Tuesday, January 16, 2018

WEEKLY COMMENTARY: At Times of Tragedy or Hardship . . . Where Was God?



It seems that no one has seen the face of God directly.  Most of us believe there is some kind of God, who established the many forms of life on Earth, and organized physical forces of great complexity, which generally give predictable results in their actions ---- there seems to be some order in our universe.

However, despite this, sometimes a person does contract a fatal disease, dies in a natural disaster, or dies in an automobile accident or other no-fault cause of premature death.  We call these incidents "tragedies."

Losing one's job, living in poverty or being unable to find timely medical assistance, are examples of "hardships."

If God is the supreme power who created us, the earth and the skies, why are our lives sometimes interrupted by tragedy and hardship?  

Human understanding of how God works appears to be largely beyond our mortal abilities, but over the centuries much thought has attempted to explain this mystery.  The result has been the development of various theories which take us into the realm of faith.

Which of the following theories about God do you find the most compelling?

THEORY #1:  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.  Nothing happens without His will.  Our God is just and fair, and stands up for people getting what they deserve, so that the good prosper and the wicked are punished.  He gives people exactly what they deserve.

----- Some say that by believing this, the world is kept orderly and understandable.  This belief would maintain an image of God as all-loving and all powerful. and totally in control.  This theory seems to spare God's reputation.

----- Friends and family of victims sometimes think the victim should be blamed so that evil doesn't seem quite so irrational and threatening to themselves.  They believe that because God punishes people for their sins, it is one's misdeeds that have caused their misfortunes.  But, what if one does not know what the causal misdeed was.  Some ask if pointless suffering for some unspecified sin is a contribution to humankind?  Blaming the victim helps fortunate people believe that their good fortune is deserved, rather than being a matter of chance.

----- 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 do anything wrong?

THEORY #2:   Sometimes victims of misfortune try to console themselves with the idea that God has His reasons for making this happen to them, reasoning that they are in no position to judge God.  They believe there is some purpose in this suffering, but that it is beyond our ability to understand.  Furthermore, if God has initiated the tragedy or hardship on us, who are we to now ask God to help us in our prayers?

----- Perhaps God has other considerations to worry about, besides the welfare of one individual human being, when He makes decisions that affect our lives?

THEORY #3:   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 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.

THEORY #4:  I do God's will out of love for God, not out of  self-interest.  I can be an obedient, moral person, but I act out of love for God, my creator, without my calculating that moral and  obedient people will be rewarded with good fortune.  I can love and be loyal to Him, even if God perhaps does not show much love to me in return.

THEORY #5:  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 suffering be educational?  Can it cure us of our faults and make us better people?  Just as a parent sometimes must punish a child?  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 miscalculation far too often.

THEORY #6:  In troubled times we are not compelled to feel that God has judged and condemned us.  We can be angry at what has happened to us, without feeling that we are angry at God.   More than that, we can recognize our anger at life's unfairness, our instinctive compassion, when seeing how other people suffer, as coming from God who teaches us to be angry at injustice and to feel compassion for the afflicted.  We can feel that our indignation is God's anger at unfairness, working through us.

THEORY #7:  God is not doing this to us.  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, 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 will turn to God, not to be judged or forgiven, not to be rewarded or punished, but to be strengthened and comforted. 

THEORY #8:  When all else fails, some people try to explain suffering by believing that it comes to liberate us from a world of pain and in the case of death, leads to a better place.  Death takes us out of this world of sin and pain.  The victim is now in a happier land where there is no pain, no grief.

----- Sometimes, when our souls yearn for justice, because we so desperately want to believe that God will be fair to us, we fasten our hopes on the idea that life in this world is not the only reality.  Somewhere beyond this life is another world where "the last will be first" and those whose lives were cut short here on earth will be reunited with those they loved, and will spend eternity with them.  No living person can know anything about the reality of that hope.  The non-physical body that left us when we die, we call our "soul".  Belief in a world to come where innocent souls are compensated for their suffering can help us endure the unfairness of life in this world, without losing faith.  But it can also be an excuse for not being troubled or outraged by injustices around us, and not using our God-given intelligence to do something about it.
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These thoughts are brought to you by the CPC Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage your spiritual growth this winter.
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