C.         Observation

            In fact, reading the story of Esther as a story of human intrique exactly fits with what the authors wanted: to show that humans can act on their own to bring about favorable outcomes without depending on the direct actions of God. God is never expressly mentioned in this story, all the events were orchestrated by humans. This is the perfect story to show that God and man are partners, with men being in charge of events occurring on earth. This story should disabuse any modern reader of the idea that the authors of the Bible wanted God to be in complete control and that His presence in a story obliterates human freedom of choice. There is no gap or mutually opposed categories of human and divine causation – God does not cast a shadow on events; God can create an environment with broad guidelines, but man is free, and indeed required, to act on his own free choices within those broad guidelines (termed “God’s groundrules in the essay of that title). Man’s actions and choices all have consequences determined by natural chains of events, by which man learns and progresses. It is for this reason that one of the basic groundrules is that God does not interfere in human events (with the exception of saving the entire experiment from destruction by man’s actions).