I have observed that people go to great lengths to protect God in the face of human tragedy, small or large, never more so than in the face of natural disaster. Such is the case with Haiti. I hear many of us, especially among churchgoers, say to ourselves and to one another: Whatever is, is God’s will. Or, God’s reasons are inscrutable, though they will become clear to us, once we have joined God in the afterlife and see “face to face.” Or God is teaching us a lesson through this event; a greater good can come from this horrific moment. Or suffering is a blessing, an opportunity to live as Christ lived. Or suffering is a test that will temper us like the fires of steel, strengthening us in our faith. In any case, what is required of us in response is to submit to the will of God, however ambiguous, hidden, or unclear.
While for some of us, God simply can’t sustain the weight of such protective measures, nor does God deserve such privileged treatment, for many of us the idea of challenging traditional conceptions of God is particularly unbearable in the face of suffering. This is psychologically understandable. That there might be no God, that God is ultimately indifferent to human suffering, that God is less than all powerful, that the events themselves challenge all attempts to find meaning—such possibilities are less likely to be entertained, because the very idea of meaninglessness, on the face of it, an oxymoron, is too painful to bear. God, the source and center of all meaning for monotheists, must be protected at any cost. Nevertheless, such atheistic and agnostic struggles often historically take place precisely in the face of disaster.
A more typical alternative, however, is to look for human responsibility and deserts in order that God and God’s power might be secured. This is especially the case for those of us steeped in scriptural traditions that emphasize a highly anthropomorphized, personalistic, moody, and mighty God, those of us who approach these texts “literally.” So, for example, Pat Robertson, appearing on CBN, attributes the earthquake, along with a history of natural and social devastation in Haiti, to a slave revolt based on a “pact with the devil.” He calls the earthquake an event that could be a blessing in disguise for the Haitian people, as he calls for repentance among the survivors—all of this moralizing taking place while a ticker tape appeal runs across the bottom of the TV screen for contributions for earthquake relief. This tendency to blame the victims, however, is hardly restricted to the literalists among believers, be they Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Nor is it necessarily restricted to monotheists. Where God or meaning per se is at stake, the point is in any case to protect.
These responses, whether protective or challenging, are hardly new. One need only consider the Lisbon earthquake to see them play out with a strange familiarity regarding present circumstances. Such a return to the past is sadly telling in relation to the present.
Lisbon: The End of Optimism?
The Lisbon earthquake struck the capital of Portugal on November 1, 1755, All Saints’ Day. Scientists today speculate that it probably registered as a nine on the Richter scale. It devastated the population. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 10,000 to 100,000. At the time the quake struck, worshipers filled the churches honoring their dead. The churches, the worshippers, and the city around them were effectively destroyed. Not long after the major quake hit, a tsunami followed that killed those who had rushed to the beaches in fear to avoid the havoc of the earthquake. The cataclysm haunted European literature, art, philosophy, and theology for decades. The economy of Europe was subsequently affected for some time to come.
The significance of the catastrophe, especially its cause, weighed heavily on Europeans’ minds. That the event took place on a religious holiday, that it took out a major European capital, that the city was devoutly Catholic, all these aspects troubled ordinary people, philosophers, and clergy alike. Issues of God’s goodness in relation to God’s power, as well as the ultimate goodness of this world as the best of all possible worlds because created, after all, by such a god, arose front and center. Some clergy saw the earthquake as a signal for the end of the world. A few philosophers asked for scientific causes. (Immanuel Kant, for example, attributed the earthquake to underground caves filling with gases.) Most folks found either of these approaches less than satisfactory. Today some historians see the Lisbon earthquake as signaling the end of the optimism of the European Enlightenment and the beginning of the anxiety and emotional excessiveness of Romanticism.
“If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?”
Perhaps the best known response falls more into the category of challenging our very notions of God and God’s world as the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire’s Candide: or Optimism presents its reader with a merciless, satirical attack on German philosopher Leibniz’s notion that this world is the best possible world that God could have created, given that God is, after all, both benevolent and all powerful. The central figure Candide, a naïf of the first order, challenges theodicy with the ironclad logic of a child as he proceeds through an adolescent life riddled by personal disaster.
Given human suffering (particularly from natural disaster, and particularly the suffering of those who are not on the face of it evil), how can this possibly be the best of all worlds? And if this is the best of all worlds, what does this have to say about its creator? And if this is not the best of all possible worlds, and still God’s creation is good, what does this have to say about its creator? In other words, if God is benevolent or good, how can God be all powerful, given human suffering? If God is all powerful, how can God possibly be benevolent or good, given the same circumstances? Candide challenged all philosophical attempts at theodicy as feeble and idiotic. In the end, Candide, after much suffering himself and bereft of God, retires to cultivate his own garden. This “final resolution” leaves important issues unaddressed, a point to which I shall shortly return; needless to say, this non-theistic or atheistic view, however well known it may be, is not shared by most Americans.
