PART 2: Natural Calamities and the God-Question
Negative Limit Experiences
(like “Plagues”) and the Question of God
We saw in The
Plague that Camus’ position on the theme <Calamities and the
God-Question> is to bracket “God” out of the equation and put the
spotlight instead on the absurdity of life (viewed as <the arbitrariness of
the destruction of life>). That absurdity is in turn given as the very
reason for humans to unite, be in solidarity with one another, and generously
give of themselves in order to preserve and enhance life to the best of their
abilities.
Let
me reflect now as a theologian and explicitly put the God-question back into
the equation in the context of a calamity such as a virulent epidemic by asking:
Where is God in all of this?
The
very first thing that strikes me when I do this is the realization that when truly
thoughtful people insert “God” into the equation of a natural calamity (even if
they happen to be theologians!), the logical reaction is just to feel helpless
and stumped. How does one even begin to answer that question? If someone
thinks they can deal with that question adequately by facilely declaring clichés
such as “God has a mysterious purpose for all,” “All things shall be well in
the end,” or some other similarly cozy, comforting, and even cloying formulae,
it seems (at least to me) that they are simply not looking at the absurdity
and real pain of trauma well enough and … in the eye. In fact, in an
interview in Time Magazine, the respected Anglican bishop-New Testament
scholar N.T. Wright declared bluntly (referring to the religious meaning of the
Covid-19 pandemic),
It is no part of the
Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In
fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be
able to explain—and to lament instead (Wright 2020)
Here,
Wright touches upon a very important characteristic of religion that is seldom
pointed out: that authentic religion cannot actually explain why natural tragedy
happens. In more concrete terms, the question “Why does God allow this (…
say, pandemic)?” is almost always useless. No one (no matter how high and
mighty a religious figure one is) can ever say why. This is the reason why
Camus and other thinkers have settled instead on making the very absurdity of
life the very means to make better sense of some tragic events. When people demand
that religion does something it cannot actually do, the result is equally
tragic: people lose their faith in God; they become angry or they sink into
despair.
Wright,
I think, rightly shifts the focus onto something religion can and should do—It
can soften and deepen the heart to plumb the profundity of compassion
through—what he calls—“lament.” Wright explains,
Rationalists (including
Christian rationalists) want explanations; Romantics (including Christian
romantics) want to be given a sigh of relief. But perhaps what we need more
than either is to recover the biblical tradition of lament. Lament
is what happens when people ask, “Why?” and don’t get an answer. It’s where we
get to when we move beyond our self-centered worry about our sins and failings
and look more broadly at the suffering of the world (Wright 2020).
“God” as a “Symbol” of the Human Effort
to Wrestle with Life
And
yet humans continue to wrestle with life and its many apparent absurdities. I
have come to conclude after many years of studying religion that, seen from
a humanistic standpoint, “god” is primarily a symbol of the human effort
to wrestle with life’s difficult questions … such as the “why” of natural calamities.
In other words, when humans try to make sense especially of great suffering (such
as the one caused by disastrous epidemics), they have and continue to invoke
“god,” imagining a supernatural and powerful Being with the ability to stop
disasters from happening or to turn things around when the situation becomes quite
bad. Again, analyzed from a humanistic standpoint, a god who might directly
intervene to alleviate the world’s suffering primarily seems to be a symbol
of the trust and hope that continue to live on in our hearts which in turn
give us the strength and courage to go on with the struggle as we face the
different painful challenges that beset us in life. I understand and respect
that. However, I also want to acknowledge its severe limitations.
Now
as we have seen, Christianity (and, as far as I know, any other religious
tradition) has no easy and conclusive answers to the question of <why do life’s
absurd sufferings happen?>. To expand on that by rephrasing it, let me say
unambiguously that the “God” invoked by Christianity usually does not have
answers to the big “Why” question of calamities such as chaos-generating and
deadly epidemics. It’s enough to look at God’s answer to the fabled Old
Testament character Job when he requests some answers to the question of his undeserved
suffering. God in the book (Job 38-39) proclaims that human wisdom just cannot
plumb the mysteriousness of God’s ways (recall “limit experiences”) and so it (human
knowledge-wisdom) amounts to nothing before God. That is another way to say
that all our human efforts to understand the wherefore and whither, the why and
the <to what end?> of suffering are practically pointless in a sense because
we will never get any satisfactory answers.
Even
Jesus in the New Testament gospels does not make an effort to answer these
questions. Rather, what the Christian tradition embodied especially in Jesus
presents is an invitation and a summons (and this is very important), first, to
refrain from judging because we really do not know everything; second, to be
compassionate for the sufferings that all of us have to endure; and, third, to act
resolutely and lovingly to alleviate suffering.
