If everything that happens is under God's control rather than happening by chance, why does statistics work?
When we use statistics successfully everyday for weather, safety, manufacturing, marketing, etc., it easy to start thinking that statistics is a principle of nature. However, we need to remember that we use statistics not because of indefiniteness in nature, but because of our lack of knowledge or because of our inability to contain all the data of a large population within our finite mind. For example, when we toss a coin there is a 50/50 chance that it will land heads/tails. However, if we could control how we threw the coin to the minutest detail and if we knew everything about the coin and the path it would take, it is conceivable that we could control exactly how it landed. Another example is statistics with populations of people. When a statistician says that there is a 0.64 probability that a person randomly selected from a given town will be blond, it isn't that the blondes aren't definitely blond and that the brunettes aren't definitely brunette, but merely that the statistician doesn't know ahead of time which kind his random pick will be.
The simple fact is that nature is certain from the standpoint of fitting definite models and equations. The problem is that our knowledge is limited and incomplete. Because of our limitations, we often use statistics to predict a future event. We use the methods of statistical inference not because of something about the world, but because of something about us -- our limited knowledge. God doesn't need to use statistical inference because his knowledge is complete.
Special thanks to Dr. J. Budziszewski, Ph.D., for his discussing this subject with me by email. He teaches in the departments of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin. He is also the author of the monthly column, "Office Hours" in Boundless Webzine, published by Focus on the Family.
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