Articles
Does God play Games?
Opinion | Articles | Chhotebhai | 02-Nov-2025
Last night (30th October) my wife and I sat to watch the last two hours of the semi-final match between India and Australia in the ICC Women’s One Day World Cup. It is headlines today. Australia was defeated after 7 years, that too despite piling on a massive total of 338 runs. India’s star opener Pratika Rawal was injured and we had in reply lost two precious wickets with just 59 runs on the board.
That’s when a miracle seemed to have unfolded, where Jemimah Rodrigues scored an unbeaten 127 runs. My observations are on what happened after the match.
When called up to speak Jemimah said that she first thanked Jesus for her performance. When pressed further she said that when her strength was failing she kept repeating to herself a text from the Bible to just stand still and God would fight for her. To make such a profession of faith before a mammoth crowd when Christians today are frowned upon for so-called forced conversions, requires tremendous spiritual strength. Though probably of Catholic origin and having studied in a Catholic school in Bandra, Mumbai, Jemimah is probably an Evangelical Christian today, like her father Ivan.
She is not alone in attributing her victory to the divine. The 17 year old Michael Chang said the same thing when he won the French Open at Roland Garros in 1989. It stunned the ultra secular French who are hyper allergic to any public profession or exhibition of religion. As a sports aficionado I also watch Premier League football. Many players, especially from South America, make a somewhat comical Sign of the Cross before entering the field. Many Muslim players and athletes place their foreheads to the ground in thanksgiving. In India several players touch the ground (Mother Earth) as they step on to the field. All rounder Deepti Sharma is particular to have a crimson red tika every time she plays. So what role does religion or God have in sports? On whose side is God, if at all it takes sides?
This takes me back to the World Cup Football championships in Italy in 1990. There were several players storming heaven, seeking victory. St Peter was exasperated with these multiple and conflicting requests. He went to God and asked it how to handle these entreaties. God smiled at Peter and said “Relax, that’s their game not ours. Sit back and enjoy it”. This little story is pregnant with meaning.
God does not intervene in such trivial matters as sports. By and large God does not intervene in human actions or destiny. This may sound preposterous. There may be exceptional circumstances when God makes its presence felt, as with inexplicable miracles or in the Old Testament. Jesus assiduously avoided or being labelled as a miracle worker. That is why he invariably told the beneficiaries of his miracles not to speak about them. To the contrary, it was the Evil One who, at such times, desperately tried to call Jesus the Son of God, thereby detracting him from his central mission of redemptive suffering and ultimate sacrifice on the Cross.
God’s greatest gift to humans is Free Will, the ability to do as one pleases and choose between right and wrong. That is the real message of the apocryphal story in Genesis that after eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the beginning of morality) their eyes were opened (cf Gen 3:5-7).
This is also the first evidence of free will and freedom of conscience. If we did not have this faculty we would be robots, mere puppets on a string, where every thought and action would be at the behest of the master puppeteer, God itself.
Unfortunately, especially in India, many, including Christians, believe in fate, karma, kismet or destiny. There are even some who believe in predestination, that everything is pre-ordained by God. Had that been so there would be no need to study for an exam as God would have already decided my marks. Nor would there be need for any kind of human endeavour or an attempt to live a virtuous life. This is why we are warned “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal 6:7). It’s common sense; I cannot sow wheat and harvest rice. Even God will refrain from performing such a “miracle”.
Despite this overwhelming scriptural and natural evidence, there are still some who believe in predestination, something that gathered momentum in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless I did try to see what the New Testament has to say about it. The word “destined” is used 9 times and “predestined” just 3 times.
The first reference to being predestined is about Jesus’ imminent suffering, that it was “predetermined (predestined) to happen” (Acts 4:28). This was God’s plan for Jesus. Even there he had to give his consent “Not my will but your will be done” (Mat 26:39). Even Mary had to say “Yes”. It’s a hypothetical question – supposing Jesus had baulked at the last minute and refused to “drink the cup” (ibid) that the Father had sent him to do. This exchange actually authenticates and accentuates Jesus’ suffering. If he had no choice then he too would have been a puppet on a string.
However, there is a somewhat contentious passage that says “He decided beforehand who were the ones destined to be moulded to the pattern of his son, so that he should be the eldest of many brothers; it was those so destined that he called” (Rom 8:29-30).
Here again we cannot single out a text and build a case around it. Ok, Jesus calls, but he also says “Many are called but few are chosen” (Mat 22:14). We have the glaring example of Judas. He too was called to be an apostle, but he freely chose otherwise. Jesus did not or could not stop him in the exercise of his free choice. We could sum it up like this – God calls freely, man must respond freely. God provides the electricity; we need to put on the switch for the current to flow. This is the balance between the free gift of faith and our free will.
I also took recourse to the theology textbook “The Christian Faith” by India’s foremost theologians Revs J. Neuner and J. Dupuis, both Jesuits. They state that this idea of predestination was propounded by John Wyclif (1324-1384) and John Hus (1369-1415). Their teachings were condemned as heresy by the Council of Constance. “Not only do we not believe that some are predestined to evil by divine power, but if there are any who wish to believe such an enormity, we with great abhorrence anathemise them”. In lay language it means that the Church condemns predestination as a grave error. Tragically, these two were burnt at the stake for heresy.
Some of the errors condemned were, “The only and holy universal Church is the aggregate of the predestined. It follows that the holy universal church is one, only just as the number of all the predestined are one”. And again “The Church is an article of faith only if by the church is meant the gathering of the predestined whether they are in grace or not”. Such thinking was rooted in the idea of a Chosen People. Once chosen always so, no matter what!
Coming back to Jemimah; while respecting her profession of faith, as also of many others like Michael Chang or Deepti Sharma, one must affirm that God does not intervene in such matters. Even if Jesus had to play ball (pun intended) there would probably have been more believers in the Australian side! So it would have been a gross injustice to pay heed to the lonely cry of Jemimah.
In 1964 Canadian psychologist Dr Eric Berne wrote a best-seller “Games People Play”. But neither Jemimah nor any other player can write a book on “Games God Plays”, because that is not its ball game.
(The writer is the Convenor of the Indian Catholic Forum. Views expressed are personal)
Leave a comment