But
the plot thickens with regard to the god-question. If that is so, what use
is there for “god” then? Is it any good to have faith in a god who
seemingly cannot even supply us with adequate answers to our questions about
the apparent random suffering that is visited upon us in life (such as
Covid-19)?
I
think that this question is crucially important especially for people who
consider themselves believers. Some will simply choose to ignore it for fear of
rocking the boat too much and losing their “simple, childhood” faith. As I’ve
wrestled with this question through the years though, I’ve realized that unless
one faces this gnawing question squarely in the face and attempts to give some
response to it, I’m afraid one will never shed a childish faith and advance to
a more mature stage of being a believer. So let me share my two cents’ worth coming
from some of my efforts over a long time to make sense of the God-question.
“God” as a
Hypothesis about Reality
One of the most useful and thorough books (although
a bit on the cerebral side) on the questions of God’s existence and nature that
I’ve come upon thus far has been the Catholic theologian Hans Küng’s Does
God Exist? An Answer for Today [1980]. There Küng uses a good amount of
space to survey and analyze the many efforts to prove, be agnostic about, or
deny the existence of God through the centuries. When he comes at last to stating
his major conclusions about God’s existence and nature, he starts by positing
God as a human hypothesis. God as a hypothesis, Küng proposes, would be the
answer to humanity’s most ultimate questions. Apropos that, we can say that these
three following questions are probably the most important and consistent “ultimate”
questions that human beings have asked: Who
are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?
Küng points out that if God does exist
there would be meaningful answers to those questions. Therefore, in answer to
‘Who are we?’, God would be the ultimate ground of being that defines our
identity: We (and all of reality) are all grounded in God; we carry in
ourselves—as the Bible says—the divine image (Imago Dei). Thus, God is
the “primal ground” for all life and reality.
In answer to ‘Where do we come from?’, God
would be the source, the creator and sustainer of all human and natural
existence. God is then the “primal support” of everything. Finally, in answer to ‘Where are we going?’,
God would be the (primal) goal in whom everyone and everything will ultimately find
their fulfillment.
Therefore, the ideal hypothetical situation
is that all human and natural life takes on a deeper meaning with this awesome “God”
as the ground, support and goal of everything that is. And that would make life
definitely worth living to the full, despite the acute menace of fate and
death, apparent emptiness and meaninglessness, sin and suffering. This, I can
say, is a rather sophisticated way of expressing the traditional God-believer’s
ultimate reasons for having belief in God.
(Another recommended work) On the question of
God, a more contemporary and robust exploration of this theme from an explicitly
theological lens can be found in Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest
for the Living God (2007). I highly recommend it for further study.
The "Unprovability" of God - Revelation
Let me underline that in the reflections
above, God, we can say, is a hypothesis that humans have and continue to put
forward in order to make sense of life. However, there is one big
problem that is seldom stated in a straightforward way: It is commonly
acknowledged in the discipline called the philosophy of religion that, despite
the best efforts of many brilliant minds throughout history, there is
actually no definitive way to prove conclusively this hypothesis that God
exists. What Küng has stated above is merely that, if the hypothesis
of God were true, then all life and existence would take on a deeper and fuller
meaning.
Meanwhile, religious traditions such as
Christianity have emphasized the notion of divine revelation: that God has—it
is believed—revealed to some chosen humans the very nature of the Divine and
also certain firm truths about God and about life which are trustworthy and
reliable. Well, I don’t like to enter too deeply into this line of discussion
here. Let me just state my personal and very honest opinion on the notion of
revelation. I may sound like an agnostic here but bear with me: I honestly
think that the concept of revelation just does not speak anymore to many people
in the contemporary world—especially people who have not been raised to believe
that there is a God.
Moreover, a detailed historical study of, say,
Christianity and of its different supposedly firm and solid revelations (as I
have done professionally for practically my whole lifetime as a scholar of
religion) will reveal instead that these grandiose claims about “revealed
truths” should always be taken more modestly because all so-called
“truths” (that not only Christianity but practically any religion proclaims)
actually bear the tell-tale marks that they are all too human (more than
divine!)—that is, these “truths” are anthropologically, historically, and
culturally conditioned in a radical way. It is seldom acknowledged that these
very “human” truths have been imbued with an aura of sacredness and infallibility
by some authority in the tradition’s history more than anything else for the
purpose of forging a given community’s identity through a common belief in
supposedly “revealed truths” rather than as a witness to conclusively
demonstrable truths. Despite that, I continue to be a person of faith-trust for
reasons I cannot explain sufficiently here but let me just say now that I am a
very, very “modest” believer (hoping that I will have to explain my reasons for
being so on another occasion). For these reasons, I do not usually like to take
the path of “divine revelation” when attempting to speak about “God” to present-day
people (to myself first and foremost!) who are on the whole historically
conscious and are trained to think critically through things.
