On the Therapeutic and Missional Dimensions of Divine Trust
By Patrick Wilson
With reference to Scripture and recent Christian thought, this essay explores two complementary but distinct ways in which God trusts – that is, depends upon and has expectations of others. I propose that Therapeutic Divine Trust involves God entrusting others with tasks in order to give them opportunities to practice being honest and reliable, while Missional Divine Trust involves God initiating risky, transformative and necessary creature-creator cooperation to advance important goals. While the former is primarily concerned with the moral growth and social inclusion of entrusted persons, the latter’s focus is on that which has been entrusted. Together, Therapeutic and Missional Divine trust have the power to foster both self-compassion and committed activism. By encountering a God who trusts us, we can learn to trust ourselves—and others—more freely. At the same time, neither our agency nor responsibility are undermined.
Keywords: Trust, Risk, Open and Relational, Mission
Introduction
Like many, I grew up thinking God had “a call” on my life. The creator of heaven and earth had put me on the planet at a specific time, in a specific location, for a specific purpose. It was my job to figure out what this purpose was and shape my life around it. The challenge of responding to God’s call induced both excitement and anxiety in me. Hearing the LORD’s voice incorrectly was a very real possibility, and it had dangerous implications. On the other hand, responding to genuine “promptings of the Spirit” provided opportunities to become intimately involved in God’s redemptive and restorative plan for the world.
I am now painfully aware that the “voice of God” – when interpreted uncritically – can serve to legitimize harmful power dynamics. Too often, “God’s call” is actually nothing but that of a pushy pastor, enthusiastic missionary, or misguided friend, in disguise. In recent years, I have, however, increasingly (cautiously) cultivated a renewed appreciation for a God who calls us into action. I am glad God called Corrie Ten Boom to assist hundreds of Jews to escape the Holocaust and called Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for civil rights. This gratitude has in turn inspired curiosity. Once again, to my surprise, I find myself waiting upon still, small, but compelling calls from the Divine.
This new critical appreciation for God’s call has been sustained partly by my conviction that it involves anything but instrumentalization. “Call” is a word of initiation and invitation, not control. It is a sound of relational encounter, a vulnerable appeal for solidarity, cooperation, and alignment. Puppet masters have no need to call upon others. Calls make echoes which ripple and reverberate. Callers must wait in anticipation for the responses of free agents who retain the ability to say “no.” The urgent and persuasive quality of calls gives them power. Coercers can threaten, but they cannot call.
Calling free agents in the hope and expectation that they will achieve desired outcomes sounds a lot like trust. What would it mean to say God trusts us? Trust typically involves some person or group depending upon another to achieve a particular goal.[1] For example, Iva can trust Andre to arrive on time. Since the entrusted (Andre) has the capacity to let the truster (Iva) down (by being late), trust involves risk and vulnerability.[2] Rather than micromanage situations, trusters must learn to delegate and share power with others. The truster, like the caller, exercises power by exciting, inspiring, and convincing: Empowering rather than overpowering.
Belief in God’s call – implicitly grounded in trust – is common among Christians and other people of faith. Encountering Divine calls can be pivotal moments in lived experience. However, the prospect of God trusting others has only recently begun to be explored. In an attempt to introduce, enrich, and expand this emerging conversation, I explore the possibility that God trusts in two distinct but interrelated ways: Therapeutic and Missional. I think God both (therapeutically) entrusts others with tasks in order to give them opportunities to practice being dependable and (missionally) trusts non-Divine beings to achieve desired goals which are inherently valuable. Collectively, these two modes of Divine trust paint a picture of a God who restores self-trust, and trust in humanity, while simultaneously challenging the entrusted to promote justice and the common good.
Divine Trust in Scripture and Theology
Although the Bible does not explicitly talk about God trusting others (or having pistis), Scripture heavily implies as much.[3] 1 Thessalonians says that Christ followers have been “approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel,” (1 Thessalonians. 2:4).[4] In many narratives, God is depicted giving people such as Adam and Eve, Moses, and Saint Mary various responsibilities (stewarding the land, confronting Pharaoh, birthing and raising Christ), under the expectation that they will be successful. These characters often retain freewill; being able to oppose or ignore God’s call. For example, Moses, a bad orator, refuses to speak directly to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:10-13). In response, God resorts to Plan B, appointing his brother Aaron as a spokesperson.[5] Similarly, the LORD has to call upon Samuel twice before he gathers the courage and wisdom to listen attentively (1 Samuel 3:10).
