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| So Where Was God? By Antonio C. Abaya Written March 23, 2005 For the Philippines Free Press, April 02 issue It is Holy Week and, as I have done during most of the past ten or so Holy Weeks, I will watch again two of my favorite films: Martin Scorsese�s The Last Temptation of Christ (1986) and Ingmar Bergman�s The Seventh Seal (1956). Both are cinema masterpieces of exceptional religious sensitivity, more so than the more celebrated and more recent The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson. Scorsese�s Last Temptation is a faithful film rendition of the novel of the same title by my favorite novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek and The Greek Passion. In Last Temptation, Kazantzakis had the crucified Jesus imagining in a flash, during his last few minutes of life, what it would have been like if he had led a normal life, married Mary Magdalene, had lots of children and lived to the ripe old age of 70. That turned out to be his last temptation from Satan, and in the book/film it is Judas Iscariot, the anti-hero, who for his own reasons shames Jesus back to his messianic mission and pressures him to go on and die on the cross as he was destined to. Today that fictive plot seems innocent enough within the bounds of dramatic literature, but when the book was first published in the late 1950s, it created quite a storm in Greece, and the author was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church. In reply, Kazantzakis sent a telegram to the Orthodox hierarchy: �Holy Fathers, you gave me a curse, I give you a blessing. May your conscience be as pure as mine, and may you be as moral and religious as I am.� In The Seventh Seal, Bergman had a Swedish knight returning home from the Crusades in the 13th century, totally disillusioned and disturbed to the very marrow of his bones about the seeming absence of God, as the Black Death or bubonic plague ravages all Europe, killing millions of people in its wake. By contrast, his squire is a materialist and a hedonist who is not bothered by spiritual questions at all. Their contrapuntal exchanges form the metaphysical core of the narrative to the very end. In a theatrical subplot, the knight, about to be claimed by Death, bargains for a reprieve and challenges Death to a game of chess, to allow him time to perform �one significant act.� So, where was God? Bergman does not say, but suggests that he may be in the childlike faith of a simpleton who, with his uncomplicated wife, are the only happy persons in the narrative. Significantly, they are named Jop and Mia, Swedish for Joseph and Mary. That same question was raised by many thoughtful persons in the aftermath of the tsunami that brought death and destruction on a massive and unprecedented scale around the Bay of Bengal last December 26. As of the most recent headcount last Feb. 10, exactly 296,791 people are said to have died or disappeared in the wake of the tsunami. This included 243,530 in Indonesia, 30,957 in Sri Lanka, 16,389 in India, 5,393 in Thailand, and 522 others in seven other Asian or African countries. For unexplained reasons, the figure for Thailand does not include 3,071 persons listed as missing, of which more than 1,000 were foreigners. Was an omnipotent God responsible for this? He had to be, otherwise how can he be called omnipotent? The earthquake that caused the tsunami is said to have caused the Earth to wobble on its axis and time (which is measured by the earth�s rotation on itself and around the sun) to be changed by a tiny but quantifiable fraction. Various scientists tell us that the island of Sumatra moved �about ten meters laterally and four or five meters vertically;� that the Earth�s rotation around the sun was disrupted, shaving 2.68 microseconds, or millionths of a second, from the length of a day; and that the Earth�s mean north pole shifted by about 2.5 cm. (Reuters, Feb. 09, 2005.) Only an omnipotent God could have caused that. But was he also a benevolent God? Here the picture becomes muddy and opaque. How can a benevolent God cause the horrible death of 300,000 people, at least 30% of whom or 90,000 were innocent children who never did anyone any harm? Those who excuse a benevolent God from the wholesale moral horrors of the Holocaust or the Rwanda Massacre or the AIDS epidemic or any good-sized genocidal war point to the free will of man as being the ultimate cause of the evilness of those evil events. It is man, exercising his free will, who is responsible for the slaughter of Jews or Tutsis or Bosnian Muslims or, by their promiscuity, for the death of millions of AIDS victims. But in the case of the tsunami victims, man�s free will does not come into play at all. 300,000 people cannot be blamed for choosing to live or even just visit (in the case of tourists) where they were at the moment the tsunami struck. In answer to the question Where Was God?, Antonio Ledesma wrote in Today (Jan. 17) that �we must look for God not in the deadly power unleashed by the grinding of hidden tectonic plates (Why not? ACA) but in the struggle of the victims to rebuild their lives and who are accompanied by the compassion of the global community�..� �n his column titled �O God, how could you?