Over 55 years ago one of the first patients I visited as a CPE student at the old Augustana Hospital in Chicago began our interview cursing out "your god"! A friend of his – a "good man" – had been killed when a piece of concrete dislodged from a building and fell on his head. "What sort of god allows such evil?"
That same question – in multiple formats – was asked repeatedly throughout those years of ministry. It has also spawned numerous articles and books – including the oft referenced "Why do bad things happen to good people" by Rabbi Kushner.
Currently a one act play at the Mercury Theatre in Chicago focuses attention on that – as well as other issues concerning belief in god. Freud's Last Session focuses attention on a "supposed" dialogue between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, occurring just weeks before Freud's death by suicide. Freud was battling terminal oral cancer; C.S. Lewis has recently experienced a "Damascus-like" experience resulting in his conversion to Christianity; and the world was poised at the beginning of World War II. [The play runs until early June, is reasonably priced, and would be an excellent trip for any group to take!] The play is written by Mark St. Germain and is based on a book by Dr. Armand M. Nicholl Jr., The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life [2002].
Watching it recently reminded me of all the many ways I had wrestled with the same questions – both professionally while ministering to countless patients – and personally while wrestling with the many challenges that confront each of us throughout life: Many ways – all of which came to the same lack of acceptable finality as experienced by Freud, Lewis, Kushner and many others.
Certainly one might find some "comfort" behind in these words from Isaiah [as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message Bible]: "Who could ever have told God what to do or taught him his business? What expert would he have gone to for advice, what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work?"[Isaiah 40:13-40]
One might – but, also, one might not!
- First, it suggests a challenge to develop sufficient "smarts" so as to discover an answer.
- Second, if one might be able to achieve that challenge, then one is really toying with the idea that a human can be at the same level as God.
- Third, and no less easy to accept – Might it not be arrogant to demand that there be a specific answer to all and any of life experiences - answers that place responsibility beyond any human causality to some "divine" purpose.
Answers to the questions of "Why?" are usually available!
- My first patient's friend was killed because either mortar crumbles with age or a stone mason did a crappy job!
- Kushner's child had a fatal genetic disease because human genes are imperfect and can develop in fatal manners!
- Cancers develop because society has been irresponsible with carcinogens!
- Sickness and handicaps and death are all integral to life – because human life as we know it is not immortal!
"Bad" or "uncomfortable" or "painful" things are not de facto proofs that we have sinned; they are not signs that we lack the Creator's love. They occur because we are human and, as is true in all creation, perfection does not exist.
Someone once said – "Maturity is when we stop blaming our parents for what they did to us!"
It seems equally reasonable to suggest – "Maturity is when we stop blaming god for what happens in our life!"
That strengthens the message of Jesus that WE are responsible to be incarnate servants to each other – to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to comfort the dying, to minister to prisoners.
What a wonderful gift – God choses us to be her/his co-creators!
