“Operation Hail Mary” and an alert on my iPhone

My wife and I watched the movie Operation Hail Mary over the weekend and found it very thought-provoking. I won’t spoil the plot by telling you that it involves a world-class scientist who is building a cohort of specialists to deal with an impending threat. At one point, she makes a statement to one of the characters that includes the words, “God willing.”

The surprised specialist asks her if she believes in God. “It beats the alternative,” she replies.

Now to the other story for this article. This alert just appeared on my iPhone: “It’s the East Pacific’s first Category 5 since 2004. No landfall is expected, but the surf could be deadly.” The alert concerns Hurricane Genevieve, which is forecast to generate dangerous surf and rip currents along the southwestern coast of Mexico and the southern portions of the Baja California Peninsula today. 

When I first became a pastor, the alert to which I am responding would have seemed miraculous. To hold a slab of glass on which such words mysteriously appeared would have been beyond explanation. For my grandfather, knowing about such a storm before its effects were seen on land would have been surprising as well.

While I’m accustomed to alerts on my phone and to meteorological warnings about coming threats, it occurs to me that I am no more able to explain how either operates than I would have been forty years ago. I have no real idea of how a mobile phone works. I know that it connects to a cellular signal, but I don’t really know what those words mean or how to build what they represent. I have no personal knowledge of meteorology and thus could not do what the weather service does when it issues its warnings.

If I was therefore to respond to this weather alert only on the basis of what I understand and can prove, I would risk becoming a victim of the threat about which I am being warned.

This is a conversation worth having on a much higher level than technological innovation and natural disasters.

Wagering that God exists

The “alternative” to believing in God is obviously not believing in God. The scientist in Operation Hail Mary apparently thinks that neither option can be proven with scientific credibility, so she should err on the side that offers the most pragmatic benefit.

I’m reminded of Pascal’s famous “wager,” which essentially asserts:

• If God exists and you believe in him, you gain infinite happiness in heaven.
• If he exists and you do not believe in him, you suffer infinite loss in hell.
• If he does not exist and you believe in him, you lose only small, finite pleasures.
• If he does not exist and you do not believe in him, you gain only minor, finite freedom.

You should therefore believe that God exists, since the benefits of such “faith” outweigh its potential losses.

I cannot prove that God exists, or that he does not exist, for the simple reason that such proof is impossible. How would you show evidentially that God does not exist in some corner of the universe? How would you prove logically that his existence is impossible? How would you prove pragmatically that his purported reality in your life makes him objectively real to the rest of us?

But believing in God just because I cannot prove he does not exist, and because such belief carries benefits that apparently outweigh their costs, is a poor substitute for what Jesus offers us today.

How to make the devil tremble

As Blaise Pascal would be the first to say, the “faith” his “wager” encourages is not biblical faith. It is not a personal relationship with a personal God who transforms all who trust fully in him. It’s hard to imagine the early Christians offering such a “wager” to their culture, since their changed lives were such an obvious and powerful apologetic for their faith (cf. Acts 4:13).

If you have met the risen Christ and had your sins forgiven and your life transformed, you probably won’t need arguments and wagers regarding the existence of God. I believe in marriage because I am married. I believe in friendship because I have good friends.

When my trust wavers in God’s existence, relevance, word, and will, this is typically because I am not experiencing his presence on an intimate personal level. I am working for him more than I am walking with him. I am trusting and defending my theological beliefs more than I am trusting and defending a living Lord.

Writing and reading articles like this one function best as gateways to experiencing the God about whom I am writing and you are reading. Ten minutes spent in silence before his throne will mark us in ways ten hours of writing and reading theology cannot. Sermons, Bible studies, and website articles are about God; prayer and worship are time spent with him. At such times, his Spirit is able to work on us as a carpenter works on wood, forming and molding us into the character of Christ.

David’s invitation is still God’s word to us: “Oh, taste and see that the Lᴏʀᴅ is good!” (Psalm 34:8a). He can then add from personal experience, “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (v. 8b). When we accept his invitation, we’ll be able to echo his affirmation.

Consequently, one of Satan’s most subtle strategies is to encourage us to focus on theology (words about God) more than on Theo himself. It’s been said that the devil laughs when we preach and mocks when we teach, but trembles when we pray.

Let’s make Satan tremble today, to the glory of God.