United States: The attack against Donald Trump and God’s providential plan

An outcry of populist theology welcomed the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Good measure went along this line: “Considering that the shot missed him by just a couple of centimeters, God must have been looking out for him.”

I totally agree. God was certainly watching over the former president. What more can we say about what happened?

While trying too hard to explain God’s ways may be presumptuous, we can at least say that any serious attempt to understand them will stumble over mystery. Understanding God’s plan in its literally unimaginable extent and complexity goes far beyond our limited ability to grasp divine realities other than those He reveals. As for the little we see, we see it, as Saint Paul says, “as through a dark glass” (1 Cor. 13:12).

In the case at hand, let’s start with the obvious. God is not a Democrat or Republican, or anything like that in political terms. But politics and politicians do have a place in God’s providential plan, just like everyone and everything that exists now, or has existed in the past, or will exist in the future. Furthermore, although God does not cause evil, he does allow the intrusion of evil into history, including evil done by mindless individuals who shoot celebrities.

Writers sometimes struggle with these questions. In 1927, the American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder published a novel titled The San Luis Rey bridge. Acclaimed in its day, it earned its author the Pulitzer Prize and continues to be read today.

Set in 18th century Peru, between Lima and Cuzco, the novel tells the story of five people who cross an old rope bridge over a deep canyon. The bridge breaks and they fall into the void. A Franciscan friar, in his eagerness to vindicate the ways of God, begins an investigation that will last years. His conclusion: Each of those people died at the right time in his life.

As for Wilder, his response was that everything that happens is an expression of God’s love. It’s a pious thought, true in his way, but he raises the question of assuming that God’s love is a lot like our own. Does it really look alike?

We are often unaware of God’s plans, but there is no doubt that He has a plan. And although the Second Vatican Council did not publish a philosophy or theology of history, its constitution on the Church in the modern world, The joy and hope, offers clues. For example:

“The entire history of man has been the story of a tough fight against the powers of evil, from the dawn of history to the last day. Finding himself in the middle of the battlefield, man has to fight to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by the grace of God, that he manages to achieve his own inner integrity… All the “Human activities must be purified and perfected by the cross and resurrection of Christ,” the constitution teaches.

Even politics? Yes, even politics.

After nearly dying when he was shot by a suspected assassin in 1981, Ronald Reagan claimed that God had spared his life so he could negotiate an agreement with the Soviet Union to avoid nuclear war. Donald Trump, in his speech before the Republican Party convention, said that he was grazed by the bullet but said that he felt “very safe because he had God on my side.” There are big differences between Reagan and Trump, but both knew Who to thank for being alive.

Editor’s note: This article is a translation of a blog post by journalist Russell Shaw on the National Catholic Register. The opinions expressed in this article correspond exclusively to its author.