So the question on the table is: How can there be a good and omnipotent God when there is so much evil and suffering in the world?
I reject answers that blame the victims of evil and suffering. For instance, I have heard that the Holocaust wiped out 12 million people because (1) they sinned, (2) they were too prominent, (3) they weren’t smart enough to leave Europe in time, and on and on.
I also reject answers claiming that evil is God’s will because it teaches us or tests us. The same for the answer, It only appears evil. If we could see things from God’s point of view, we’d perceive the good behind the appearance. I don’t believe God arranged the Holocaust to teach a lesson or test us. Nor do I believe the Holocaust only appears evil. It really was evil, period.
I spent a lot of years being angry at God for being, as Woody Allen put it, an “underachiever.” In response, I tried agnosticism, atheism and indifference. They worked for a time until it struck me that my anger–my strong sense of what constitutes justice, mercy, evil and righteousness–remained. More important, I felt, they were divine. That is, they came from somewhere beyond culture, tradition and history. They were a gift. It hit me that my anger proved that I had an innate sense of the divine and no amount of God-denial would cure it.
Having accepted the reality of what is commonly called”God,” at least in my life, I still had to figure out the evil problem, and it seemed to me that the stumbling block wasn’t the question of whether or not a just God exists but the question of whether the job description we give God is accurate.
Some of the things I did were (1) read the Bible for what it SHOWS about human nature and the way the world works, (2) get rid of all my preconceived notions about how God is supposed to behave, and (3) let go of my wishes that God be Superman (a rescuer), Santa Claus (a kindly granter of goods), and any other image put out there over time. In other words, I started from scratch with God, hoping God would reveal Godself. It was an experiment, in a way. Instead of imposing a job description on Divinity, I’d see how God operated in the world.
Here are some things I learned: From the Bible, Genesis to be exact, that human creatures (we are portrayed as brothers and sisters) compete and conflict. That is part of our life’s journey. However, reconciliation is possible. Ishmael and Isaac come together to bury their father, Abraham. Humbly Jacob seeks out Esau, after having stolen his birthright and blessing, and Esau welcomes him. Joseph embraces the brothers who sold him into slavery and he is reunited with his father. Human perfection is not possible, Genesis shows us in the many flawed characters portrayed; however, God remains loyal. God was with Ishmael in the desert, with Jacob in spite of his deceit, with Joseph in the pit and with the slaves in Egypt.
I learned that God’s job is not to afflict us so we’ll be strong and moral, but to give us the strength and moral clarity to come through affliction. While God did not invent, produce or allow the Holocaust, God did inspire people to rebuild from its ashes. I reject all notions that the State of Israel would not exist but for the Holocaust. Cause and effect are not inevitable here, in my view. God gave the human race the free will to choose what would happen after the Holocaust. Following the exhortation in Deuteronomy, people chose life.
It is my firm belief that one of humanity’s missions on this earthly plane is repair, on all levels, and I begin with myself. I am awed by the number of people who are so certain they know what is best for others and do not bother to scrutinize their own lives. You are damned to literal or figurative hell unless you vote a certain way or believe a certain way. Not only is somebody else’s truth not necessarily my truth, but it is not possible for me to accept what I am told without examination. Examination has led me to engage with what is truly valuable and holy.
What do you think?
