The World Runs on Calculated "Coincidences"
We call so many things in life "coincidence." We happened to meet that person, happened to go to that place, things happened to go wrong, an accident happened.
Alexander Fleming left his lab untidy and went on vacation, then happened to notice that bacteria had died around a mold growing in a petri dish. That was the beginning of penicillin, which has saved hundreds of millions of lives.
An engineer standing in front of radar equipment happened to notice that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted, and that's how the microwave oven was born.
But read the Bible and you keep running into strange scenes. Looking back later, they weren't coincidences at all.
The Bible shows this through three people. All three were just living an ordinary day, and that coincidence made history.
The first is Ruth. A widow, hungry, she went to glean grain and "happened" to enter one particular field out of many. The Bible records the moment plainly: "She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" (Ruth 2:3). The owner of that field was Boaz, and the two married. That coincidence became the starting point for the birth, generations later, of David, Israel's greatest king.
The second is Saul. He only went looking for his father's lost donkeys. Just as he was about to give up, a servant happened to suggest they visit the prophet Samuel. But Samuel had already been waiting for him at God's command, and anointed him king.
The third is Esther. Haman, a powerful official, was plotting to wipe out the Jewish people, and on that very night of crisis, the king happened to be unable to sleep. "On that night the king could not sleep" (Esther 6:1). Going through the royal records, the king discovered how the Jew Mordecai had once saved his life, and at exactly that moment Haman walked in. One bout of royal insomnia saved an entire people.
Humans now say they are building intelligence that surpasses humans. AGI swallows huge amounts of data and calculates what will come next as probabilities. But however sophisticated an intelligence is, it can only predict possibilities. Unlike God, it can't see to the end of dominoes that haven't even been set up yet.
So that thing you went through, the event you can't find any reason for, may be only the first domino, still falling. When the first piece tips over, no one knows how far it will go.
So today's failure can become tomorrow's starting point, and today's unexpected event can later become the moment that resolves something else.
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Alexander Fleming left his lab untidy and went on vacation, then happened to notice that bacteria had died around a mold growing in a petri dish. That was the beginning of penicillin, which has saved hundreds of millions of lives.
An engineer standing in front of radar equipment happened to notice that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted, and that's how the microwave oven was born.
But read the Bible and you keep running into strange scenes. Looking back later, they weren't coincidences at all.
Calculated coincidence: the gears of a life
The Bible shows this through three people. All three were just living an ordinary day, and that coincidence made history.
The first is Ruth. A widow, hungry, she went to glean grain and "happened" to enter one particular field out of many. The Bible records the moment plainly: "She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" (Ruth 2:3). The owner of that field was Boaz, and the two married. That coincidence became the starting point for the birth, generations later, of David, Israel's greatest king.
The second is Saul. He only went looking for his father's lost donkeys. Just as he was about to give up, a servant happened to suggest they visit the prophet Samuel. But Samuel had already been waiting for him at God's command, and anointed him king.
The third is Esther. Haman, a powerful official, was plotting to wipe out the Jewish people, and on that very night of crisis, the king happened to be unable to sleep. "On that night the king could not sleep" (Esther 6:1). Going through the royal records, the king discovered how the Jew Mordecai had once saved his life, and at exactly that moment Haman walked in. One bout of royal insomnia saved an entire people.
God's wisdom goes beyond the probabilities of AGI
Humans now say they are building intelligence that surpasses humans. AGI swallows huge amounts of data and calculates what will come next as probabilities. But however sophisticated an intelligence is, it can only predict possibilities. Unlike God, it can't see to the end of dominoes that haven't even been set up yet.
So that thing you went through, the event you can't find any reason for, may be only the first domino, still falling. When the first piece tips over, no one knows how far it will go.
So today's failure can become tomorrow's starting point, and today's unexpected event can later become the moment that resolves something else.