Divine trust can also be inferred from Biblical depictions of humanity. Most Christian traditions (the Reformed and Scholastic ones in particular) have focused upon passages of Scripture which emphasize dependence upon God and overlook positive Biblical portrayals of human competence and power. However, paying greater attention to these neglected aspects of Scripture provides a context for affirming Divine trust. It follows that God would be more likely to strategically trust beings who are capable and impactful than those whose actions are of little consequence. In this vein, Walter Brueggemann argues that the confident, agentic, and compassionate vision of humanity found in the Wisdom Literature implies a God who “trusts man, believes in him, risks his world with him, and stays with him in his failures.”[6]
The Biblical basis for Divine trust is stronger and more intuitive than that of many commonly accepted extrabiblical doctrines such as creatio ex nihilo and the hypostatic union. Scripture is therefore likely not the main reason why theologians are hesitant to talk about God trusting. Instead, the disruptive implications of Divine trust offer a more compelling explanation. Many Christians think God is maximally powerful and knowledgeable, and therefore can (1) do any logically feasible thing singlehandedly, and (2) know the future exhaustively. But a God who trusts must, by definition, risk the possibility of being betrayed and therefore cannot determine or know precisely how the entrusted will act.
However, partly as a result of these limitations, Divine trust can accomplish things which Divine control cannot. Brueggeman suggests that a God who trusts is uniquely capable of inspiring in humanity a sense of purpose, autonomy, and responsibility.[7] Teresa Morgan makes a similar point in her New Testament and the Theology of Trust. Morgan emphasises the therapeutic dimension of Divine trust. Therapeutic trust involves relying upon others to achieve desired goals primarily to provide them with opportunities to become more dependable and honest.[8] Morgan thinks that God, by accepting the “interim risks” necessary for providing these opportunities, exerts a unique type of moral influence.[9]
A God who trusts is also uniquely capable of knowing things which a God who controls and foresees cannot. Being uncertain about the outcomes of future events is an essential pretext for feeling genuine surprise and hope and hence knowing what it feels like to be surprised and hopeful. In The God Who Trusts, Wm. Curtis Holtzen goes a step further. He points out that trust is essential to love.[10] Without trusting, we cannot establish the vulnerability necessary to invite others to know us intimately or create environments where love in its fullest dimensions becomes possible. It is “God’s very nature […] as creative relational love [that] moves God to trust humanity.”[11] If Holtzen is right, in order to learn what love means, God must trust.
The God who Trusts Knows and Acts Differently
Claims that God is “all-powerful,” or “all-knowing” are less coherent than they first appear to be. A God who trusts may be limited in some respects but is also capable of doing things and knowing things which are beyond the remit of a God who only controls. However hard they try, individuals who control those around them cannot induce mutual respect, make people love them, or grant others the freedom and responsibility needed for genuine moral growth. Like trust, control too has limits. Rather than chasing after philosophically maximal conceptions of Divine power and knowledge, I think we should prioritise the centrality of love, hope, and liberation. These values – rooted in Christian experience – provide a backdrop for Divine trust.
To varying degrees, Brueggemann, Morgan, and Holtzen suggest that a God who trusts experiences an open future, is relational, and acts collaboratively. These ideas are all hallmarks of Open and Relational thought, which says that even God does not know the outcomes of future events (an open future) and argues that creator and creation affect each other (relationality).[12] An entrusted creation has the capacity to both disappoint and excite the Divine. It can therefore disrupt God’s plans and pivot in unexpected directions. By working together (collaborating), God and creation can build a better world. Here, there can be no guarantees. Guarantees negate the creative and restorative potential of trust, wherein risk and vulnerability are necessary building-blocks.
Some theologies of Divine trust qualify the extent to which God is open, relational, or collaborative. They say God does not trust when the stakes are too high and/or retains the power to intervene single-handedly in situations when trust backfires. However, this view juxtaposes belief in a good God with the world as we know it. Why does God not intervene more often to prevent evil and suffering if they have the ability to do so? A God of qualified trust must balance the potential positive and negative consequences of trust against each other and make precarious decisions. Rather, I think it makes more sense to say that a good God cannot simply step in ex machina to stop evil and suffering. If this is true, God trusts out of necessity.