� in Today (Jan 04), Bishop Teodoro Bacani writes that �God could allow the totally unexpected death of (300,000) innocent humans through the processes of nature. Yes, God is love, but He can allow the worst against those whom He loves. What God, however, cannot allow is for suffering, death and evil to have the last word. He can allow the worst that man and nature can do, provided that the last word would be His, and this word will be a word of love and life�..� (But an omnipotent God does not merely �allow� things to happen. As Uncaused Cause, he causes them to happen�.good, bad or indifferent. ACA.) In his column titled �Where was God?�, reprinted in Today (Jan 12), New York Times Columnist William Safire, who is Jewish, cited the example of Job the Gentile who accepted without question the undeserved sufferings imposed on him by God, and in the end was rewarded for his steadfastness. None of the above really answers the question of where God was when the tsunami struck. They merely try to console with the promise that the best is yet to come. ***** Reactions to [email protected] or fax 824-7642. Other articles in www.tapatt.org. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �So Where Was God?� Sir, a well asked question indeed and one that, unless you accept the Christian-Judeo-Islamic creation myth and believe in the existence of the omnipotent supreme being, is easily answered. Only if you support the religious position is there any doubt or confusion. For those of us who prefer to not believe, or simply accept the world and our existence as it is for it's own sake, there is no doubt, no question and no confusion. I have been watching the Shamans of monotheistic belief systems wriggle like a can of worms as they try to offer explanations to their "constituents" that are plausible and toe the "party line". They realize that natural calamities of this magnitude place their dogma in doubt. What is even worse is when these same JuJu Men point the finger at innocent people and, in their grief, accuse them of lack of faith or worse as a way to explain "God's will". When they continue, in the 21st Century, to support rules that were conceived in the 4th Century for, even then, spurious reasons which have no relevance today. This is an insult to one's intelligence. And the penultimate insult or crime is the continued meddling of church in the matters of state, in direct contravention to the law of the land, to the detriment of the citizens who freely elected the government that executes those matters of state. (this is where, in the case of the Philippines, my argument starts to lose some credibility! As in "freely elected" etc ) I don't deny that Jesus of Nazareth, a known rabble rouser and agitator, was crucified as claimed. I don't deny he may well have had several adventures which over time have been massaged into miracles, we all know the power of propaganda properly used. But to claim he was the son of God, or is it that he is also God, or whatever? What I do know is that one description of Jesus is that he was tall and handsome and had a long flowing beard and hair, the other claimed he was a hunchback with scraggly hair and eyes that would frighten children. Both of these descriptions are historical record. One was written many years after his death by someone wanting to "sell" Christianity, the other before his death by the Roman Army attempting to arrest a trouble maker. Logic tells me which one is the more accurate. If this natural disaster claiming 300,000 lives is the work of a God exercising "His will", I bet he gets a real giggle when we mere mortals exercise our own and organize a genocide or two. Where is the love? Perry Gamsby, [email protected] Cebu, March 30, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tukayo Tony, Greetings! I noted your question regarding my view that we should not search for God in the powerful grinding of tectonic plates but in the response of nations and people to help the victims - and in your usual probing way asked: "Why not?" That got me thinking...and eureka I came across a response that I admit is more of a rationalization -- when I asked where was God? My emphasis was not on His impersonal omnipotent power but on his personal compassionate being. The grinding of those massive plates did not require His personal presence since when He created nature's complex components He provided them with capacities which could be triggered independently of His direct personal action. But when we confront acts of generosity and solidarity between human beings, there we might find a personal God animating our actions and motives. So where was God? My guess was that the indifferent power of God was in the processes of nature while the compassionate personal God was among the men and women interacting selflessly to help one another... But frankly the above does not satisfy me and the question still haunts me. Personal greetings, dear friend of long ago; it is a delight to wrestle with your insightful articles . Tony L. Ledesma, [email protected] March 30, 2005 NOTE. My friend Tony was/is a Jesuit and was/is bishop of the Diocese of Pili, Zamboanga del Sur wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thank you for this. These thoughts have gone through all of our minds since December 26th. last in particular. Best regards, Brian T. Harber, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It truly is sad that people only remember God when bad things happen. Maybe it should happen more often. And those innocents who died are with Him in paradise. Ray Eced, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww So, what is your bottomline? Arnel Serrano, [email protected] California, March 31, 2005 MY REPLY. How the hell do I know? I�m not God. