On All Saints Day in 1755 a powerful earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal, collapsing the roof of the cathedral full of worshippers along with horrendous death and destruction in the city. Coming at the time the Enlightenment was kicking into high gear, the philosophers of the new way of thinking had a field day taunting the faithful about their "almighty" God. This event struck a blow to Christendom from which it is still reeling.
Nowdays we know earthquakes are the result of plate tectonics rather than Divine Wrath. Ironically, the mechanism of plate tectonics is believed to be essential for life itself by recycling excess carbon back into the earth's crust, just like hurricanes and typhoons are essential to balancing the heat in the atmosphere.
So, what's the person of faith supossed to do with all of this?
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that I really don't need a God that causes or prevents earthquakes, but I do need to consult with a seismic expert about how to construct my dwelling.
What I DO need is a God who will engender the love and concern in us that this God will be present in the chaos and destruction of the earhquake or the hurricane or the tornado (living in Kansas I'm way too familiar with them) in us and through us. People willing to incarnate God's love and bear His image into a hurting world.
Natural phenomena are part and parcel of living. The only force in the universe powerful enough to heal the tragedy and absurdity of the human condition is the self giving cruciform shaped love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Over seven decades I have come to a different take on the question of natural “suffering” (not natural “evil”), one that does not arise from disenchantment.
All beings in creation are mortal. This is not a failure or a punishment, nor is it the result of the moral “fall” described in the parable of the expulsion from Eden. All living beings experience pain, illness, loss, and death, and the instincts toward pain avoidance and survival are biological constants. What is more, many living beings experience grief and loss when their fellows die.
Yet (as far as we know) only human beings make a cognitive shift from the painful biological emotions of the body toward the morally valanced feeling of suffering. And because we are so aware of suffering caused by other people, we reflexively look for deliberate agency behind the sufferings that occur in nature.
This all comes down to our not wanting to experience pain, loss, or death—and pretending that there is some way to prevent these experiences. In fact, we commit all sorts of moral evil against ourselves and others in our pretense that we can fend off our mortality. Fear of death lies hidden behind every moral violence that we commit.
But God does not leave us in pain, illness, loss, and death. Our human incarnation on earth is a finite and ever-changing flow of mortal experiences, experiences we share with every other earthly being. And God does not leave us. God is incarnate along with us.
Helpful and interesting. I’ve been noticing in recent years how a cosmology that includes angels ands well as harmful spirits offers many more points of contact with Indigenous cosmologies than a cosmology that treats the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as if they’re all alone in the heavenly realms. I’m also reminded of what Illich says about modernity as a process whereby the world that had been put fully into the hands of God by Christianity proceeded to “fall out of the hands of God, and into the hands of men.” A shift in our sense of the work of angels plays a key role in his analysis of this as part of the “corruption of Christianity.” https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2014/12/11/the-corruption-of-christianity
Suppose God had created a perfect universe: No disease, natural disasters, etc. How would a fallen humanity fit? It seems like humanity couldn't survive in such a universe. So perhps a fallen universe is just a logical necessity
"I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb."
None of that is God's fault . . . unless we want to blame Him for creating all creation in the first place, but then, good luck with that! https://themjkxn.substack.com/p/i-found-it
On All Saints Day in 1755 a powerful earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal, collapsing the roof of the cathedral full of worshippers along with horrendous death and destruction in the city. Coming at the time the Enlightenment was kicking into high gear, the philosophers of the new way of thinking had a field day taunting the faithful about their "almighty" God. This event struck a blow to Christendom from which it is still reeling.
Nowdays we know earthquakes are the result of plate tectonics rather than Divine Wrath. Ironically, the mechanism of plate tectonics is believed to be essential for life itself by recycling excess carbon back into the earth's crust, just like hurricanes and typhoons are essential to balancing the heat in the atmosphere.
So, what's the person of faith supossed to do with all of this?
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that I really don't need a God that causes or prevents earthquakes, but I do need to consult with a seismic expert about how to construct my dwelling.
What I DO need is a God who will engender the love and concern in us that this God will be present in the chaos and destruction of the earhquake or the hurricane or the tornado (living in Kansas I'm way too familiar with them) in us and through us. People willing to incarnate God's love and bear His image into a hurting world.
Natural phenomena are part and parcel of living. The only force in the universe powerful enough to heal the tragedy and absurdity of the human condition is the self giving cruciform shaped love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Richard, your post brought to mind a recent piece from over at Eclectic Orthodoxy: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/the-meta-historical-fall-of-the-cosmos-intriguing-but-is-it-true/
Over seven decades I have come to a different take on the question of natural “suffering” (not natural “evil”), one that does not arise from disenchantment.
All beings in creation are mortal. This is not a failure or a punishment, nor is it the result of the moral “fall” described in the parable of the expulsion from Eden. All living beings experience pain, illness, loss, and death, and the instincts toward pain avoidance and survival are biological constants. What is more, many living beings experience grief and loss when their fellows die.
Yet (as far as we know) only human beings make a cognitive shift from the painful biological emotions of the body toward the morally valanced feeling of suffering. And because we are so aware of suffering caused by other people, we reflexively look for deliberate agency behind the sufferings that occur in nature.
This all comes down to our not wanting to experience pain, loss, or death—and pretending that there is some way to prevent these experiences. In fact, we commit all sorts of moral evil against ourselves and others in our pretense that we can fend off our mortality. Fear of death lies hidden behind every moral violence that we commit.
But God does not leave us in pain, illness, loss, and death. Our human incarnation on earth is a finite and ever-changing flow of mortal experiences, experiences we share with every other earthly being. And God does not leave us. God is incarnate along with us.
Helpful and interesting. I’ve been noticing in recent years how a cosmology that includes angels ands well as harmful spirits offers many more points of contact with Indigenous cosmologies than a cosmology that treats the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as if they’re all alone in the heavenly realms. I’m also reminded of what Illich says about modernity as a process whereby the world that had been put fully into the hands of God by Christianity proceeded to “fall out of the hands of God, and into the hands of men.” A shift in our sense of the work of angels plays a key role in his analysis of this as part of the “corruption of Christianity.” https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2014/12/11/the-corruption-of-christianity
Suppose God had created a perfect universe: No disease, natural disasters, etc. How would a fallen humanity fit? It seems like humanity couldn't survive in such a universe. So perhps a fallen universe is just a logical necessity
"I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb."
None of that is God's fault . . . unless we want to blame Him for creating all creation in the first place, but then, good luck with that! https://themjkxn.substack.com/p/i-found-it