ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

 

ASK THE COMPUTER

In the mid-1970's I learned a computer language called "Basic," and under the tutelage of Fr. Mark, a brother monk, I learned to program our computer to do all sorts of handy things for me in my work at school. I loved the thrill of getting the computer to follow my directions and, say, make a list of all the students who had signed up for Geometry but had received an F on Algebra I the previous semester. 

It was even more fun, in a weird sort of way, it the program didn't work at first. Say I type "Run" and the computer screen fills up with a single student's name appearing over and over. Uh-oh! Now what? I type "Break." The first step is to ask the computer what's going on. I ask it to tell me the value of each of the variables I've assigned at the top of the program. Let's say I ask for the current value of the variable SN$(%), that increases by 1 each time a name is printed.  Whoa! The value of SN$(%), which should be over 50 by now, is still at 0! That's the explanation of the weird output. (I love explanations, don't you?) So then I go into my program and make the necessary change, and type "Run" again and see how much further I get toward producing the list. Asking the computer makes perfect sense because I know that the answer, the logical explanation, is there somewhere -- I just need to ask the right question.

"REASON" TAKES OVER

In the 1700's in Europe, the rationalists saw that everything in the world seemed to obey the laws of the sciences that were being developed at the time. They decided that the universe was a vast mechanical system governed by the laws of the physical sciences. Having applied the laws of evidence, cause and effect and so on in the physical world with such astounding success, they couldn't stop themselves, and began applying these laws to everything, even things that lay outside of their neat time-space box. They concluded that if something couldn't be measured scientifically then it simply didn't exist. They just decided this, of course, with (paradoxically) no evidence for their claim. So, out the window went ultimate meaning in life, God, existence beyond the grave, and all such non-scientific religious concepts.

THE GOD OF EXPLANATION

Up until that time people had believed in a transcendent God -- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for example. The Judeo-Christian God was involved with His people, and loved them, while they in return could praise, thank, glorify and even complain loudly to their God. But now suddenly the rationalist worldview swept over the Western World, and the God of Abraham was replaced by "the god of explanation." You and I sometimes fall into this mistake, too: We ask God to explain himself to us, to justify why a certain tragic thing has happened. "If you are all loving and infinitely kind and just, then why was this baby born with this awful disease? Explain yourself!" We think it's like asking the computer until you get the rational solution to the question. And naturally we get frustrated, angry and feel betrayed when no explanation is forthcoming.

WANTING IT BOTH WAYS

Why do we people of faith sometimes get angry at God for not offering us explanations for the existence of evil in the world? Well, we seem to want two mutually contradictory things at the same time: We want a God who operates in a rational, logical manner (like my computer program), a God that we can comprehend -- a God like us, whom we can therefore predict and even control. But at the same time we want a God who is infinitely loving and forgiving, and whose power and wisdom lie way beyond the limits of our puny human understanding.

The God of Faith permeates the world God created, with its incredible beauty and elegance. But this same God invites us into a relationship of intimacy that involves vulnerability, s[spontaneity and trust. inviting you and me to rely on the virtue of hope in the face of the more mysterious parts of the Divine Plan. The God of Faith does not, indeed can not offer us explanations for the most important things in our lives. That's why the God of Faith apologizes to us (see last week's post): God created us to be curious problem-solvers, but then came up with a Plan for the world that is beyond our ability to comprehend. What a bummer! 

But also, what an opportunity for a relationship of intimacy and trust between ourselves and God!  

 

GOD TURNS THE TABLES

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THE GOD OF VENGEANCE STRIKES!

I asked my Religion students to write a brief essay this week on how they see the notion of "God" fitting into the present pandemic. I was disappointed when I saw how the kids were explaining the pandemic as being God's way of punishing us for not obeying the divine will.

 All semester I've been pointing out to them that the God whom Jesus came to reveal to us is infinitely loving, and, unlike us humans, doesn't have the urge for revenge or payback. This latter idea of God definitely exists in the Bible, but is not the God whom Jesus called his "abba," his loving Father. The view of the Almighty as angry and vengeful goes contrary to the fundamental direction of the Bible, which is leading us in the direction of the fullness of God's self-revelation in the end-time, when everything will be permeated with God's boundless love.

During the present crisis it's particularly important to let go of the horrible idea of God as angry, vengeful, looking to punish all of us (including babies!). This is the "God" that atheists say doesn't exist. ("There is no God and I hate him.") Let's agree with them and move on to the God that Jesus revealed to us, the God who is pure love. Of course, the concept of God is infinitely complex, so we can't just dismiss metaphors such as "God as earthquake" or "God helps us grow by means of adversity."

I just noticed that the question of suffering and the problem of evil have been favorite topics in this blog for years. In the left hand column on this screen you can scroll down to "labels" that link you to posts about "God and Suffering," and "The mystery of Suffering."

