Obama's God

President Obama, commenting on a vote today in Congress today affirming the motto "In God We Trust" on all government buildings, said this in response:  "That's not putting people back to work," Obama said. "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people to work."  Wow, what humility.  I am glad that Obama jobs bill now has the approval of God.  But wait a minute, didn't Obama just give a speech on the evils of relying on things outside the control of the government? 


I am reminded here of Lincoln's God in the Second Inaugural where he talks of the relation of the North and South to the will of a Living God:

Both [the North and South] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 

For Lincoln, God's purposes are mysterious and are out of the grasp of human reason.  The God of the Bible is not directly concerned with positive law--that is left up to us to decide.  But that doesn't mean that the positive law--the laws set down by the people--does not have a standard.  The standard to judge the justness of the positive law is the natural law, which is accessible to everyone capable of reason. 

So at the end of the day, I guess I am just really not sure how Obama knows God's will regarding his jobs bill.