The theology of Forest Gump

One of the memorable quotes from the big screen was uttered by the famous Forest Gump about life. It goes like this: Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."


Now that you have stared the Lindt chocolate photo long enough, let's go back to the essence.

Behind that famous quote is a philosophy of life that it happens by chance. In the movie, life is depicted as something that floats randomly like a feather in the wind. What do you think? Is life like that? Because if you think that life happens by chance, then God is absent from the universe and the lives of mankind. That's Forest Gump's theology.

As Christians, we don't believe in chances. The Bible teaches that ours is a sovereign God who lovingly and constantly intervenes in our lives to bring pleasure to Him according to His perfect will. That is called the providence of God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism Q11 asks "What are God's works of providence?" The answer is: God's works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. Read what Calvin wrote in Institutes, chapter 16 which nicely addresses the Forest Gump's theology:

That this distinction may be the more manifest, we must consider that the Providence of God, as taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous causes. By an erroneous opinion prevailing in all ages, an opinion almost universally prevailing in our own day, viz., that all things happen fortuitously, the true doctrine of Providence has not only been obscured, but almost buried. If one falls among robbers, or ravenous beasts; if a sudden gust of wind at sea causes shipwreck; if one is struck down by the fall of a house or a tree; if another, when wandering through desert paths, meets with deliverance; or, after being tossed by the waves, arrives in port, and makes some wondrous hair-breadth escape from death - all these occurrences, prosperous as well as adverse, carnal sense will attribute to fortune. But whose has learned from the mouth of Christ that all the hairs of his head are numbered, (Matt 10:30) will look farther for the cause, and hold that all events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God. With regard to inanimate objects again we must hold that though each is possessed of its peculiar properties, yet all of them exert their force only in so far as directed by the immediate hand of God. Hence they are merely instruments, into which God constantly infuses what energy he sees meet, and turns and converts to any purpose at his pleasure.