Those who attempt to erase any meaningful sense in which God takes risks when trusting encounter more obvious problems. In his 2022 paper “Conceptualizing divine trust” Jason Stigall attempts to make Divine trust compatible with the idea that God knows future outcomes exhaustively.[13] He argues that God can “act as if” they have taken a risk on the premise that non-Divine beings will be reliable in order to make them feel genuinely entrusted.[14] Not only does this move suggest God deceives by only giving the impression of genuinely trusting, but it also implies that a Divine who knows future outcomes exhaustively wants humans to assume there is an open future. This seems more than a little ad hoc.
When an open future, relationality, and collaboration are seen as essential to God’s life, different modes of Divine trust can be identified. These trust-types (therapeutic and missional) have implications for human faith as much as God’s. They suggest a type of entrustedness which is both grounding and challenging: a safe-space characterised paradoxically by human-Divine restlessness. Divine trust invites us to remember that we are children of God, while compelling us to live up to seemingly impossible expectations. Their functions and practical implications are outlined in the sections below.
Therapeutic Divine Trust
Trust has the power to promote moral growth and social inclusion. It can afford entrusted persons opportunities to realise their true potential. This is particularly the case in instances of therapeutic trust, when persons depend upon others in order to give them opportunities to practice being honest and reliable. The Bible often images God as a parent. At some point, most parents have trusted their children therapeutically: They might trust them to tidy their room or buy milk in a local convenience store to teach them responsibility and give them a sense of accomplishment.
An example of therapeutic Divine trust can be found in the story of the Prodigal son, which provides an analogy of unconditional Divine love. After squandering his father’s inheritance in a foreign land, a man returns to his family home in the hope that he will be shown compassion and allowed to work there as a servant (Luke. 15:11-19). Rather than rebuking him, his father welcomes the son back into the family, holding a grand party to celebrate (Luke. 15: 21-24). Despite having reasons to think otherwise, the father trusts that this time he will stay for good. Here, the son is invited to practise being loyal and true to his word.
Sustained therapeutic trust has a transformative effect even if it often results in betrayal. In the Gospels, Jesus sometimes trusts others to keep secrets or remain loyal despite knowing that they likely will not do so.[15] Nevertheless, trust is bestowed generously, providing the entrusted opportunities to trust themselves and by extension enhance their vision of human trustworthiness. This opportunity is ever-present, even if it is not always availed of. In this sense, therapeutic Divine trust can function as a free gift, or kharis (grace), which inspires rather than requires reciprocation. A God who continues to trust therapeutically even if we are unwilling to act upon our fullest potential has the power to transform us, if only we listen to their voice and take their words to heart.
Here, transformation should not only be thought of in terms of moral betterment. Therapeutic trust also has an inclusive dimension. Those who are socially stigmatised are commonly distrusted, often to the point of being seen as subhuman. Distrust can breed resentment and resentment can breed dishonesty. When in-groups trust out-groups, they include them by giving them a stake within in-group society. They invite them to become people of consequence. While this type of inclusion can never be the end goal (therapeutic trust presumes the truster retains the sole power to initiate inclusion) it can be a meaningful stepping stone towards mutual partnership and vulnerable interdependence.
Jesus has meals with tax collectors and prostitutes, frees the demon possessed, and heals the “unclean” (those afflicted with diseases such as leprosy).[16] He sees the excluded as no less trustworthy than anyone else, and consequently models inclusion by giving them the power to let him down. If Jesus reveals the heart of the Father, God has reason to celebrate even when the therapeutically entrusted are only partially cooperative. A faltering response is still a step towards moral growth and social inclusion. It prepares the ground for riskier types of trust where Divine-human partnership is essential.
Missional Divine Trust
Unlike therapeutic variants, most trust types hinge upon the entrusted’s willingness and capacity to achieve a particular goal. Therapeutic trust can succeed even when the entrusted fail to meet expectations. If the entrusted are simply inspired to see themselves as reliable and honest, meaningful progress is still made. By contrast, in standard instances of trust, the entrusted’s failure to meet expectations leads to betrayal and a thwarting of the truster’s plans. Here, trusters need others to achieve things for them, often things which they, even on a good day, could not achieve singlehandedly. When God trusts in this way, I describe it as missional rather than therapeutic.
