Where is God in All This?

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At this writing, there are 1.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide and 89,915 deaths, including 434,861 confirmed U.S. cases and 14,814 U.S. deaths. I won’t go into the economic problems caused by the pandemic or the overall suffering the disease and its fallout has caused. If you follow the news, you get more than your fill of bad news.

I wonder how what scientists describe as “a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, too small to be seen by light microscopy and able to multiply only within the living cells of a host,” could cause so much havoc. For many of us, a virus is principally the thing that infects our computers.

Aren’t we humans masters of creation? We have tamed the horse and the elephant, domesticated dogs, cats, and even lions and tigers, but not the infinitesimally tiny and invisible creatures that apparently are all around us.

Is God a Loving Parent?
So where is God in all this? How could he/she let this happen? How can you say God is a loving father/mother? Parents don’t treat their children this way.

It’s not a new question, of course. The author of Psalm 42 says, “My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me continually, ‘Where is Your God?’”

Some might be tempted to say that the pandemic is punishment from God for the evil we have done. The only way I know to partially “get into the mind of God” is by seeking answers in the Bible. And I recall a couple of occasions when Jesus was asked about disasters.

One was when he was told that Pontius Pilate, that cruel minor dictator whom Jesus would come to know personally, had executed some people from Galilee by mixing their own blood with those of the animal sacrifices they were offering. Jesus answered, “Do you think that those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans?” Then he added another disastrous event of the time. “Or those 18 upon whom the tower in Silo’am fell and killed, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? …No, I tell you.”

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On another occasion, he was passing a man blind from birth and his disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents…? It was not that this man, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” He then cured the man of his blindness.

God doesn’t punish by disasters, natural or otherwise, nor does he/she cause them.   

Writing about this subject in a blog a few years ago, I quoted Richard Leonard, an Australian Jesuit who wrote a book called, “Where the Hell Is God?” Leonard’s sister, Tracey, had died in a tragic accident.

“How could God do this to Tracey?” his mother had asked Leonard. “How could God do this to us?” Leonard responded that if anyone could prove that God was the cause of Tracey’s accident, he would leave “the priesthood, the Jesuits and the church.”

“I don’t know that God,” he told his mother. “I don’t want to serve that God, and I don’t want to be that God’s representative in the world.”

Arbitrary and Spiteful
Many people adopt the literal image of the God of the Hebrew Bible who is swift to punish wrongdoing or merely punish people he doesn’t like. This God is arbitrary and spiteful. Or they see God as an uncaring observer of human activity, a God who can’t be all-powerful because he/she made an imperfect world.

From our point of view, this world may not be “perfect.” It brings joy and sorrow. But God is with us whether we can detect him/her or not, and loving God and others produce joy and make the sorrow bearable – if we “see” with the eyes of faith.

“Nothing is more practical than finding God;” writes Leonard, “that is, falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”