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, What made you so sure that the ones who died were the ones who were punished. For all we know they were the ones who were saved from an even worse disaster. (For all we know, too, those 300,000 would have preferred to stay alive and take their chances with those worse disasters, whatever they may be. ACA.) "MYSTERY While people have come for the healing, there is another mystery that Sister Raquel is anxious to make known. And it is a frightening scenario revealed to seven "visionaries" who are in touch with her, she says. One of them, a French woman, has joined a lay monastic community, the nun adds. What makes the vision particularly scary is that it isn't the first that the visionary has revealed. Three months before the deadly tsunami struck and killed 280,000 people across Asia and parts of Africa on December 26 last year, Sister Raquel was approached by a visionary who said, "I see ocean waters rising, rising, rising. Around 2004 to 2005, it will hit many countries and sow much destruction." The nun did not keep the prediction to herself, but the information failed to fly. It was only after disaster struck that it was given some attention, says Bernardo Lopez, a freelance journalist who writes a column for a business paper. "It was too late," he rues. "It was hindsight, not foresight. And foresight is the essence of prophecies." Lopez is writing a book and doing video documentaries on Sister Raquel and her healing ministry. ***** In December 2004, just around the time the tsunami struck, someone came to tell Sister Raquel that "a series of massive earthquakes will hit Metro Manila in 2005." The nun's exact words: "This will originate in Quezon City and a portion of Manila will slide into Manila Bay." She also speaks of movements of the earth in the Pacific, Atlantic, China, the Indian Ocean. (�Movements of the earth in the Pacific, Atlantic, China, the Indian Ocean� happen every year. No big deal. ACA.) ***** Terrified? These need not happen, Sister Raquel says, if people change their ways and seek the way of God through prayer, repentance and good works. In other words, God can change His mind. If the dire prediction does not come to pass, she could very well end up being ridiculed by the world. But that's fine with her, says Sister Raquel. She is ready to face humiliation and be called a charlatan, she says, citing the case of Jonah (the prophet who was swallowed by the whale and survived to tell the tale) in the Old Testament of the Bible. God held back his wrath on Nineveh when he saw the people repent. Jonah, who had warned the people, ended up looking like a fool." These are information that I want to share with you. You may send it to your loved ones or ignore my letter. But if you don't doubt my email, I hope you can help me spread this information so that many people will be informed and change their offensive attitude. Thank you very much for giving time to my letter. I hope to hear from you through prayers! God bless! Sincerely, Lourdes Have a nice day! Bobby Tordesillas, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony When your and our families celebrated the first birthday of the joy of our lives, Allegria, in cold Hong Kong, watching out for the fireworks that never were because the Hong Kong government decided to forego the expense for the sake of the tsunami victims, in my silent prayer in greeting 2005, I also asked God, �what happened Lord?� Sayang I am not like some of our presidentiables, and I did not hear His answer to me. I know He must have answered, but I did not hear. Since then, through the articles you mentioned, through talking to the holy and un-holy people about this catastrophe, these are the simple answers I can hear: 1. My faith helps my puny mind, to try to think as God thinks, not as human beings think. Tony, I can see you smile as I simplistically say this...but since I really believe that souls eventually end up with God, the ultimate bliss � how can you say the death of the 300,000 was a catastrophe? Those dead, especially the whole families who died together are better off than us, they do not have to contend with the Filipino who paid P1 million/ night in a casino suite while there are millions of homeless Filipinos. 2. But what about those left behind? To those who are grieving, I repeat your last line � � the best is yet to come� - have patience - Many times my puny mind cannot understand how God�s omnipotent mind works � very delayed reaction, so it takes a few days, months, years? after an event that the �eureka!