A caller relays a sad story that culminates in a question raised by a grieving friend: “My very best friend’s nephew recently died due to a drug overdose. He was young — in his early 30s — and she came over to my house yesterday. It’s so tragic and so sad, and she asked me, ‘[Does] God know the day you are going to be born and the day you are going to die, [and if He does, then] since he overdosed, did [God] already know that was how [my nephew] was going to die?’”
The caller then explains her thoughts and what her initial response was: “I always thought that God cannot circumvent your self-will, [but] I didn’t know how to answer it, and I said that I think if you ask a priest that it’s just a mystery that we aren’t meant to know on this side of heaven. But I didn’t know if that was right.”
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Father Dave asks where the caller and her friends heard this notion that God knows the day we’re going to die, and she responds: “I think I’ve heard that not in the Catholic Church, but [from other denominations].” Father Dave affirms this: “I know there’s nothing close to that in Catholic teaching. … So, what God [does know] about us, what his plan is for us, how much he can be aware of everything in the universe at all times is mysterious to us. Because for us, that would have certain consequences. … If one of us was gifted with that miraculous forethought, like you always see in movies, [the nature of that forethought would still be different for us because] we’re all still suffering the constraints of the laws of physics and time and stuff. So knowing exactly when something is going to happen or where it’s going to happen is different for a God who’s completely outside of all of that.”
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Father Dave continues: “This usually gets discussed [like this]: If God knows all and knows all about our life, does that mean that we have any ability to affect it whatsoever? If God knows everything, is it determined to happen? And that the Church says fairly strongly that no, we do not believe in a deterministic God. … More than anything else, in ensouling us as human beings, [God] loves and respects our free will. … That’s why he doesn’t force everyone to love him and behave because, without that [freedom], we wouldn’t be created in the image and likeness of God. We would not be autonomous, sentient human beings who can love and can choose.”
In terms of how this belief applies to the specific and sad circumstances the caller was describing, Father Dave offers this: “God did not cause [this young man’s death], willed it, or is happy about it. … [While] the parents are so tragically and painfully mourning the loss of their son, God is too.” (Original Air 07-26-17)