SURPRISE! GOD TURNS THE TABLES

The following is an insightful essay that shows God turning the tables: Instead of our asking the Lord to forgive us (i.e. "We repent. So please call off your pandemic."), the Lord asks us to forgive Him!

 There is at this moment, in the back of some forsaken church, or even ordinary house, or at the turning of a deserted path, a poor man who joins his hands and from the depth of his misery, without very well knowing what he is saying, or without saying anything, thanks the good Lord for having made him free, for having made him capable of loving. 

There is somewhere else, I do not know where, a mother who hides her face for the last time in the hollow of a little breast which will beat no more, a mother next to her dead child who offers to God the groan of an exhausted resignation, as if the Voice which has thrown the suns into space as a hand throws grain, the Voice which makes the worlds tremble, had just murmured gently into her ear, “Pardon me. One day you will know, you will understand, you will thank me. But right now, what I am looking for from you is your pardon. Pardon.” 

These -- this harassed woman, this poor man -- are at the heart of the mystery, at the heart of universal creation and in the very secret of God. What can I say of it? Language is at the service of intelligence. And what these people have understood, they have understood by a faculty superior to intelligence although not in the least in contradiction with it -- or rather, by a profound and irresistible movement of the soul which engaged all the faculties at once, which engaged to the depth their entire nature… 

Yes, at the moment that this man, this woman, accepted their destiny, accepted themselves, humbly -- the mystery of creation was being accomplished in them.  While they were thus, without knowing it, running the entire risk of their human conduct, they were realizing themselves fully in the charity of Christ, becoming themselves, according to the words of St. Paul, other Christs. In short, they were saints.                                                                                - Charles Peguy (1873-1914)

This God who identifies with our suffering and apologizes because we cannot understand how it fits into the Divine Plan of Love for the world -- this sounds much more like the God that Jesus came to reveal to us. This is the God of Love, but also the God of Surprises and, unfortunately for us, the God of Mystery. I say let's accept the apology gracefully and keep on letting God love us in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. And, of course, try to pass on that love to the people we are living with.

Maybe next time I'll explore the idea of how our loving God uses adversity to strengthen us and help us grow in love for one another. Meanwhile, as we get closer to Holy Week, let us ask the Lord to help us to imitate his example on the cross by growing in self-giving love.

OUR INCOMPREHENSIBLE GOD

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The tragedies we’ve been watching on the news in the past few weeks can make you wonder: What kind of God would allow all this unspeakable suffering? This is an interesting question that needs to be very carefully considered.

THE TRUE GOD, OR THE REASONABLE  ONE?

As a religious believer and a monk, I spend hours a day praying privately and publicly to the God who is revealed in the bible, specifically the God who is revealed to us by Jesus Christ.  This is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the creator and redeemer, who rescued the Chosen People out of the slavery of Egypt and brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey. This is the same infinitely merciful Father revealed to us in the person of Jesus. But this God, besides being infinitely loving and infinitely merciful, is also, by definition, infinitely incomprehensible.

This last word is a tremendous stumbling block for us moderns. We can’t help it -- it’s the way we’ve been brought up, the way we’ve been educated. The ultimate argument against any statement is “It doesn’t make sense!” or “There’s no evidence for that!”

One scripture scholar puts it this way: "It is all too easy to make the mistake of speaking and thinking as though God might be a being, an entity within our world, accessible to our interested study… open to our investigation by the same sort of techniques we use for objects and entities within our world." (N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, Why Christianity Makes Sense, p. 56)

So, here’s the problem: If your “God” can be neatly defined and understood in terms of logic and evidence, as an entity within your world and accessible to your analysis, then you’re dealing with something finite -- oops! By definition that can’t be God.  

The “God” that atheists do not believe in has zero to do with the God I pray to every day. Their God is “a being, an entity within our world, accessible to our interested study… open to our investigation by the same sort of techniques we use for objects and entities within our world," and who, of course, fails the rationality test miserably.

SWITCHING GODS

I mentioned that we can’t help reverting to this second approach to God: our entire culture, everything around us, follows the laws of logic and the rules of evidence. That’s our default position on everything.

It’s from this position that we can ask “If God is all loving, how can he let hurricanes and earthquakes happen? The logic doesn’t work; God is acting irrationally and irresponsibly.” And, of course, from the rational position, there are no answers to the questions. The flaw lies not in the questions themselves, which are very logical, but rather in the God who is the object of the discussion. A “God” who is subject to the boundaries of logic and restricted by the rules of cause and effect is a contradiction in terms, like a four-sided triangle.

So, when we’re faced with monstrous evils, whether moral ones such as the massacre in Las Vegas, or physical ones such as the recent hurricane in Puerto Rico, we have to avoid the trap of looking for “explanations,” as if everything must have a rational explanation, and as if God were “a being, an entity within our world, accessible to our interested study.”