Tags: earthquake, haiti, haitian, lisbon, pat robertson, tragedy, vodou
The very concept of "Bad Theology" is, in a Judeo-Christian context fundamentally atheist. If there is a God, and if there is an Adversary, and, if doctrines about God are false, then it follows that false doctrine comes from the Adversary. This is the Achilles Heel of modern Christianity. All that's good they proclaim to come from God, Christ, and Faith. But when it goes wrong, when the preacher is revealed as a thief or a drug-addled sodomite, then they suddenly turn into a rabble of psychologists. "Oh, it was just a mistake, he was misguided, it went wrong" and the mundane rationalizations proliferate. Meanwhile, the Adversary laughs, and counts the offerings he's collected in the many, many Christian churches that are under his control.
Professor Cooey defines the core theological matter—“our ethical response to the need of the other in their misery on their terms and in regard to their needs.” The rest about theism or atheism is mere speculation.
The scope in which theology explains tragedy or a "natural" disaster is mostly misunderstood. UNDER JUDEO-CHRISTIAN perspective: The earth, its inhabitants, and its terrain were all affected by the fall of Adam & Eve. They were given an imperative that was to sustain the balance and procreation of life. They chose otherwise and so the natural became unnatural or abnormal; the DNA or structure for future evolution of the process had become viral and terminal. All of it is an ecosystem that had death or destruction introduced to its DNA (and due to the intertwining relationship of all organic systems) it caused the inverse of an eternal healthy existence. Therefore it is "natural" that these disasters occur. God could stop them if He wanted but obviously His perspective is one outside, inside, and around time and history itself. Assigning inability and blame is also "natural" under the now viral environment. Whenever the desire for the alleviation of suffering is not met we question God's existence, motives, power etc and yet when all is right and spinning well on the axis we refer to him as an ancestral, archaic vacuum through which we want to climb out and free of. Just as we cannot control the elements, we also are incapable of manipulating God's mind, existence, and will. We simply do not know it. That's why we try to explain our way out of it. Death is the last womb we will exit and only then will we know more of that which is outside of this DNA. Christianity provides a solution through the "now and present but still in the future" revelation of Christ as salvation.
Professor Cooey contributed a lucid article. The response you post is incoherent.
Ted, he was giving the Judeo-Christian perspective. His post was at least as clear as any other description I have heard. They aren't given much to work with.
No, not really. He made no sense.
Professor Cooey had already given the Jewish-Christian response.
". . . the DNA or structure for future evolution of the process had become viral and terminal. All of it is an ecosystem that had death or destruction introduced to its DNA (and due to the intertwining relationship of all organic systems) it caused the inverse of an eternal healthy existence. Therefore, . . ."
That is just nonsnese.
Right, it is nonsense, but perhaps all religion is nonsense (except for when it accepts science). The only way religion could be right about anything not scientific is if the religion was being led by God, but the moment they start teaching anything not true they demonstrate they are not of God. At least that seems to be where we are headed as we work through these issues.
I don’t think that all religion is nonsense. What I quoted is nonsense. Professor Cooey’s piece is not nonsense.
How could you know what religion is not nonsense, unless it is something that could be scientifically proved?
This does bring up an interesting point. Does anyone know any religious beliefs that are not nonsense, and why are they not nonsense?
Did you read what Professor Cooey wrote? Apparently, you did not.
Professor Cooey was giving a rational response, and giving some warnings about where religious responses can lead in these cases. I am not trying to say religious people are all nonsense, or everything they believe is nonsense. I was only asking the question, do they have any religious beliefs that can be shown to not be nonsense? Religious people can be very rational as long as they know how to avoid being too religious.
Well said. Thanks.
Haitian suffers a lot during the Haiti Earthquake. Most business and other companies falls during what happened. In the wake of the financial crisis, the people wanted some consumer protection, or better consumer protection in place. Perhaps some protection in place, for credit cards or mortgages is in order, and that's how we got the CARD Act.
Then again, maybe not. Who really knows?
*This “final resolution” leaves important issues unaddressed, a point to which I shall shortly return; needless to say, this non-theistic or atheistic view, however well known it may be, is not shared by most Americans.*
Because that matters, right? Because if a belief in unpopular and not teddy-bear-soft in it's comfortingness, then surely it doesn't bear considering, right?
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