God endorses Obama might be more plausible if the hurricane, say, hit LA and TX with the response so impressive that solid red states suddenly turned blue.

For just as certainly as God in His predetermined decrees knows His own will, so certainly does He know all the necessarily included determinations, including determinations of the free will of creatures, be they of absolute or conditional futurity.

God, respecting the nature of things, moves necessary agents to necessary, and free agents to free, activity — including sin, except that God is the originator only of its physical entity, not of its formal malice

Certainly it makes sense that God created the mechanisms that allow for natural causes to exist, and he could stop natural occurrences that result in human suffering (and animal suffering for that matter) if he wished, and why he doesn’t, is a profound and morally troubling mystery, but this is distinct from him causing or them to occur.

To believe otherwise, is to accept the fallacy that God works primarily in nature. He could, of course, being all powerful, but he doesn’t, because he’s all moral, or all good, among other reasons. Aquinas has effectively argued that God God doesn’t directly cause what occurs in the natural world.

And yet, we still have, in the popular culture, and even among some educated, sophisticated thinkers, the belief that God “sent” the rain, or the sunshine, or the hurricane, either to “punish” are “reward” certain humans. This view is not only morally offensive in that it makes God responsible, directly, for the suffering a nd death of innocents, it also is laughably lacking in theological sophistication.

I thought that was ridiculous. But then I do not presume to know the mind of God. The hurricane was sent to the East Coast for a reason. The result was the defeat of Mitt Romney. I don’t know why it happened.

“A president who…is NOT a presidency where we can truly trade our worn, dirty rags for robes of purest white”

Mea Culpa

Based upon all of scripture, it would seem that God’s will is for the growth of his church (both temporal and universal).

As the bride of Christ, the Church’s well-being is his utmost concern.

If it’s true that persecution causes the flourishing of the church (refining is another word) and that as it says in scripture, “Blessed are you when people curse you in My name.”, then God’s will has been accomplished.

A president who supports religious freedom/discourages abortion/respects the definition of marriage and does not seek to confine faith to the private sphere is a president where we can truly trade our worn, dirty rags for robes of the purest white.