My term, missional trust, is both a simple descriptor and reflects contemporary norms in missiology. In standard trust types, the entrusted is tasked with accomplishing a mission on behalf of the truster. PERSON A depends upon PERSON B to achieve EXPECTATION C. Therefore, when God relies upon non-Divine beings to achieve Divine goals, a mission is being advanced. By listening to God’s “call,” as described in the introduction, we can become receptive to missional Divine trust. The notion that God has goals parallels Christian concepts of mission. Since the 1960’s, missiologists have generally argued that Christian mission is about partnering with what God is doing in the world, rather than simply increasing converts.[17]
The Calling of the Disciples and the Great Commission provide Biblical examples of missional trust.[18] In both cases, the reasons why Jesus’ followers are trusted to participate in his ministry go beyond the therapeutic goals of promoting their moral growth and social inclusion. They are invited into a risky human-Divine partnership. Here, God trusts that ultimately the entrusted will be successful in doing what they have been entrusted to do. If freedom matters to God’s vision of human flourishing, the risks inherent to missional trust are necessary. Even the Divine cannot singlehandedly make others freely participate in building the Kingdom of God on earth.
Desmond Tutu presents God’s mission as involving human cooperation with a Divine vision. He writes that:
“God waits, waits on us as those who will provide the bread and the fish so that God can perform God’s miracles to end injustice and oppression, to end war, disease and ignorance. This God who, apart from us, will not — as we, apart from God, cannot.”[19]
Tutu suggests that God trusts we will show up and take part in the missio Dei. This is not about replacing Divine providence with a non-theistic humanist reliance upon being ethical but responding to a God who speaks and acts in history in order to achieve relational goals. A God who trusts missionally is trying to achieve something which is not properly accounted for in traditional conceptualisations of Divine power. This God knows that a genuinely free and sustainable new creation can only be brought about through solidarity and voluntary participation.
Despite being distinct modes, drawing clear lines between instances of missional and therapeutic Divine trust is difficult. By promoting personal growth and inclusion, therapeutic trust does advance God’s mission. By responding to Divine calls to help build God’s Kingdom, we are invited to expand our moral horizons by practicing honesty and being responsible. However, while the primary purpose of Divine trust is only inferable in one case – therapeutic types are concerned with the entrusted’s development more than stated expectations – it is explicit in the other (missional types). This distinction highlights different ways in which God takes risks to empower creation towards progress.
Conclusion
If nothing else, I hope readers previously unaware of current debates about the implications of Divine trust now have some familiarity with this relatively new theological conversation. I also hope that some will find my distinction between therapeutic and missional trust types thought-provoking even if they do not feel compelled by them. The practical implications of therapeutic and missional Divine trust have only been hinted at. I will mention them here. In short, I think Divine trust, as described in this essay, provides a unique foundation for hope: One which traditional theologies and non-theist humanisms cannot offer.
It is 2025, and our world needs hope. We live in the aftermath of coronavirus-19, and amid global conflicts and food shortages, climate change, and the moral/socio-economic challenges posed by AI. Our age is one of anxiety. Old reassurances no longer hold. At first glance, Divine trust may provoke exasperation rather than inspire confidence. New theodicy questions emerge. The prospect of God trusting humans, with all their flaws, is daunting. Why would a good God trust humans with anything? Would it not be better if God was solely in charge? Or even, if there was no God at all?
Ortho-theologies may draw comfort from the idea that “all events are under God’s providential control.”[20] On the other hand, non-theists have no cause to blame God for current troubles. Meanwhile, those who affirm Divine trust must maintain that all free agents, including God, are responsible for combating evil and suffering. In practice, however, traditional theisms and non-theisms fail to induce hope in important ways. The God of overpowering control inspires ineffectual piety and escapism, or even in some cases moral outsourcing. Why act when God is meticulously in charge? At the same time, non-theists who care about justice can face stagnating burnout and chronic guilt resulting from the undeniable fact that they will never have done enough.
Given these shortcomings, the capacity of Divine trust to offer clarity as to what can be hoped for while providing a relational basis for self-compassion, gratitude and confidence, stands out. Divine trust makes sense if true shalom (peace) is sustained by free participation. I think this holds true for all powers and principalities, including God’s Kingdom. I believe God wants to bring about just, long-lasting and open social eco-systems. The issue then with a God who can override free agency in order to bring about creation’s telos (end goal) is that the final destination it envisages is not desirable and therefore not worth hoping for.
