God and the terrorist attacks - Parting Thoughts - Brief Article

IN THE AFTERMATH of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Americans flocked to their places of worship, much to the delight of the clergy, whose business had been on the downside. It always is when times are good, but given a tragedy or disaster, people look for some means of consolation and/or explanation, often heading back to their churches. Religion usually does a good job in the matter of consolation, but not in that of explanation. Many took part in community prayer and sought counseling from the clergy. As psychologists tell us, often what is needed in such situations is a good listening post.

This time, though, the unspoken question in the back of the minds of many believers, usually censored by that believer less it shake his or her faith, came to the forefront. What puzzled them was how it was possible for a supposedly all-good God to permit such a slaughter of the innocents. Biblical passage came to mind, such as that of "the birds of the air and the lilies of the field."

Clearly, "getting religion" was in vogue again, and without question a much-needed emotional support. Sometimes it seemed to offer a pseudointellectual explanation. Such was the case when Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the tragedy on America itself, for the nation's increased "immorality." Although he hurriedly made an abject apology, his fundamentalist followers felt that was unnecessary. Obviously, as in the Old Testament, the sins of the fathers were being visited upon the children.

Pres. Bush, himself a reborn Christian, stated in no uncertain terms that these attacks were the works of "evil-doers." Who could disagree? Thinking people looked for some reconciliation in the incongruity of such enormous and unwarranted evil and the notion of the traditional God, who exercises governance and providence over the world. In this case at least, He seemed to play the role of a Deus Absconditus--a hidden God. The problem of the reality of God and the existence of evil has always been a thorn in the side of religion--and philosophers, one might add.

Eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, known as a skeptic and "horrid atheist," put the issue this way: If God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then He is impotent. If He is able, but not willing, then He is malevolent. If He is both able and willing, whence then evil?

On a different tack, the views of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, co-inventor of calculus and one of the greatest geniuses of the 17th and 18th centuries, represents the rationalist tradition and the supremacy of reason. He argued that, since God is perfect by definition, He could do nothing imperfect. Hence, the world that He created had to be the best of all possible worlds. It was a philosopher's grand tour de force of imposing man's sense of necessity upon the Deity.

Religion, based as it is on faith, takes a beating from psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in The Future of an Illusion, essentially a critique of the God idea itself. "In matters of religion" he says, "people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor." A couple examples bring home this point. When the weather is nice, one might thank God for such a beautiful day. When it is nasty and brutish, however, no comment about God is forthcoming. Is God only responsible for beautiful days, not bad ones? Or again, if a person is injured in a bad accident, one might thank God that he wasn't killed, but if God is at the center of things, why did the accident happen in the first place?

Evangelist Billy Graham used to say that philosophical and theological dilemmas don't bother him, as his faith is so strong. Yet, like the devil, God is in the details, and unless one can be satisfied there, the God question may well be moot. Part of the problem is that almost no two people mean the same thing by the idea of God. Certain eastern religions--such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Taoism--have radically different conceptions of the Deity. If we study the God idea in the West, we see considerable development of its notion. Early in the Old Testament, there were many gods, but Yahweh, the god of Abraham, was the most powerful. He was protector of his Chosen People, a warrior god, the bridegroom of Israel. He often seemed capricious, but was a personal, yet stern and powerful, god on Israel's side when it smote its enemies.

The God of the New Testament moves from being a loving Father God and, in Jesus, a veritable brother God. A triune God makes his appearance now. One wonders what God will look like in a hundred years. Allah, the God of Moslems, supposedly is the God of Abraham, but there are differences. The will of Allah is stressed in the religion of Islam, and it governs all in an absolute way. Christianity tends to stress the intellect of God, although both will and intellect are anthropomorphisms. Nevertheless, divine foreknowledge and predestination are hot potatoes in both. One thinks of theologian John Calvin's "doctrine of the elect," namely, those who God chose from the very beginning to be saved, will be saved, while others were destined to be damned. Few but the intelligentsia know that the Catholic Church also accepts a doctrine of predestination, although it differs from that of Calvin. It seldom surfaces, but is always there in the wings. Clearly, it plays havoc with the notion of human freedom, responsibility, and reward or punishment. As early as the 16th century, Pope Pius V advised against any definite explanation of it as beyond the ken of man.