The Intellect of Man: Coincidence or Divine Intervention

I think I'm going to change the general focus of these more to what I wanted to talk about in the first place. Not so much evolution, but the intellect and ability for one to comprehend and/or understand and/or accept the existence of God.

We have a classic example where someone will say something along the lines of "Someone was watching out for me" or "My guardian angle must've been close by". Whereas others will say "Hey, that was really lucky" and "Nah, just coincidence."

Let me name a few events that can be applied either way.

1. Your tire blows out on the freeway, you spin a few times, run into the median, spin again, and stop. You car is facing the direction of the flow of traffic, it is off the side of the road enough that it is not blocking any lanes, it is just far enough away from the barrier that you have enough room to comfortably move around and put on your spare. No damage was done to the axles, you are not injured, your tires have enough tread left after spinning to get to a decent shop and get them replaced. The first shop you find is having a tire sale, and you get 1/2 off. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

2. It is snowy and you are driving, your car slides out on a turn while you are going about 60 mph on the busy freeway. You slide all the way across 4 lanes of traffic without hitting anyone, then you flip around and slide all the way back through those 4 lanes of traffic *again* without hitting anyone. You stop facing towards traffic, but off the side of the road, without hitting anything. Coincidence or Divine Intervention.

3. You have a long road trip to make, but end up delaying it for one day just because you don't feel like going yet. You go out to lunch with a friend the day you are planning on leaving and notice that the tread is starting to separate on one of your tires. Had you driven the night before, chances are the tire would've blown. Coincidence of Divine Interfention?

4. You lose a contact while you are at school and cannot find it. You go into a bathroom, say a prayer for help in locating the lost contact, walk back to where you think you lost the contact, look down, and you're staring right at the contact. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

5. A large number of people fast and pray for an end to the drought. Within a week, there are very heavy snow storms and massive rainfall. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

6. A Prophet of God dies. The day before his funeral is cold and snowy and miserable. The day of his funeral is sunny and warm and wonderful. The day after his funeral is, again, cold and snowy and miserable. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

7. You have an urge to do something you don't want to do. You fight that urge, but feel you are fighting a loosing battle. You read the scriptures, say a prayer, and the urge is gone. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

8. You have a test for which you have been studying, but feel you just don't know the material properly. You continually get mediocre grades on the practice study exams. You say a prayer before going to take the real test. Everything makes perfect sense while you are taking the exam, and you achieve good marks. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

9. You say a prayer in the morning asking God to let you be a tool for good. After an uneventful day, you feel the urge to call one of your friends. You call them, and it turns out that they are in desperate need of help in one way or another, and had just finished saying a prayer to ask for that help some how. You are easily able to help. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

10. You are going down a rocky dirty road on your mountain bike at about 25 miles per hour. You lose your front tire and have a terrible over-the-handlebars wreck. You are knocked unconscious for a few seconds, but your helmet keeps any major damage from happening, and you slide about 40 feet down the road. Your only injuries are a few rocks lodged in your face and arms and dirty-style road rash. No broken bones, no sprained joints, no pulled muscles, bike still in working order after the front tire is re-attached. Coincidence or Divine Intervention?

I know a lot of people who would be able to look at these and be able to see Divine Intervention. I also know a lot of people who can always find some reason why it is just chance, luck, or coincidence. They simply refuse to acknowlege that God could exist because of lack of "evidence".

Here is the problem with their reasoning. There is evidence *everywhere* that God exists. People, however, refuse to acknowlege it as evidence because the idea of God existing is too far fetched for them. Their intellect cannot and will not support that conclusion.

They can look straight at the subtle proof God is giving them that He exists and find some reason why that isn't really "proof" or that it is just their imagination. There is no convincing them, because they are able to rationalize God out of the equation.

This reasoning, however, is a two edged sword. Any argument applied to someone to say "you just can't accept this as proof", can and will be turned around. Someone who credits God for every little random coincidence must be crazy. They are unwilling to acknowlege their own skill in preventing a severe accident, unwilling to accept scientific proof that is contrary to their beliefs, etc, etc.

Eventually, though, all truth will be known and the two edged sword will strike a death blow in one direction; Coincidence or Divine Intervention?