraculous, but it is not necessary to call for divine intervention at
every
juncture. It may seem paradoxical at first that we can believe in God's
wonders, but need not invoke miracles in the procession of life. Yet this is
no different than the seeming paradox of predestination versus free will.
As the First Cause of all events, this is not to say that God is the causer of
all events. His knowing the future does not preempt our free will. We are
given the freedom, without divine control, to make our own uncoerced choices
from among any number of alternative courses of action. We choose from
available options, and make our decisions, either in His Will or against His
Will.
We alone decide, guided by intellect, circumstance, habit, instinct, advice,
prayer, etc. If we make bad choices we endure consequences, although God can
make good come from bad. So we may suffer. He does not.
When we select proper choices God desires for us, we prosper and receive
blessings. Does He agonize over the choices we make, wondering what we
will do
from moment to moment? No, the choices we make God knew about before the
beginning of time.
That British war plane could have crashed hundreds of miles from shore.
Haffenden could have commenced swimming in any direction; his legs could have
cramped anytime; he could have given up at any point; the sand bar could have
been anyplace. Yet, it was all foreknown. There was no necessity for God to
take specific, miraculous, or intermediate actions along the way. The events
simply moved along a time line that was already known to an omniscient God.
In the words of Paul, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world ..." (Eph. 1:4). Also from Romans 8:29: "For whom He
did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son
..." Considering all of us were known to God from the beginning, then the
events that caused us all to be born into the world also must have been
known.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 25 2000 - 11:27:44 EST