Answer

If we were animated by an external divine energy, there would be no reason to practice, because whatever we did, it would be this external energy that would decide our fate.

I remember a report on an earthquake in Peru, showing an old woman sitting in front of a pile of ruins, explaining: "This was our house. We built it with our own hands, with God's help. God took it away from us, but if he wants, we'll rebuild it". So, are we the playthings of a capricious God who decides everything on a whim? This belief is horrible for two reasons. The first is that it imposes the powerlessness of the human will, subject to the goodwill of a supposedly merciful God. The second is that it denies any sense of responsibility and leads to the situation in which the world finds itself today. "God has decided it", in other words, "it's not my fault". So, it's not my fault, it's everyone else's fault. How many times have we seen scenes where, for example, a man hits his wife and says "look what you're forcing me to do". This process can be found in couples as well as at all levels of society and at international level. War is someone else's fault.

The deities referred to in NichIren Daishōnin's teaching are functions of the Buddha. They act for the protection of the votary of the Lotus Sutra, as a condition (outer cause), but called forth by our practice (inner cause).

In the Treatise on the Serenity of the Country, Nichiren Daishōnin says that due to offences against the Dharma, the beneficent deities had left the country, replaced by evil spirits. Now, on the night of 12 September in the 8^ème year of Bun'ei (1271), on the road leading to Tatsunokuchi, passing the shrine dedicated to the deity Hachiman, he asked to dismount and reprimanded the deity for failing to keep his promise to protect the votary of the Lotus Sutra. This could be seen as a contradiction, since the deities were supposed to have left the country. In fact, they were Nichiren Daishōnin's inner Hachiman deity. These inner deities manifested themselves externally a little later in the form of the luminous object that put an end to the execution.

I think it's the same for us. Even if things manifest themselves externally, insofar as they are understood within our One Thought, everything depends on us and our practice.