Many years ago, I took my family on a winter vacation to the
Saranac Lake area in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. It was
during the school break between Christmas and New Year's.
In the mid-1930's, the nearby Village of Lake Placid had
been the site of a Winter Olympics, so today there remain Olympic ice rinks,
toboggan runs and other Olympic facilities open to the public.
We were joined by six Summit families, and we shared a large
rented house with a grand fireplace and a good supply of fire wood.
So, in the early evenings, when the wives and kids headed off to bed, the
dads would relax by the fire and chat over a glass of wine or a beer.
One dad was newly returned from an overseas business
trip. By chance he had been to a country which had just suffered an
earthquake. He was quite consumed by the devastation he had seen.
Buildings had collapsed, falling on occupants and passersby, and some 23 people
had been killed. Of course, there had also been the loss of electric
power and clean water, and the streets were filled with rubble.
"Why did this tragedy happen," he asked us,
"Where was God?"
After a moment or two, one of the dads suggested that God
has His reasons for making this happen, and that we are in no position to judge
God. The dad said he believed there was some purpose in this suffering,
but that it was beyond our ability to understand. Furthermore, if God
initiated this tragedy, who were we to now to ask God for help in our
prayers? So, if God is so powerful that He doesn't have to explain
Himself to us, perhaps He does not have to be fair.
A second dad had a different thought: "Tragedy in
our lives is for our own good. It teaches us to be strong. Perhaps
God does painful things to us as His way of helping us ---- like a drill
sergeant in the Marine Corps. Can't suffering be educational? Can't
it cure some of our faults and make us better people? Just as a
parent sometimes must punish a child?"
But, dad #3 had a negative reaction to this. "To
explain suffering by saying it is a "cure" for faults, implies that
tragedy is a testing. Is God really testing us? He must know by now
that many of us will fail that test. If He is only giving us burdens we
can bear, we have seen His miscalculations far too often."
Dad #4 had a very different opinion. "God is not
doing this to us. Our God is a god of justice and not of
power. Thus, he can still be on our side when bad things happen to
us. He can know that we are good and honest people who deserve
better. Our misfortunes are none of His doing, and so we can turn to Him
for help.
"Regardless of how our tragedies are caused," he
continued, "God stands ready to help us cope with the tragedies, if we can
only get beyond the feelings of guilt and anger that separate us from
Him. Could it be that, 'How could God do this to me?' is the wrong
question for us to ask? We should ask, 'God, see what is happening to
me? Can you help me?' We should therefore turn to God, not to be
judged or forgiven, not to be rewarded or punished, but to be strengthened and
comforted."
Dad #5 had yet a different approach. "Assume that
God is the cause of our suffering. But our God is a god of justice
and righteousness. Our God is all-powerful and causes everything that
happens in the world. Our God is also just and fair. He stands up
for people so they get what they deserve. The good prosper and the wicked
are punished. He gives people exactly what they deserve. In a time
of tragedy people should think it is the victim who should be
blamed, not God ---- then the the tragedy doesn't seem quite so irrational and
threatening. Because God punishes people for their sins, it is our
misdeeds, they can say, that cause our misfortunes."
"However, people do feel guilty sometimes, assuming
they were somehow responsible for their misfortune. But, they may not
understand which action of theirs caused the suffering as they review what may
have been said, done or not done. Others will ask if pointless suffering
for some unspecified sin is a contribution to the development of
humankind? But, blaming the victim helps fortunate people believe that
their good fortune is deserved, rather than being a matter of chance."
Now, dad #3 had some more thoughts: "Why is there
seemingly an unfair distribution of suffering in the world? Does God
really give everyone what they deserve and need? Why do totally
unselfish people suffer, people who never did anything wrong?
"Also," he continued, "When a friend tells a
sufferer that the suffering has a purpose, it really does not help the sufferer
or explain the suffering. It is meant primarily to defend God, to use
words and ideas to transform bad into good, pain into privilege. Such
answers are thought up by people who believe that God is a loving parent who
controls what happens to us, and on the basis of that belief they adjust and
interpret the facts to fit their assumption."
Finally, we heard from dad #6: "Could it be that
things happen to people for no reason ---- that God has lost touch with the
world and nobody is in the driver's seat? If God is not in charge of all
things, then who is? Worse yet, could it be that God does not care what
happens to us?"
"Bad things happen to good people in this world, but it
may not be God who wills it. For example, could it be that God doesn't
decide which families will give birth to a handicapped child? Perhaps God
would like people to get what they deserve in life, but he cannot always
arrange it. Are we forced to choose between a good God who is not
totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good?
Perhaps we should choose to believe in God's goodness."
"When we were children, we came to realize that our
parents were not all-powerful, and that a beloved broken toy had to be thrown
out when they could not fix it, not because they did not want to fix
it. Likewise, there are some things God would like to fix, but He does
not control them. The Bible repeatedly speaks of God as the special
protector of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, without raising the question
of how it happened that they became poor, widowed, or orphaned in the first
place."
It was getting late, but next it was my turn. "It
is hard to follow so much sincere wisdom, spoken by you guys," I
said. "But, I confess that my simple human brain cannot reconcile
these many conflicting perspectives on the nature of God. I keep coming
back to what a beloved Bible scholar has said many times ---- " It is a
mystery!"
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These thoughts are brought to you CPC's Adult Spiritual
Education Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this Fall at CPC.
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