ON HOLY GROUND

As a Christian, you humbly remove your sandals in the presence of such awesome mysteries

as these evils, and you pray to the God of Abraham, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ask for strength and courage for yourself and for people who are suffering from these tragedies. You can scold God the way the psalmist does a lot: “Lord, where are you?” “Lord, how could you let this happen?” But the questions are rhetorical ones, posed from the standpoint of a personal relationship with a loving God; they’re not questions of scientific inquiry looking for a rational answer.

The idea of an incomprehensible God may make us moderns uncomfortable, but it sure beats the idea of a comprehensible god, who by definition isn’t God at all!

Let’s pray for our brothers and sisters who are overwhelmed with grief right now, and who are angry at God because of the tragedies God permits. We can all sympathize with their feelings, which means that we can pray that much harder for them.

Just make sure that the loving God you’re praying to is the One who is infinite and incomprehensible.

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UNSHAKEABLE FAITH

DO EARTHQUAKES SHAKE YOUR FAITH?


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I’ve always been impressed by the strong faith of the Haitian people. Haiti is a strongly Catholic country (over 90% is the usual figure given), but despite (or because of?) their extreme poverty Haitians have a deeply rooted and seemingly unshakeable faith. This confident trust in God seems to have survived even the destruction of Port-au-Prince.

A gentleman was visiting our school last week and was asked about his family back in Haiti. “Three dead. One lost a hand.” But instead of continuing as I would have by saying “What an awful tragedy” he said “Praise God! Praise God!” That sort of indomitable faith is a real blessing to people like me who can get fed up with God’s high-handed and heartless attitude toward the world.

HOW TO GET MAD AT GOD

I sometimes have real problems trying to reconcile devastating catastrophes with God’s supposed love for the world. How could God allow all of this suffering to happen? What’s the matter with God, anyway? I fold my arms across my chest and stare daggers at God saying "Okay, if you're all powerful and all loving, then how come you allow this unspeakable horror to devastate the poorest people in the western hemisphere?"

But there is a definite trick to confronting God. The best examples of the right way to get mad at God are found in the book of psalms -- one third of the psalms are songs of lament and complaint. I was reminded of this the other evening when I was praying for the people of Haiti using a Psalm from my French Bible. I chose Psalm 60 simply because it had the title “National prayer after a defeat.” (It was written after a catastrophic military loss.) As I started reading it I was startled at how appropriate it was under the circumstances. In the opening French lines I could almost hear the voice of Haiti’s faithful Christians praying along with me:

O God, you have rejected us and broken us;
you have been angry; now restore us!
You have caused the land to quake; you have torn it open;
repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
You have made your people suffer hard things;
you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.

With their sorrowful voices ringing in my ears I continued,

Give victory with your right hand, and answer us,
so that those whom you love may be rescued.

Then came the closing lines:

Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me into Edom?
Was it not you who rejected us, God?
Do you no longer march with our armies?
Give us aid against the foe;
worthless is human help.
We will triumph with the help of God,
who will trample down our foes.

From now on every time I sing Psalm 60 at Friday Vespers on it will always have a strong Haitian accent.

We hear the psalmist complaining after this devastating military defeat, “Lord, why do you no longer go forth with our armies?” But then – and this is the crucial point about the psalms of complaint -- the psalmist ends with “We will triumph with the help of God, who will trample down our foes.” He is scolding God from a position of continued trust and reverence. That’s the right way to get angry with God.

When we moderns challenge God’s supposed bad behavior, however, we need to do so from that same stance of trust in God, and not from the perspective of the rationalist philosophers of the Enlightenment. (See my April 28, 2009 blog).

Living in a world of technology where everything is assumed to have a scientific explanation, we may be tempted to pose the earthquake question to a very different “God,” the 18th Century rationalist's caricature of God. This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but rather "the God of Explanation," who must operate inside the confines of time and space and play by the rules of human logic and the laws of cause and effect. The rationalist says to God, “Give me a reasoned, logical explanation for your behavior, or else you’re just a fraud or a figment of ignorant people’s imaginations!” This rationalist concept of God assumes that there are rational explanations for everything. Far from helping us to get through times of trouble, this approach leaves us frustrated and angry at this God who refuses to act reasonably. So, if I’m going to question God about the horrors in Haiti, I need to be sure I’m standing on the ground of faith. Otherwise I’ll simply be challenging God for a satisfactory “explanation,” expecting to get a "reasonable" answer that will never come.

If you need some encouragement in your faith, just look to your brothers and sisters in Haiti.




