Divine Intentions: The Life You're Supposed to Live, the Person God Meant You to Be

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The above is an essay I wrote on the interplay between the Divine Author and Human Author’s intention. God says more than the individual authors may have known, yet he does not contravene what the authors wrote and intended. But, beyond all His best efforts, we must give our consent if the plan of salvation is to become a reality in our lives. In the story, the demon king Hiraṇyakaśipu has extracted a guarantee from Brahma that he can be killed neither by man nor animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither during the day nor during the night. Even if one assumes the existence of God or gods, there is still a problem of providing plausible reasons for attributing a specific event to divine intervention, as opposed to attributing it to natural causes or simply random chance.

Indeed, read this way, we might then turn to Acts—as the lectionary encourages us to do—and find there a reversal of Babel as the Spirit overcomes language for the sake of the unifying work of the Gospel message. The Aboriginal languages of First Nations people, Métis and Inuit,” Statistics Canada, last modified October 2017, accessed June 1, 2019, https://www12.Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem Archangelum, beatum Ioannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes Sanctos, et te pater, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

Rather than portraying human difference as the punishment of God, Babel and Pentecost are complementary stories, each highlighting God’s intention for cultural and linguistic diversity. Glory be to the Father Who has created me, glory be to the Son Who has redeemed me, glory be to the Holy Ghost Who has sanctified me. Given this, we may turn once more with the lectionary to Acts 2 and attend carefully to the empowerment of the Spirit through language, noting that those gifted with the Spirit’s presence “began to speak in other languages” (verse 4) so that all those in the crowd “heard them speaking in the native language of each” (verse 6).Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 211– 235.