Why We Want God to be in Control
God isnʼt, but the desire is so understandable
In her book Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed shares a collection of the letters she received and responded to as the advice columnist “Sugar.” One woman, Abbie, wrote to Sugar concerning her infant daughterʼs tumor and brain surgery, and her resulting question of Godʼs existence.
“If there were a God, why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life-threatening surgery, Sugar?”
Her resonant question assumes the dominant narrative that any existing God is both all-powerful and benevolent. In a followup letter, Abbie relayed that the surgery went well, revealing her babyʼs tumor to be benign, and stated, “At this point I am hoping there is a God and that the power of prayer is what kept my little Emma safe and well.”
In her direct and generous reply, Strayed cautioned against the precarious belief that Godʼs protection can be secured. Sometimes inexplicable suffering just happens:
“Countless people have been devastated for reasons that cannot be explained or justified in spiritual terms. To do as you are doing in asking If there were a God, why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life-threatening surgery?—understandable as that question is—creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason…What you learned as you sat bedside with Emma in the intensive care unit is that your idea of God as a possibly nonexistent spirit man who may or may not hear your prayers and may or may not swoop in to save your ass when the going gets rough is a losing prospect.”
Sheʼs right, but oh, it’s a brutal road getting there. We desperately want other people’s horror to be avoidable, otherwise it could happen to us. Canʼt it just be true, Sugar, that prayer to an almighty God saves babies? That way, if Emma gets sick again, Abbie could just have faith, and pray, and Emma would be okay!
I am sympathetic to what I used to believe, what millions of people believe today. A major reason we all seek control is because we are physiologically programmed to do so. Data from animal research, neuroimaging work, and clinical studies show that the drive to control is “a biological imperative for survival,” and therefore “is innate…present in animals and even very young infants before any societal or cultural values of autonomy can be learned.”1
Researchers have known since the 1980ʼs that perceived control over a stressor inhibits “autonomic arousal, stress hormone release, immune system suppression, and maladaptive behaviors.” What does that mean? Say a family with young kids moves to a new town where they donʼt know anyone, and where the babyʼs sleep schedule is shot to hell thanks to the time change, and where the four-year-old cries for Grandma. Say the AC in their new house then breaks, and one spouse is stuck with bedtime duty in the sweaty house while the other works long hours for a terrible boss. And then, say the dog gets sick and has to be put down. These escalating losses of control are processed as threats by each family memberʼs amygdala, the brain structure responsible for the bodyʼs fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.
While automatic stress responses can be lifesaving when we are in physical danger, they can also be maladaptive and inhibit rational thinking. Letʼs say one parent screams at the child now missing Grandma and her dog, the other drinks and stress-shops, and the four-year-old hits her parents. Hijacking the rest of the brain, the amygdala drives us to do whatever will have us quickly feeling safe. Perceived safety—not logic—reigns, and neurologically speaking, the loss of control is the loss of safety.
The opposite is also true. Nearly fifty years ago renowned psychologist Albert Bandura was the first to demonstrate that self-efficacy—confidence in oneʼs ability to succeed in a given situation or accomplish a task—has an effect on human behavior.2 Our ability to not only have some control over our behaviors and environments, but to believe we possess said control, is crucial for success and well-being.
Perhaps youʼre now thinking: Ok Halley, thatʼs great, but in the Cheryl Strayed example, it was about God being in control, not us. Do you even know what you titled this article? Hang with me everyone; weʼre getting there.
In 1966 psychologist Julian Rotter developed the theory of locus of control, which is the degree to which people feel in control of what happens in their lives. Those with an internal locus of control perceive a causal relationship between their actions and their outcomes, while people with an external locus of control believe that their circumstances are determined by outside forces such as fate.3 Hanna Levenson added nuance to Rotterʼs theory in 1981 when she identified a second variety of external locus of control besides random chance or fate–powerful others. This refers to the belief that influential authorities, be they individuals or groups, control outcomes—good and bad.4
When the reassuring childhood narrative that our caregivers have everything under control fades away, many of us seek refuge in a different influential authority: an omnipotent, sovereign, Powerful Other.
Enter the white evangelical God. (Nicknames include Lord, Almighty, Heavenly Father, Jesus, Christ, and Holy Spirit if youʼre Pentecostal.)
Assurance that God is in control IS a means to convince ourselves that we are in control by proxy.
Itʼs the illusion of control at work, the cognitive bias named by psychologist Ellen Langer in 1975, wherein people overestimate their power to influence events.5 The presupposition that God is wholly sovereign is the illusion of control in a religious Halloween costume, and indeed a pious quid pro quo.
Weʼre hardwired to want control. Some control is crucial for both surviving and thriving. Unfortunately weʼre much more prone to try to control other people than we are to utilize our own agency, our own internal power, and focus on the one person we have any right to control: ourselves. We wish God was a codependent, controlling everything everyone does, but She isnʼt—and itʼs really a pain in the ass sometimes, and agonizingly unbearable at other times.
To Abbie—and arenʼt all of us Abbie sometimes?—I wish God had the power to prevent devastating things from happening. It makes total sense why you would long for that; I longed for the same when I miscarried, when a loved one died young, when I saw a woman die in childbirth, and every day when I hear of the latest horror in Gaza and the newest authoritarian move in America.
There is another way to see God. Itʼs gritty, and at first blush probably feels shitty by comparison to the relief we all crave from pain. But here it is: perhaps God does not have power over us, and instead has power together with us. Partnering, witnessing, accompanying. Guiding us towards our own power. Unable to stop pain, but with us in the midst of it. Maybe God is a Midwife.
Leotti LA, Iyengar SS, Ochsner KN. Born to choose: the origins and value of the need for control. Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Oct;14(10):457-63. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.08.001. PMID: 20817592; PMCID: PMC2944661.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Rotter JB. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychol Monogr. 1966; 80(1): 1–28. pmid:5340840
Levenson, Hanna. (1981). Differentiating among internality, powerful others, and chance. 10.1016/B978-0-12-443201-7.50006-3.
Leotti LA, Iyengar SS, Ochsner KN. Born to choose: the origins and value of the need for control. Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Oct;14(10):457-63. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.08.001. PMID: 20817592; PMCID: PMC2944661.