THE FAITH OF HAITIANS

I heard a radio report from Port-au-Prince a couple of days ago that began with the sound of women’s voices singing a hymn in French. They were praying for God’s help. I was struck by their tenacious faith in the face of overwhelming catastrophe. Then yesterday a friend told me of seeing news footage of a Haitian woman being freed after having spent a week trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building. The moment she reached safety the first thing she did was to sing out loud a song of praise and thanks to God. She was obviously addressing the Psalmist’s God, the one whose mysterious ways are simply not our ways, but who, faith tells us, has a plan for each of us, a plan for ultimate happiness and eternal peace.

The New York Daily News ran an article last Sunday on the resilient faith of the victims.

A PRAYER IN TIME OF EARTHQUAKE

The Roman missal includes a collection of special “Prayers for Various Occasions,” among which is one that may be said at the time of an earthquake. The prayer in the English missal is quite prosaic and not very inspiring. But the French missal used in French-speaking countries around the world has the following beautiful oration (which I’ve translated below):

EN TEMPS DE SEISME

Dieu de la vie, notre Dieu,
Toi qui veux le bonheur de l’homme,
C’est toi que nous implorons
Quand les forces de la nature se déchaînent
Qu’elles nous épargnent si c’est possible
Et ne fassent pas vaciller notre foi.
Par Jésus Christ.

God of life, our God,
You who wish mankind’s happiness,
We implore you
when the forces of nature are unleashed:
May they spare us if possible
And not shake our faith.
Through Christ our Lord.


The earthquake shook Haiti’s mountains but could not shake her faith. As we pray for her people, we ask the Lord for a share of their unshakable faith!




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"MAKING NICE" WITH GOD

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Is it Okay to Get Angry at God?
I was always taught that it is wrong to get angry at God. Such behavior was labeled arrogant, ungrateful and irreverent -- it was also considered dangerous since God can punish it with who-knows-what sort of retribution. So it was thought best to just be quiet and gratefully accept whatever the Almighty decides to dish out to you.
When you think about it, however, this is a pretty problematic view of God and of spirituality. The worst thing about it is that it keeps me from having a personal relationship with the Lord.

A Personal Relationship With God

If "spirituality" is a personal relationship with God, then I ought to be able to learn something (perhaps a lot) about my own spirituality by looking at the way I act in my relationships with other people, especially people I'm very close to. Do I tend to be I trusting? Open? Do I have a tendency to try to control others? What does it take for me to leave myself vulnerable to another person? The answers to questions like these can give me a good idea of how to think of my relationship with God.

Hanging out together
One of the best ways of fostering intimacy, the psychologists tell us, is simply spending time together. This certainly seems to apply to my relationship with God: simply "hanging out" with God in quiet times of prayer or by talking to the Lord whenever and wherever I feel like it is an important dimension of my spiritual life.

Saying it out loud

We often hear people say that it's important to them that the other person tell them out loud "I love you." Because we are bodily creatures, physical signs of saying and hearing and touching are naturally important. That's also why prayer takes on its various forms such as raising our voices in vocal prayer, praying in community, or silently telling God our troubles or asking for help. It doesn't do to say, "Well, why bother saying these things? God already knows that I'm scared" or "God already knows what I need, or "Jesus already knows that I love him." I am a human being and in my relationships, if they are genuine, I need to say things out loud and let the other know my feelings.

But What About Getting Angry?

Some of us were taught that the most important thing in relating with others is to "be nice." This implies hiding your real feelings, allowing other people to do what they want even if it is hurtful to you. At all costs we must "make nice."

Maybe this is part of what's behind the prohibition against getting angry with God -- because it's "not nice" to get angry with anybody!

It might be wise to remember that anger, like any other emotion, is neither right nor wrong, it simply IS. The issue of right or wrong comes up only when I decide to do something in reaction to the emotion. There is nothing wrong with the sudden urge to whack this sophomore with my Religion textbook; following through on the urge, however, has a moral dimension - the action may be good or bad, but the emotion is neither.

So this brings us to the experience of being angry with God. It seems to me that any human relationship is going to involve at some point getting impatient, fed up or even angry because of something the other person has done. It's a normal and healthy response. Am I to believe that in the most important relationship in my life, my relationship with the Lord, I am not allowed to be real? I am not allowed to tell my beloved Savior what I'm really feeling?

Spirituality: Do You Want "Nice" or Do You Want "Real?"

When I show up for prayer, I need to be my real self, the one who Jesus died to save, not some un-real self who Jesus never even heard of. If it's true that, as the rabbi put it, "God is not nice," then why should I have to be "nice" when God's doing the "earthquake" routine? If I feel angry at God, I better be real about it and tell the Lord what I'm feeling, confident that God is wise and loving enough to put up with my emotional outburst. When I've done this myself I've always found that my relationship with God has grown stronger, and has become more real and honest afterward.

A spirituality for troubled times will have to include a relationship with the Almighty which is honest, sincere and real.
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