The tough questionA
Jennifer Roblez
Friday, August 24, 2007
DURING SUNDAY’S DEMOCRATIC presidential election debate in Iowa, Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah, e-mailed this question: “My question is to understand each candidate’s view of a personal God.
“Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?”
The question and the candidates’ replies have stuck with me this week on that age-old query about why God allows bad things to happen.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York had the first reply and said, “Well, I don’t pretend to understand the wisdom and the power of God. I do believe in prayer. And I have relied on prayer consistently throughout my life.
“You know, I like to say that, if I had not been a praying person before I got to the White House, after having been there for just a few days, I would’ve become one.”
Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd responded, “I agree with what Hillary has just said here. I would not want to try and second-guess the lord’s intentions here and to assume that part of his great plan includes some of these actions we see, for a variety of different reasons.”
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina replied: “I have prayed most of my life; pray daily now. He’s enormously important to me.
“But the answer to the question is: No, I don’t -- I prayed before my 16-year-old son died; I prayed before Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. I think there are some things that are beyond our control.
“And I think it is enormously important to look to God — and, in my case, Christ — for guidance and for wisdom. But I don’t think you can prevent bad things from happening through prayer.”
For more candidate responses go to www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/story?id=3498294&page=1
So, is God the immediate cause of tragedy? I first asked that question in earnest when Nancy Wise, my friend and fellow graduate of Emporia High School’s Class of ’75, died in a car accident caused by another member of our class just three months after we left school and yards from her family’s home.
I asked it again when my Dad died at age 59 after a failed heart-bypass surgery in 1982. And recently I thought about it when my Mom fainted dead away at the Hyvee in Shawnee, on Christmas Eve, and a clerk, who had just taken Mom’s payment for flowers, knew CPR and revived her.
My Mom’s asked this question, too: “Why wouldn’t God take me, at age 73, rather than a young soldier?”
I don’t believe God is responsible when bad things happen. God may not be able to prevent tragedies but I believe God gives us grace and dignity to bear the worst. The trouble with that thought, though, is that it could mean God is limited, and I don’t believe that. It’s a puzzle and I don’t expect I’ll ever fully understand.
Over the years I’ve read and re-read Harold S. Kushner’s “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” published by Schocken Books. It’s helped me get through some tough times.
The Jewish theologian writes, “The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part.
“Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Utah man’s question, which essentially relates to God’s power to prevent tragedies through our prayers.
Please post your thoughts online or e-mail me at the address below.
I’ll print the most interesting replies in a future column.
Jennifer Roblez may be reached by e-mail at newsroom@emporiagazette.com.
Comments
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Posted by MeToo (anonymous) on August 26, 2007 at 8:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Thanks for the thought-provoking article. The real question seems to be, "Is God almighty or not?" If God is almighty, then everything is God's will. But if God is not almighty, then what are the limits on God's power? People seem to want a God that is like a powerful friend who will help them in a difficult situation, but they want to place a limit on God's power to explain why bad things happen to good people. "Hey, it's not God's fault. Even God has His limits." Oh really? I remember someone saying, "God is all-knowing, so God knows what we will do even though we have free will." But if God created us and knows what we will do before we do it, does it make sense to say we have free will?
Posted by railroadhorn (anonymous) on August 27, 2007 at 7:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This is a tough question. Is God almighty -- seems like an easy question at first -- of course God has dominion. Is there where a person's karma comes into play, perhaps? I know grief when someone I love dies but I don't think God is responsible for the injury. So what is -- could it be that the devil and evil really do exist?
Posted by netloafer (anonymous) on August 27, 2007 at 9:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I've heard many answers to the question of God's omnipotence. I remember once having an agnostic ask me if God could make something so heavy that he couldn't lift it. The question was, of course, meant to disprove the notion of the existence of God. It was a logically inconsistent question. If I were to say "yes," the questioner would have replied, "I thought He could do anything." If I were to say "no" his answer would have been the same.
Omnipotence is just one of God's attributes, and it works in concert with His love, grace, omniscience, etc.
While I think that Jennifer and I hold many common beliefs, I differ somewhat with her views here.
I do believe that at times of His choosing God intervenes directly in the affairs of men. For example, it's recorded that God heard the cries of the children of Israel in bondage and answered their prayers for help. I could cite other examples, but will go in the interest of brevity.
I think what Jennifer's saying is that while God is omnipotent, He is also inactive, much like a watchmaker who creates a watch,winds it up, then goes away to let it run by itself. I believe that God is both omnipotent and active in the world, reconciling the fallen world to Himself. His love is limitless, so vast that He was willing to give us all free will to either respond to Him or reject Him.
None of us can explain why a child dies while crossing the street on the way to school or the reason a 73 year lives while a young soldier dies. These tragedies raise questions that even the best of us cannot answer. They're mysteries. But to use these tragedies as platforms to assume that God is powerless is ill informed.
C.S. Lewis answered the question this way (from "Dogma and the Universe") - "We are in no position to draw up maps of God's psychology, and prescribe limits to His interests. We would not do so even for a man whom we knew to be greater than ourselves. The doctrines that God is love and that He delights in men, are positive doctrines, not limiting doctrines. He is not less than this. What more He may be, we do not know; we only know that He must be more than we can conceive. It is to be expected that His creation should be, in the main, unintelligible to us."
Posted by railroadhorn (anonymous) on August 29, 2007 at 7:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think the writer said she didn't believe that God was powerless. She wrote "The trouble with that thought, though, is that it could mean God is limited, and I don’t believe that."
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