The more fruitful path to take for me when
we attempt to study religion and the idea of God (or gods) nowadays, especially
when it is done in the context of a growing number of people in my (Western) context
who consider themselves SBNR (Spiritual but not Religious), “Dones” (We’re
“done” with religion!), or “Nones” (We have NO religion!), is rather to understand
religion and the idea that there might be a God as first and foremost a
human endeavour to search for meaning. “God” functions then as a way that
humans have made use of in order to add meaning to life or to make some sense
of life—life which many times can be very mysterious indeed.
Can there be other ways of making life
meaningful other than positing the God hypothesis? Of course there are! This is
by no means the only way to “create meaning.” But it is probably the way by
which most people have tried to make sense of life and reality throughout human
history. That is why it is still important that we study the God-question if we
are to understand humans and everything connected with them.
Agnosticism and Atheism Compared with Faith in God
But let’s get back to Hans Küng. Toward the
end of his tome on God, Küng, who at this point has already surveyed and
analyzed the many efforts to prove, be agnostic about, or deny the existence of
God through the centuries, draws a stark conclusion. He states bluntly that, in
front of life and its utter mysteriousness (recall again “limit experiences”), both
a denial and an affirmation of God are actually rationally possible as
choices that humans could make (568).
Let’s expand on that. First, atheism then is
definitely a possible and, in many ways, a rational option in front of life’s
mysteries. There is no way to refute or eliminate it rationally. For some
people, the dominant experience of reality is that it is radically uncertain
and even absurd. There is simply no way to “be certain” that there exists a primal
source and a primal support of, let alone a primal goal for everything. Hence,
for them, an agnosticism (“I just don’t know about ultimate realities and I
prefer not to discuss them” attitude) that often tends toward atheism is the
option that makes the most sense. This is very common nowadays and it is not
always bad despite what religious people usually say. In fact, agnosticism could
be a sign of a healthy humility and that the agnostic person has transcended
some simplistic, naïve, and childish images of God.
For some others, the dominant factors in their
experience of reality are darker: radical chaos, irreparable hurt and damage, illusion,
meaningless suffering, absurdity, and nonbeing. For them then an atheism that
tends toward nihilism is the position that makes the most sense (569).
Küng asserts however that there is another
possible choice that is not irrational by any means and hence also
deserves respect and legitimacy even in our secular age. This position is
perfectly justifiable even in a rational way – it is the position of the person
of faith-trust (note that “faith-trust” might be the best description of
“religious belief”) who, despite the radical uncertainty and even the seemingly
meaningless suffering and absurdity that characterize reality (life), still
decides to have faith and trust in a primal ground, support, and goal of life
and all reality – a Being commonly known as “God.”
Of course, this rationally justifiable “God”
should be nuanced well and explained more at length. (And that is not my aim
here. I will save it for another occasion.) What we can say is that it is definitely
not the “god” of earlier and more naïve stages of faith that could not hold up
against the deconstructive critiques of contemporary agnosticism and atheism
(such as from the “New Atheists”). Many crude and heavily anthropomorphic ideas
of god espoused by a great many religious believers are what modern skepticism
about God can arguably attack and refute, and perhaps rightly so. This, we can
say, is the “god” that the philosopher Nietzsche proclaimed as dead and, again,
perhaps rightly so. The rationally justifiable God is a more robust and mature
idea of what Küng refers to as faith-trust in a primal source, support and
goal of all life and reality.
CONTINUED IN PART 3
(Link to Part 1. Link to Part 3)
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Works Cited and Others Work for Further Study
Cupitt, Don (2015). Creative Faith: Religion as a Way of Worldmaking. Salem, OR: Polebridge.
______ (1999). The New Religion of Life in Everyday Speech. London: SCM.
Gregg, Carl (2012). “Do We Need a Moratorium on ‘God’?” Patheos, Published October 8, 2012. Accessed April 22, 2020. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2012/10/do-we-need-a-moratorium-on-the-word-god/.
Johnson, Elizabeth (2007). Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God. London: Bloombsury.
Küng, Hans (1981). Does God Exist? An Answer for Today. New York: Vintage.
School of Life (2020). “Albert Camus – The Plague.” YouTube Video, April 1, 2020. Accessed April 20, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSYPwX4NPg4&t=62s.
N.T. Wright (2020). “Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It's Not Supposed To.” Time, March 29, 2020. Accessed April 12, 2020. https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/.
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