Should Christians Believe in Coincidences?

I grew up very aware of some quirks in my family's names. My mother’s mother’s name was Dorothy Jean, and my Father’s Mother’s name was Jean Dorothy. And then there were my two aunties, both named Ruth, and my wife's sister Ruth.

What did it all mean? Probably nothing. Was it just coincidence? Or was there something more—a pattern woven into the fabric of my family story that I was meant to notice? Unlikely.

Analytical psychologist Carl Jung calls this synchronicity—meaningful coincidences that seem to arise not from cause and effect but from some deeper pattern of connection. Jung saw these moments as hints that our inner psychological states and outer circumstances are mysteriously linked, as if the universe itself participates in our personal growth and understanding.

Once you start paying attention, you see coincidences everywhere. There you are, rushing through your ordinary Tuesday morning, when suddenly a bit spooky happens. You're reading a book that falls open to exactly the page you needed to read. You bump into a stranger who mentions the precise thing you've been thinking about all week. You get a phone call that comes just when you're thinking of someone you haven't spoken to in years. Does any of this mean anything?

We may even wonder if God is at work? What are Christians to make of coincidences? 

The Bible and Coincidence

Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” In other words, even when people rolled dice in the ancient world, the outcome wasn’t random. God was still in control. Proverbs 20:24 makes it even more personal: “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.” The paths we walk, even the ones that feel like detours or surprises, are guided by His unseen hand.

This doesn’t mean we always understand what’s happening, but it does mean we are never outside of God’s care.

The Bible is full of stories where chance encounters turned into divine appointments. When Ruth went out to glean in the fields, the text says she “happened” to come to Boaz’s land (Ruth 2:3). But looking back, we can see God’s loving provision leading her there. That simple step led not only to her rescue but eventually to the birth of King David—and ultimately to Jesus Himself.

Or consider Esther 6 when the king of Persia couldn’t sleep one night. That small, random detail opened the door for the salvation of God’s people. From a human perspective, it looked accidental. From God’s perspective, it was right on time.

Jesus reassures us that nothing is outside the Father’s watchful eye. In Matthew 10:29–31, He says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” If God notices the fall of a sparrow, how much more does He see the details of your life?

Even when Jesus tells a story about a priest who came down the road “by chance” (Luke 10:31), the bigger picture reminds us that what looks accidental can become a stage for God’s mercy and love to shine.

From our limited perspective, life will always feel full of surprises. But faith opens our eyes to see those surprises differently. What we call coincidence may actually be providence—God’s fingerprints scattered across the details of our lives.

Causality and Wonder

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have grappled with these mysterious intersections of the ordinary and extraordinary. Thomas Aquinas saw coincidences not as breaks in the natural order but as the unexpected convergence of multiple streams of causality: like tributaries flowing together to form a river that carries meaning downstream.

In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas wrote, ”The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency.” Here, he saw that a truly rich creation requires both predictable order and genuine chance. From his perspective, what we call coincidence isn't outside divine governance; it’s essential to it.

What appears random to our limited perspective might actually be part of a grander choreography. From this view, coincidences don't represent chaos breaking into order, but rather the beautiful complexity of a world where genuine freedom and divine providence dance together in ways our minds can barely fathom.

Mandelbrot Set

During high school, I was obsessed with fractal geometry and chaos theory. Night after night, my 8-bit Apple IIc would crank through the calculations needed to plot a single Mandelbrot set. What drew me to chaos theory was its unexpected connection to my questions about faith. I glimpsed how elegantly simple rules could unfold into patterns of stunning complexity. Tiny perturbations would ripple through systems, creating outcomes that seemed random yet emerged from profound mathematical structures beneath the surface.

As Aquinas and chaos theory seem to argue, perhaps what we call coincidence might actually offer glimpses into a hidden order. In chaos theory, deterministic processes and genuine contingency interweave to produce results that startle us precisely because we can perceive only fragments of the vast pattern at work. The apparent randomness masks an underlying architecture too intricate for us to fully grasp, yet beautiful enough to suggest deeper meaning in the seemingly accidental moments of our lives.

