The Modern Relevance of God
Finding Meaning in an Inverted World
How many times have you heard this phrase: “I don’t believe in God anymore because how could a loving God allow all this misery on Earth?” Usually it’s a Bruce Willis-like character in a war zone in some desolate African country squinting his eyes and muttering weightily, “God abandoned this place a long time ago.”
The writers mean this to be profound. a world-weary comment on the state of Man, but it’s really overly simplistic. After all, is it God’s hand working in evil and terror, or Man’s? Isn’t it a little unethical of us to blame God for actions we’ve been taking for millennia? Like the serial killer who blames his victims for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, blaming God for our wars and cruelty also avoids the crucial missing condition: our participation. After all, if the hammer is only a tool that can be used for good or harm, aren’t we the ones making the choice?
It seems we’ve become experts at blaming others for what we are doing. But this doesn’t absolve us of blame; it merely illustrates our corruption in avoiding the responsibility.
Are we victims of God? Episode 11 with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.