Tsunami, relections on God and the Problem of Evil

[Selwynn]

Catastrophic tragedies like the tsunami brings one religious question into sharer focus than all others: If God is all-powerful, why does he allow horrible things like this to happen?

The other day I made a partial reply to a post asking if anyone was questoning their faith in light of recent events. I went on to write out an more thoughful response which I would like to share with you now:



Sadly, I fear that it is the misconception of omnipotence and omniscience that often leads to a crisis of faith. It is the fundamentalist interpretations of what God is like that leads to such brutal feelings of utter betrayal - when the uncompromising forces of reality tear down the straw houses of simple answers and petty literalism.

I do not have any personal illusions that a God of love either causes catastrophe or could stop catastrophe and chooses not to. When we choose to apply the concept of Love to our analogies of God – and I do choose to do that – we necessarily imply certain things and unavoidably rule out other things. We know that love implies freedom and uncertainty. We also know that love cannot be coerced and that there is no escaping the reality of risk – there are no guarantees.

We accept these realities of real love we personally experience, and yet when it comes down to the nature of God’s relationship to creation, we balk. We balk because even many who reject God want to conceive of the God they reject as in total control – having power over everything. That way, there is something to blame for the unfathomable depths of pain this world is capable of inflicting on those of us who live in it. Even many who profess no belief in God still have irrational anger at the God they don’t believe in when things go terribly, terribly wrong. Having a scapegoat for our grief is easier than embracing the alternative – a world in which even God takes a risk in her choice to create; a world with an unknown future, in which even God does not enjoy coercive control.

It is because I believe that what I understand about Love tells me a lot about what God is like that I do not experience a “crisis of faith” even as I weep over the catastrophe of recent weeks. I do however find comfort in the nature of her love – as I understand love to include compassion and grace in its composition - even in the midst of the very, very worst. God's promise that she will "never leave us nor forsake us" wasn't for the times when things were going great - it was for the times when things have collapsed into utter shit.

It is God’s promise to be in the utter shit with us that makes faith worth everything – her promise to hold me when I cry and cry with me, to patiently take care of me when I’m having trouble taking care of myself, and to be ever-present even in my darkest hours. I don't expect my human friends and loved ones to have supernatural powers when I grieve. But by the very fact that they are my friends and loved ones, they will be there with me and they will comfort me and carry me when I can't carry myself. That is why I cherish them. It's the same with God, only magnified and more personal in some ways - that friend that sticks closer than a brother.

I don't love and cherish my relationship with God because she is a kind of amoral "superman" that is able to prevent tragedy but frequently doesn't. I love and cherish my relationship with God because she is a friend, and she loves me and I her, and she gives me grace and comfort for whatever I face. There is nothing that God can do, that she isn't actively doing for everyone at every present moment. Certainly what God might want to do is often curtailed by human ignorance and resistance, but I don’t believe there is ever anything God is deliberately holding back. God's covenant with us is not that she can prevent all human suffering or tragedy, because by the very nature of her character of love, she can’t. Love is free, not coercive. Love is risky; it is clearly not certain. So too is this world.

Creation itself was a risk of love, not a coercively controlled machine. God's covenant with us therefore is that with her, no matter what we may face in life, we can experience a life worth living. Not one free from suffering, or loss, or hardship or even catastrophe. But one where, no matter what things we face, her comfort and gentle strength can fuel our human resolve, and fortify our hope and determination to go on living and risk again, rebuild, and start anew.

God's covenant promise to her children is that if we walk together in fellowship with her, we can come to the end of our lives, look back on totality of our lives (including even the most personal catastrophes) and say to ourselves "living my life was worth the cost of drawing in that final breath.” There is only one Gospel promise at the heart of faith, and that is the covenantal promise of God that with her we can look back on our lives and say in all sincerity, “if I had it to do all over again, unable to change one thing - I would."

This is the promise of faith: a life that is worth it. I believe everything else is a distortion of what actually matters. I don't love God because I think somehow she is able to prevent catastrophe. I love God because of her covenant with me to go with me and before me even in the darkest hours of my life. I love her because of the constant examples of her faithful outpouring of grace and strength over my life, all while tirelessly working hope out of even my deepest despairs. This faithfulness has proven true, even in times when I could see nothing but darkness, and all I could hear was a still small voice.

I love God for hope, not certainty. And that is why this catastrophe breaks my heart, but not the covenant.

Sel


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