Randomness and the Human Soul

My major in college was history and my minor was psychology. As it turns out, the two are often complimentary because they are about human behavior. Recently, I recalled something from my study of psychology that remains revealing to this day.

There was a famous experiment about 50 years ago having to do with animal behavior. We are, after all, on a basic level animals. We just aren’t only animals. It started with a simple question about learning. A group of chickens were put into individual cages. Each cage was rectangular and had a food dish on one end and over it was a round disk. The disk was attached to a device that would distribute a food pellet when pecked. Chickens are prone to peck most things in their environment, so they soon discovered that when they pecked the disk, to their delight, a pellet dropped. Researchers observed that when the chicken wanted food, it learned that all it needed to do was peck the disk. Then came the “what if we” experiment.

The first one was to make the device only pay off every 2 times the disk was pecked. There was no change in their behavior. What if it took 3 times than 4? The results were the same. They ate when they were hungry and pecked the times needed to get the food. Then came, what if we turned the disk off and no food came out no matter how many times the chickens pecked? The results started getting more interesting. They would give up for a while, go back and peck as if to check and see, and after a while, they finally gave up. Then researchers tried randomness. It must have been a grad student who came up with this idea. They set the disk to pay randomly. There was no pattern. Sometimes it paid off after two pecks followed by 5 pecks followed by 3 pecks. But randomly meant no pattern. The chickens’ behavior changed radically. They quickly learned to keep pecking the disk whether they were hungry or not. Peck, peck, peck, they couldn’t stop. It was almost like a compulsion.

In the end, the researchers found that if the disk then was set not to pay off, chickens would stand by the disk and keep pecking till they dropped from starvation. It seems randomness has an almost addictive and transrational effect on animal behavior. Remember, we are animals too.

Randomness and the Human Soul

This, of course, is the rational explanation of many human behaviors that seem irrational on the surface. Take gambling for example. Even though everyone knows the odds are stacked in favor of the house, or now the app, people do randomly win. They may develop a system that they think works, but that doesn’t matter. All winning proves is that the pellet still falls. Extended over a wide population, like the lottery, its effects are powerful even given the overwhelming odds against winning and in favor of the State. Put another way, when one person wins a million dollars, the State wins many times over. The difference by the way between a State and a casino seems to be that casinos sometimes have someone “break the bank.” I have decided this is staged and aimed at packing the casino the next night. Lots of pellets dropped. Maybe we are next.

Now, knowing that Fentanyl can kill you, why would anyone take it? Start with this. When ICE raided a member of a cartel in Chicago, he had 175,000 Fentanyl pills. If that were to lead to 175,000 deaths, it would not only be the biggest mass murder in our country but afterward no one would take the risk. So, good for the cartels, that many pills will only kills a few hundred. Now randomness works against sanity. What are the odds against getting killed when seeking a high. They are randomly low. I mean only the families will really notice the random deaths anyway. Let’s move away from this topic before anyone becomes more aware of why people take such a drug and try to do something about it.

The Theology of Randomness

Now let me go on a soul journey, a religious phenomenon, a current cultural one. Do you know what the largest Church in America is? That’s right, it is Joel Osteen’s. He is a prosperity evangelist. He has two beautiful expensive homes, a private jet, and takes no salary from his church because God has richly blessed his message. His money comes from speaking events and the sales of his books. His message repeated endlessly is God will protect and provide for you by faith. Have enough faith and boom!  Or the corollary, no boom not enough faith. How can anybody who reads the bible believe such babble. The answer is randomness.

Take this example that I heard him use. He had preached that God promised to put a hedge around his faithful believers. That is actually in the Bible. He then told the story of a man in his congregation that embraced this teaching and by faith claimed it. Soon after, he took his family to Forida for a vacation (Disney no doubt) and while driving on the interstate they got tangled in a multicar accident. Sure enough, cars and bodies were strewn around, but his family passed safely through. He told Joel how God had saved them putting a hedge around their car. That will preach, at least in Joel’s Church.

In mainline places someone will at the coffee hour say, “You know that sermon troubled me. Not that I think God isn’t good but is God that cruel or capricious? What about those other people in the accident? Weren’t some of them Christians?" Joel’s system makes it clear. Yeah, Christians but faithful? I think it not so much God, but randomness. Take it one step further. Imagine a family of non-believers who were in the same accident but were not hurt. After all, scripture tells us “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” Seems the God of the bible isn’t that random.

God’s Collateral Damage

Recently, the new President declared that he believed that God saved him during the assassination attempt in Pennsyvania. When I heard this, I was standing among obvious cynics one of whom cracked, “What about those wounded and the guy killed? Was that God’s collateral damage?" That is a tremendous theological question! Perhaps it would be better to note that wildfire strikes both the just and the unjust and learn to live with it. This world is full of randomness and we Christians think it is related to our fallenness. Maybe?

Randomness explains a lot. Remember the chickens dying of hunger while still pecking away. Remember too that suffering and pain in this world is part of the package and that to declare that God is nevertheless good is a remarkable statement of faith. African Christians say it this way often amid poverty, “God is Good, all the time. All the time, God is good.” Faith is not in a payoff, but trust in the father’s steadfast love as in the prodigal son story. Our example is of course Jesus himself dying on the cross. “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” That is called faith because it involves two dynamics: trust and courage. Randomness has nothing to do with faith in God. As Paul said in Romans 8, “For those who love God, all things work for good.” In God, for the faithful, there is no randomness only God. Poetically, the night and the day are both alike. For those who love God, there is only God’s love that triumphs over all things.