Did God make Donald Trump President? This question has been debated since Trump was elected and still captures considerable attention today. I wrote about this before, but thought it pertinent to share again in the wake of some recent articles I have read.
When I awoke the morning after the presidential election and discovered Donald Trump had won, I thought it was a miracle. Not in the biblical sense of God manifesting His omnipotence, but in the sense his win was mystifyingly remarkable and unexpected, at least to me. Since Trump’s election I have been reading that some of the most vocal within the evangelical community think his election was a miracle of the first order, and not the second.
The mainstream news media was mystified.
The mainstream news media, as mystified as I was, and trying to understand how Trump pulled it off, are trying to get into the mindset of the voting block they think was responsible, white evangelicals.
I think the liberal press is in the dark on this one because of the truism expressed in the childhood retort, “It takes one to know one.” By that I mean, many within the liberal press do not understand the evangelical mindset because for the most part they are not evangelicals.
So let me open the eyes of those blinded by their liberalism, evangelicals did not vote for Donald Trump because of his sterling Christian character; they voted for him because they were terrified of a Hillary Clinton administration.
The liberal news media searching for a political explanation for the results of the last election will not understand or accept the idea of divine intervention, since many of their number seem to question His very existence.
God doesn’t take breaks from running the universe.
But when evangelicals claim God made Trump President to supposedly correct the policies of Barack Obama they are suggesting that God took a break from running the universe when Obama was elected and that is theologically inconsistent. I don’t think God takes those kinds of breaks.
Based on my reading and understanding of the Scriptures, God sovereignly superintends the flow of human history, so that humans acting as free moral agents making decisions and doing things, both good and bad, are woven into the tapestry of circumstances inexorably culminating in His perfect will.
God is always in control.
This means God, in His mercy and grace works in, through and with humans to accomplish His will in the earth. In His grace, God works through us at times, and in His mercy, in spite of us at other times. And this holds true for whoever the president is, Barack Obama or Donald Trump.
Solomon wrote, “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes,” Proverbs 21:1. A king or president can ultimately do no more or no less than God allows. Donald Trump, as our president, is a very small part of a master plan that is supremely larger than his own ego.
God is still in control; Trump only thinks he is.
“God sovereignly superintends the flow of human history so that humans acting as free moral agents doing things and making decisions both good and bad are woven into the tapestry of circumstances inexorably culminating in His perfect will.”
So how exactly do Hitler and the Holocaust “culminate in His perfect will”?
God allows free will, so a president or King can do more or less “than God allows.” Free will is FREE.
You were not the only one to ask this question, this was my response:
First I want to thank you for reading my articles. Second, I want to thank you for your question, in an article of five hundred words or less it is difficult to fully explore and subsequently explain the tension that exists between God’s superintendence of human history and the will of man.
At the outset I want to make a few points clear that may not have been so in the article itself. I do not believe whatever man chooses to do is God’s perfect will, I do believe that whatever man chooses to do whether good or evil will not thwart the ultimate purposes and culmination of God’s perfect will. These are two different issues. One of the things that makes evil profoundly so and renders any explanation unsatisfying is that evil is illogical. I admit I am incapable of making evil logical or satisfying in any sense; I merely recognize it, but I cannot explain it. Just because God can take the evil man commits to ultimately bring about His will, does not absolve man of guilt.
I could cite a number of biblical examples, Joseph and Judas come to mind, that portray how God takes evil actions and intentions and uses them to accomplish His will, but I will use the historical event you cited.
As Hitler rose to political power in pre-World War II Germany, the Jewish people in Germany saw the proverbial “handwriting on the wall.” Germany was flooded with a host of Jewish applications to migrate to any number of European nations. This resulted in those nations, Great Britain chief among them, to gravely restrict Jewish immigrants. Soon after the end of World War II, possibly from a guilty national conscience, Great Britain championed the carving out of a homeland for the newly created nation of Israel in modern day Palestine, supposedly a safe haven for the Jewish people. The Nazi inspired Holocaust supplied the impetus behind the formation of modern day Israel. The establishment of Israel as a nation is seen by many as a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14.
I believe biblical prophecy is an admixture of God’s foreknowledge of what man will do and His foreordained plan. Some will ask did God have Hitler immolate six million Jews to bring about the restoration of Israel as a nation? My answer would be an emphatic, no! But He did use it to bring about His will to restore Israel to nationhood after the Diaspora.
I am quite sure Hitler intended to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth, but his efforts only succeeded in establishing Israel as a nation. When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually become second only to Pharaoh in Egypt to ensure the survival of his brothers and their families from the famine in Canaan and Egypt, he told his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,” Exodus 30:20. Hitler did not do God’s perfect will and he will be held accountable, but he did not stop God from restoring Israel to nationhood.
God never promised everything we encounter in this life will be good, but He did promise he would “cause all things to work together for good to those who love God,” Romans 8:28.
Yours respectfully,
Gary