Hidden Harmony

The mystic Nicholas of Cusa spoke of coincidentia oppositorum (the coincidence of opposites), where contradictions find their resolution in divine unity. Perhaps our everyday coincidences are whispers of this deeper truth? Could there be moments when the fragmented pieces of our experience suddenly align to reveal the hidden harmony underlying all things?

These aren't just intellectual puzzles to be solved, but invitations to wonder. They crack open our carefully constructed categories and let mystery seep in. In a culture obsessed with explanation and control, coincidences remind us that the universe is far stranger, far more interconnected, and far more meaningful than our rational minds typically allow.

Receptive Wonder

But what do we do with these experiences? How do we navigate between dismissive scepticism and gullible superstition?

Perhaps the answer lies not in a definitive explanation but in cultivated receptivity? Some process-relational theologians suggest that the divine doesn't control reality like a cosmic puppeteer but participates in its unfolding, offering possibilities and invitations that interact with genuine freedom and natural processes to create genuine novelty.

From this perspective, coincidences become gifts of possibility, not pre-scripted messages, but emergent alignments that arise from the dynamic interplay between divine creativity, human freedom, and the surprising spontaneity of existence itself.

Living in the Question

The most honest response to coincidence might be to live in the question rather than rushing toward answers. These experiences invite us into a posture of attentive humility that are alert to meaning without being enslaved to it and open to mystery without abandoning reason.

Whether you interpret meaningful coincidences through the lens of faith, see them as fascinating neurological phenomena, or simply receive them as gifts of wonder, they serve a profound purpose: they remind us that reality is far richer and more interconnected than our busy, distracted lives typically allow us to notice.

Parables

In the end, perhaps coincidences function like parables? They challenge both the reductionist scientist who would drain all mystery from existence and the magical thinker who would turn every correlation into causation.

They call us to a middle way: the path of wonder-filled attentiveness. They teach us to hold our explanations lightly while holding our experiences preciously. They remind us that in a universe vast enough to contain both quantum uncertainty, Mandelbrot sets and cosmic order, there's always room for surprise.

A Dance of Grace and Wonder

So here we find ourselves, standing at the threshold between the seen and unseen, between the explicable and the mysterious. Perhaps the question isn't whether Christians should believe in coincidences, but whether we have eyes to see the extraordinary hiding within the ordinary.

This is the world our God has made: not a clockwork universe ticking toward predetermined outcomes, nor a chaotic realm of pure chance, but something far more beautiful: a living symphony where divine love and human freedom dance together in ways that regularly take our breath away. When those chance moments come, and they will come, when your path crosses with exactly the person you need to meet, receive them as what they are, small gifts of grace scattered throughout your day.

Don't feel compelled to decode every coincidence or explain away every mystery. Instead, let them do what they're meant to do: awaken wonder, kindle gratitude, and remind you that you are held by a love so attentive it knows the number of hairs on your head and so vast it orchestrates the dance of galaxies.

In a world that often feels fragmented and meaningless, coincidences whisper a different story. They suggest that you matter, that your life is woven into a larger tapestry, that even in your most ordinary Tuesday morning rush, the universe might just wink at you, not with cosmic indifference, but with the tenderness of a Father who delights in surprising His children with small evidences of His care.

Live with open hands and attentive hearts. Walk forward knowing that your steps are ordered by the Lord God, creator of the Heavens and the Earth, even when the path seems random. And when those beautiful, bewildering moments of synchronicity arise, simply smile and whisper a quiet "thank you”. In that moment, you've been given a glimpse behind the veil, a brief peek at the hidden harmony that holds all things together.

The God who spoke light into darkness and life into dust is still speaking, still weaving, still surprising us with His presence in the most unexpected places. Keep your eyes open. The next coincidence might just be His way of saying, "I'm here, and I see you, and all is well."