As one who was very much involved in the presidential election of 2000 (I was one of the co-chairs of the Bush team in Hawaii), I can safely, unequivocally, and unambiguously say:  "It depends upon what you mean by 'choose'!"

I'm not trying to be cute   Well, okay, perhaps I am trying just a little bit!  However, I'm not talking legalistic casuistry, such as "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."  

I am serious.  As Christians, we believe that God is sovereign.  Sovereignty, if it means anything, must at least mean that God permits, if not causes, events to occur or not occur.  God must somehow have control over the present state of affairs.  God must somehow be accountable for what is.  God must be where the moral buck ultimately stops.  God must, in some sense, be responsible.

In that limited sense, I might agree that God chose President George W. Bush.  Just as God raises up kingdoms and takes down kingdoms, permitting some to be conquerors and others to be vanquished, God permits the consequences of humankind's free choices.  For better or for ill, God permits the chips to fall where they may.

I would grant that God can specifically and supernaturally intervene.  He has done so in the past.  Various accounts in the Bible support this notion.  But I would argue that those same Bible passages also support the understanding that such specific divine interferences are the exceptions rather than the rule.  They are noticed and notable precisely because they are rare.  It is not that the nature of reality requires this.  God is not straight-jacketed.  It's just the way God operates.

Having lived through the unprecedented post-electoral events, I can say that it was not much fun.  I can say that it was a test for our democratic process and a test which we as a nation passed quite well.  I can say that it is not something I or any of my political colleagues want to experience again.

Thank God we have the Electoral College!  We were able to isolate the uncertainty to one of the 50 states.  Imagine if we elected a president on a national rather than on a state-by-state basis.  We would have had to engage in recounts in all jurisdictions.  A few votes here and a few votes there, in fact a few votes anywhere, could have changed the course of the election.

I can say a lot of things.  But I cannot say that God specifically chose President Bush.  I'm delighted he won.  I worked hard to see that he won.  I voted for him.  I thought and continue to think that on balance he demonstrates the seriousness, the experience, and the judgment to head the executive branch of our great nation. But I just don't see the Maker of the Universe, the Creator of Humankind, and the Savior of the World having to get that involved.

God is in charge.  We see the events of the world assuming the pattern foretold by John the author of the Apocalypse.  Why would God have to intervene in an American election?  How egotistical and arrogant for those of us Christians who are American to insist that God takes a special interest in all things American, as though our continent were the center of the universe!  What evidence is there that God intervened in this election any more than in the elections between Adams and Jefferson, Dewey and Roosevelt, or Ford and Carter?  Unprecedented?  Certainly.  But that in and of itself does not indicate divine intervention.

 Humans have the odd inclination to think that their time in history is terribly significant, that their immediate circumstances are absolutely unique, and that their day's news is utterly unprecedented. 

God may know the number of hairs on our heads (and my number is rapidly diminishing!), but I don't think he cares much about what sort of haircuts we have or how often we have one.

John B. Wong:

I generally agree with the tenor of David Pendleton's observation on the selection of George W. Bush.

I believe that God, with His omniscience, knows all the morally and eternally significant choices we make with our God-given freedom down to the end of our lives. Without encroaching upon our freedom, or acting contrary to His own character and attributes, He does everything in our favor by lining up the positive elements under His sovereign control to make our ultimate choices realizable, the choices He already foreknows. 

I posit such foreknowledge on the basis that God knows all the details of the infinite situational factors of this universe, life and non-life, organic and inorganic, time, space, energy and matter, and the infinite possible options and alternatives, combinations, and outcomes, order or chaos, quantum or Newtonian, as well as all the eliminatable dead options. Because He knows all the live options that are open to us, plus our past behaviors and patterns and those of others, which are based on our genetics and other things, all of which He also knows to an infinite degree, there is not much of a mystery for God as to what choices we will make.

I believe that God's omniscience is compatible with limited, yet genuine human freedom. I have no problem in positing that God limits His power for the sake of honoring human freedom, a gift He lovingly bestows upon us. To think, however, that He limits His omniscience, that He chooses not to know what choices humans will make, is quite another matter.

As I understand Him, our God is not a dichotomous, split-minded deity whose "right mind" does not know what His "left mind" does or think. Anything God does not know, whether it be our choices or anyone or anything or any situation in the universe, is potentially a threat to His ontological being. This unknown factor potentially has an upper hand over God.  

It is not enough to say that God with His infinite resources can cope with any situation.  That would be  like saying that someone has all the resources necessary to cope by picking up the pieces after the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City have been brought down.  The God who knew that the towers would be demolished independently of His will to prevent or allow this destruction is surely greater than a deity who is caught by surprise.

Hundreds of years ago, Anselm of Canterbury defined God as the "Being than which nothing greater can be conceived."  I prefer to think of Him as the One over whom nothing and no one in all reality can prevail.  Absolutely nothing!