At the same time, the prospect of an infinitely wiser and more powerful being (God) trusting us – even when we cannot trust ourselves – goes some way towards relationally addressing the common sense that we can never do or be enough to resolutely change the world for the better. Often, we do not need a God who depends upon us to dream dreams and manifest grand visions, but one who trusts us to wake up and keep moving, even when the going gets tough. Comprehensive theologies of Divine trust can speak to both these human experiences in meaningful and realistic ways. They enable us to hope for a life which is just beyond the horizons of our imagination, wherever we may be at.
[1] Paul Faulkner, “The Attitude of Trust Is Basic,” Analysis 75, no. 3 (2015): 424–29, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anv037. [A good example is: Rebecca Wallbank and Andrew Reisner, “Trust, Testimony, and Reasons for Belief,” in Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles, ed. Scott Stapleford and Kevin McCain (New York: Routledge, 2020), 240.]
[2] Maria Baghramian, Danielle Petherbridge, and Rowland Stout, “Vulnerability and Trust: An Introduction,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 28, no. 5 (2020): 575, https://doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2020.1855814.
Michael Koller, “Risk as a Determinant of Trust,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 9, no. 4 (1988): 265, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp0904.
[3] 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Timothy 1:11, 6:20; 2 Timothy 1:14; 1 Corinthians 4:1–2; Galatians 2:7.
[4] 1 Thessalonians 2:4.
[5] John Sanders thinks God demonstrates “divine flexibility” in making this concession (Sanders 2009, 55). This implies that God’s changing relationship with Moses informs how they choose to trust him. See: John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).
[6] Walter Brueggemann, In Man We Trust: The Neglected Side of Biblical Faith (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1972): 118.
[7] Ibid, 18. [Brueggemann makes this point indirectly. He moves from “man-talk” to “God-talk.” For him, the human of Proverbs implies a God who trusts].
[8] Teresa Morgan, The New Testament and the Theology of Trust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 12.
[9] Ibid, 72. [By talking about “interim risks,” Morgan implies that God has certainty about how important and consequential events will unfold even if some outcomes within in-between periods are unknowable. Her wording is ambiguous. See: Wm. Curtis Holtzen, “Review of The New Testament and the Theology of Trust, by Teresa Morgan,” Philosophy in Review 43, no. 4 (2023): 26, https://doi.org/10.7202/1108422ar for more commentary].
[10] Wm. Curtis Holtzen, The God Who Trusts: A Relational Theology of Divine Faith, Hope, and Love (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 61.
[11] Ibid,129.
[12] Thomas Jay Oord, “The Emergence of Open Theology,” Thomas Jay Oord: The Official Blog of Thomas Jay Oord, accessed March 22, 2025, https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/the_emergence_of_open_theology.
[13] Jason Stigall, “Conceptualizing Divine Trust,” Religious Studies 58, no. 4 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412521000752.
[14] Ibid, 869.
[15] Matthew 26:31–32; Mark 1:43–45; 14:37–38; John 13:10–11, 27–30; 21:14–19.
[16] Matthew 9:10–13; Mark 2:15–17; Luke 5:29–32; 7:36–39; 15:1–2 (eating with the excluded); Matthew 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–20; Luke 8:26–39 (liberating the demon-possessed); Matthew 8:1–4; 9:20–22; Mark 1:40–42; Luke 5:12–16; 17:11–19 (healing the “unclean”).
[17] Tormod Engelsviken, “Missio Dei: The Understanding and Misunderstanding of a Theological Concept in European Churches and Missiology,” International Review of Mission 92, no. 367 (2003): 482.
[18] Matthew 4:18–22; Mark 1:16–20; Luke 5:1–11; John 1:35–51 (The calling of the disciples); Matthew 28:18–20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46–49; John 20:21; Acts 1:8 (The Great Commission).
[19] Desmond Tutu, Père Marquette Discovery Award Acceptance Speech (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, February 12, 2003), https://www.marquette.edu/university-honors/desmond-tutu-speech.php.
[20] Paul Helm, “Classical Calvinist Doctrine of God,” in Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views, ed. Bruce A. Ware (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Academic, 2008), 12.
* All Scripture references are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.