Can random events happen if all depends on the action of almighty God?

Random - what does it mean?

Some say that random just means we don't know why something acted in such a way. Obviously that is inadequate for there are loads of things we don't know why they do what they do and that does not mean they are random!  Others say that random is just an action that happens and is pointless.  Real randomness would refer to something coming and going from nothing - no cause works on it.  It has nothing to do with causes.

For something to be random, it seems that nothing must cause it to behave in a certain way or a number of ways.  But something always does - this is not the time to discuss that though.

The best or only understanding is that random means something is happening blindly. It is unintended. It is accidental. It is not predictable. Whatever happens then is not happening because it has a divine purpose. Do not make the mistake of thinking that randomness is just unpredictability. That would mean that an event is not random if you know or should know how it happened. Knowing how it happened has nothing to do with making it random.

Randomness means that something is taking place for no INTENDED reason. Do not take your mind off the fact that randomness does not exist except as something that happens without it being intended by anyone.

Is the usefulness of the concept of randomness what matters not randomness?

For many thinkers, "randomness only seems to happen. An event happens the way it would if nothing at all were causing it. But in fact countless and unimaginable causes are making it produce the result. What matters to us is not that the event truly is random but that it is as useful as something that is really random and it must be down to blind forces. It looks random to us for there are too many causes involved for us to see them.  But we don't want to think all things are regimented but we will be happy if there are so many causes that we cannot fathom and which make a thing look really random.  We want to think we won the prize by chance even if there were countless causes we could not predict or see.  Random is useful as a concept not as a reality.  It does not matter if something is random as look as it manages to look random." 

Surely then it is important that most of these causes behind randomness NOT be intelligent or intentional?  That ruins the attraction.  Those who want to use randomness as a working hypothesis or a fantasy are being atheists in practice.  It will not do that an all-powerful God will let things be random for by letting he is still controlling.  Letting your dog out on to the road is still an act of control.

God and Randomness

If random meant something was popping into existence from nothing that would mean there is no need for the notion of a creator God. If God created it, it would not be random.

Resignation

If you see God as the being who rules all and knows all and whose will cannot be changed except by him then you will feel you must resign to it for defiance does nothing and can do nothing and only makes you feel worse about the terrible things he lets happen.

Whether God controls all things or lets things do their own thing (that is still control for he lets it happen) this lazy resignation will be on the table.  Loose control is still control.

No Natural Evil

Religion worries about moral evil - bad things done intentionally by beings with a conscience.  Natural evil is evil that is not down to any free agent.  It may be seen as accidental evil or as good as.  Strictly speaking if there is a God then there is no natural evil.   For example, he creates earthquakes.

For the religious believer one event is an accident and another one is not.  It is very cherry picked.  A car crash that you walk away from is seen as planned by God but if you break your whole body it is seen as an accident.

Here is another way they employ this kind of unfair and selective reasoning.  They dismiss the fact that the way nature works is down to the direction accidents put it in.  An accident is never an event but a series.  A car crashes direct results are accidents too.  So if you find a money box thrown from a car in a crash you can't say it was not an accident as well.  You won't want to call it an accident for you see it as you getting lucky.

Another example.  They say it is God’s plan for women not to have abortions for God set up nature for women to nurture their unborn and born children.  But it is only luck that there are no cases where babies start off by themselves in children, men and women.  If that was happening we would definitely be using abortion especially if it happened to most people. We could as easily have that setup as the setup we have now.   

A mistake made in a schoolbook is categorised as an accident and nobody says God set up the mistake so it is essentially his - he simulates mistakes.  Mistakes are not really mistakes.

God's providential care

The idea that God looks after you just because others are suffering and dying not you is thin and superstitious.  You don't know what God NOT caring for you would look like.  So it is just a guess.  You use the suffering of others to over-value yourself and your benefits.

A bomb explodes outside your house when you are at the supermarket. Your house is reduced to rubble.  You say that if you had been at home you would be dead. Can you or should you say that if there is a God? What if God was so determined to keep you alive that being at home the bomb would have done no harm?  What if God's plan was that you would not be at home so there was no if? 

You talk about God's plan to spare you when you don't know if it is about you.  Perhaps he only spared you not for you but for something else?  There is arrogance in you.

It is random when it suits you to think it is random

People seem to like the thought that we are puppets in a divine scheme one day and the next day they want to think that God himself takes risks with you and has made risk possible by allowing real accidents to happen.  So God can create randomness and some of us end up as victims of it.  The notion of a God who takes the risk of sending his son to die for you risks his love by offering to you when you are in danger of rejecting it is sheer sentimentalism and is impossible ESPECIALLY if there is a God. Yet for people of Christian faith it would be the main attraction.  The question of if accidents are real or not is an extremely important one for people suffer because of them and must be thought through and not treated so disrespectfully by flip-floppers.

Can an All-Powerful God who creates all let random events happen?

Nobody can give an argument telling us how God can cause all things and still cause events to be random.  They just assume it and say he can and hope you don't see the contradiction.

Believers say God can create creatures and things that he cannot control so that they can do random things. They would tell you, "God causes people and nature to be able to cause things themselves. So God's being a cause is not in competition with anything that has the power to be a cause. It empowers it to cause. God then is the cause of all things one way but this is compatible with you being the real cause of the decisions you make and the actions you perform."

To understand what we mean by creation it is helpful to see the doctrine as saying that God has more to do with what we are and do than we do. Creation being distant enough from God to diminish his responsibility for what happens in it is out. I may choose to hit a ball with a stick but God enables me to do it and choose it and enables the influences that cause me to do it. My own part if any is not even worth thinking about. And if I make a choice I make it because of God’s assistance and creative power and not against it.

You have a crate of wine. If you cause others to cause their drunkenness that does not make you any less of a cause. God causing you to cause things is still God causing things. If he makes you then he is the only important cause.  Even if you were independent you are still nothing compared to his role.  And there is no true independence for God giving it to you is still in control.  God giving you independence is not the same as a spouse giving it for the spouse is not your maker and the one giving you what you have.

Random means God is not involved. Or does it?  If all things come from God then God is involved.  He has far more to do with what something does than it has.  If something acts random it is still not random if there is a God.  The randomness is just a divine deception.

FINALLY

Belief in a God means you don't literally mean it when something is called a random event.  If he tells you something is random he is a liar.  You only want to think randomness is real when it suits you to.  That is so dishonest.  Be an atheist and the problems vanish.