But not everyone lives.
(sorry, I had to do it)
Posted on 12/31/2004 1:08:02 PM PST by Pokey78
IT IS THE question of questions for religious belief. How does God permit a tragedy such as the Indian Ocean tidal wave? How does he allow the innocent to suffer and the guiltless to die? It was just such a disaster — the Lisbon tragedy of All Souls’ Day 1755, in which 60,000 people died as a result of tsunamis produced by an earthquake — that led Voltaire to write Candide, satirising religious faith. The butt of his irony, Dr Pangloss, is generally thought to be modelled on Leibniz, the German philosopher who held that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”. What incensed Voltaire was that there were religious believers at the time who thought that the earthquake represented God’s anger at Lisbon’s “sinful” ways. After all, didn’t the Old Testament speak of divine anger? Were catastrophes not interpreted as punishment against sinful nations? Is there not justice in history? Yet in the end the interpretation was unsustainable. Why Lisbon and not other cities? Why were the young, the frail, the saintly among the casualties? Even the most dogmatic found it hard to answer these questions. In any case, the suggestion is morally unacceptable. It blames the victims for their fate. After the Holocaust, such thoughts ought to be unthinkable. Jews read the Bible differently. One of its most striking features is that the the most challenging questions about fate come not from unbelievers, but from the heroes of faith themselves. Abraham asked: “Shall the Judge of all the Earth not do justice?” Moses asked: “Why have You done evil to this people?” The entire book of Job is dedicated to this question, and in the end it is not Job’s comforters, who blamed his misfortunes on his sins, who were vindicated by heaven, but Job himself, who consistently challenged God. In Judaism, faith lies in the question, not the answer. Earthquakes and tidal waves were known to the ancients. They spoke of them in awe. Job himself said: “The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke; by His power he churned up the sea.” David used them as a metaphor for fear itself: “The waves of death swirled about me . . . The Earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook . . . The valleys of the sea were exposed, and the foundations of the Earth laid bare.” In the midst of a storm at sea, Jonah prayed: “Your wrath lies heavily upon me; You have overwhelmed me with all Your waves.” Yet God taught Elijah that He was not in the earthquake or the whirlwind that destroys, but in the still, small voice that heals. What distinguished the biblical prophets from their pagan predecessors was their refusal to see natural catastrophe as an independent force of evil, proof that at least some of the gods are hostile to mankind. In the ancient Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, for example, the goddess of the oceans Tiamat declares war on the rest of creation and is only defeated after prolonged struggle by the younger god, Marduk. Essential to monotheism is that conflict is not written into the fabric of the Universe. That is what redeems tragedy and creates hope. The simplest explanation is that of the 12th-century sage, Moses Maimonides. Natural disasters, he said, have no explanation other than that God, by placing us in a physical world, set life within the parameters of the physical. Planets are formed, tectonic plates shift, earthquakes occur, and sometimes innocent people die. To wish it were otherwise is in essence to wish that we were not physical beings at all. Then we would not know pleasure, desire, achievement, freedom, virtue, creativity, vulnerability and love. We would be angels — God’s computers, programmed to sing His praise. The religious question is, therefore, not: “Why did this happen?” But “What then shall we do?” That is why, in synagogues, churches, mosques and temples throughout the world this weekend, along with our prayers for the injured and the bereaved, we will be asking people to donate money to assist the work of relief. The religious response is not to seek to understand, thereby to accept. We are not God. Instead we are the people He has called on us to be his “ partners in the work of creation”. The only adequate religious response is to say: “God, I do not know why this terrifying disaster has happened, but I do know what You want of us: to help the afflicted, comfort the bereaved, send healing to the injured, and aid those who have lost their livelihoods and homes.” We cannot understand God, but we can strive to imitate His love and care. That, and perhaps one more thing. For it was after an earlier flood, in the days of Noah, that God made His first covenant with mankind. The Bible says that God had seen “a world filled with violence” and asked Noah to institute a social order that would honour human life as the image of God. Not as an explanation of suffering, but as a response to it, I for one will pray that in our collective grief we renew the covenant of human solidarity. Having seen how small and vulnerable humanity is in the face of nature, might we not also see how small are the things that divide us, and how tragic to add grief to grief.
Jonathan Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth of Nations
BTTT for later!
Ah, sweet reason.
Everyone dies.
If we don't know the bad in life, how can we recognize the good when it comes? Life isn't fair.
Personally, I'd much rather substitute all the murderers, rapists, child molestors etc in place of all those innocents. But I'm not in any position to do that.
That said, prayers for the hundreds of thousands of lost souls.
Why? Because this world is only very temporary, and He has something infinitely better He wants to share with us. Things only seem dead end if we take that point of view and make this world everything.
Amen to that, my friend.
Our ways are not His ways. To know the answer to the question asked would be to claim a wisdom we cannot
posses.Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.But
when bad things happen we tend to respond to the immmediate
in an emotional rather than rational manner.Only after a
period of reflection can we begin to comprhend the myriad
of causes and effects.For sometimes we choose behavior or
actions that place us in harms way unnecessarily. But it is not given to us to know Gods purpose all the time -for sometimes th eonly way we can grow --is by suffering loss.
Very well said. The world is not fair and those who look for fairness on earth will always be bitterly disappointed.
So Islam isn't really monotheistic? ;)
I've always found this fascinating.
What distinguished the biblical prophets from their pagan predecessors was their refusal to see natural catastrophe as an independent force of evil, proof that at least some of the gods are hostile to mankind.
Superstition is one of the primary enemies of mankind. By excising it with a greatly simplified spiritual view of cause and effect, Judaism (and Zoroastrianism) set a new standard on which human beings could evaluate questions of fate and morality without resorting to overwrought notions of cause and effect. Judaism goes a step further by erradicating witchcraft and astrology. The stage was set for western civilization to thrive.
In the ancient Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, for example, the goddess of the oceans Tiamat declares war on the rest of creation and is only defeated after prolonged struggle by the younger god, Marduk.
Tiamat, was that you?
very interesting article. I agree with the rabbi that Maimonides probably had the right idea. But he was wrong about angels - angels have free will, otherwise how could some of them reject God and fall? (do Jews believe in fallen angels BTW?) The angels' free will is very important because it makes it such that God did not create any evil, even at the beginning, it was always the result of free created beings choosing badly. I think this could even in a sense explain things like the tsunami. The world is not the best of all possible worlds, it is fallen and Satan is the prince of it. So things like this are going to happen, sadly.
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
(Luke 13:1 KJV) There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
(Luke 13:2 KJV) And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
(Luke 13:3 KJV) I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
(Luke 13:4 KJV) Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
(Luke 13:5 KJV) I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Interesting. God is in as much trouble as Bush. Either it's God's/Bush's fault if something happens or it's God's/Bush's fault for not preventing something happening. Uh, just were does Nature and the rest of us come in?
God is asleep at the switch? Or maybe we should look more at a Catharist version of our world? This isn't heaven baby.
It's not our place to question God about anything. We live our life, and God willing, we've followed his word.
I'm not a Priest, Minister or "Reverend" (like the Reverend Rectum Je$$e Jack$on or AL "go-out-and-kill-a-cop" $harpton, but I know that much.
Wise words.
But not everyone lives.
(sorry, I had to do it)
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