� comes: now I understand why my 16 year old nephew was murdered; that betrayal of my �friend� was really a relief; that 3-year forced �exile� to Bacolod was actually a gift for me and my children to have spent with Mama her last good years; etc. 3. look at the goodness of people that have surfaced because of this � from the cash and goods given, to people who actually went to Thailand and Indonesia to volunteer to help!!! 4. the tsunami that came with no warning is actually the warning to most of us who are not prepared to be with God, reminding us that, death comes suddenly. It comes not just like the usual �thief in the night� , but more graphically, like a tsunami while you are basking on a beautiful beach. If this warning is heeded, it has given a chance for people to die and be with God, rather than suffer in hell, or for those who believe in reincarnation, spend more lives on earth until they have been purified to be with God. So I know God was there, but even then, I continue to ask � why ?� I should listen more. Happy Easter! Cheding Arroyo, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, this is the second time you questioned God's presence. In my case, I never ask this because I believe He controls everything, including nature, as the omnipotent God. "Everything happens for a reason" is an over-used saying, but that's how it is with God. I believe He willed the tsunamis and earthquakes to happen as a backlash on His people's wanton acts. Banda Ache is a notorious terrorist community, and Phuket is a place where prostitution is rampant. Leafing through more recent history, when Mt. Pinatubo erupted, it put an end to the prostitution trade in Pampanga and Olongapo. These may come as acts of nature, but I see them as acts of God. When these things occur, the good also become victims. The Bible touches on the occurrence of calamities when God strikes in an omnibus way, so the good is not spared. These are my human perceptions strengthened by my Catholic faith. Regards, Yett Montalvan, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Could it be that we don't have the whole picture? Could it be that there is a larger matrix we should consider? Do we have the complete story? You seem to have it, but can't begin answer your question. Therefore, do you really have the larger story? Which encompasses a view endowed with omnipotence? Joel Magsaysay, [email protected] Ilog Maria Honeybee Farms Silang, Cavite, March 31, 2005 MY REPLY. No, I do not claim to have the �larger matrix� or the �complete or larger story� or a �view endowed with omnipotence.� Do you? wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Not difficult to answer when one's position is: "There is no God.". Really , it is indeed the most sensible answer where the chips fall into their proper places. Taking a position that God exist entails a lot of contradictions. It doesn't matter how smart a believer is, he would be full of contradictions. Tony Anciano, [email protected] March 31, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Where is God when natural disasters strike Feature Article on Faith and natural disasters Fr.Shay Cullen, Jan 23, 2005 Another powerful earthquake has struck Sumatra in Indonesia. Hundreds have been killed and a frightening Tsunami alert sent thousands fleeing to higher ground. Thank God a Tsunami did not come this time. We thank God because we believe that there a greater reality than us that may have averted a worst disaster. If that is, so why does this God not prevent the earthquakes in the first place and many other natural disasters that cause so much destruction? This is a question that can bring us to a crisis of faith. The death toll from the greatest natural disaster in living memory reached almost 300,000 dead. In a few terrifying minutes on 26 December 2004 the great tidal wave of death roared in from the Indian ocean and inundated and obliterated villages, towns and communities .The greatest number killed were children and four times more women than men lost their lives in minutes. Hundreds of thousands of others were injured, left abandoned, jobless, homeless and hungry. This immense suffering coming so soon after other disasters in the Philippines, man made at that, has left us reeling, wondering and asking where was God in all this why are so many innocent people killed and maimed by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, monster waves and landslides, to mention just a few? The Tsunami, a giant wave triggered by an earthquake under the Indian Ocean off Indonesia, raced in at 500 hundred miles an hour overwhelming all before it. As it hit the coasts surrounding the Indian Ocean it obliterated towns, villages, resorts entire populations. Nothing could withstand its power. The only human failure was the lack of warning devices that would have alerted the coastal communities hours ahead and saved thousands of lives. What believers ask is where was God in this terrible calamity . Most religious leaders of all faiths try to explain how God was not in it. Although some say it was God�s will and a punishment for the sinful excesses of the beach resorts that cater to sex tourists and drug users, most do not. Atheists say it�s evidence that there is no God. Many believers are confused and their faith in a loving, caring God is deeply troubled. Their long held beliefs are challenged by the waste of so many lives and absence of a saving intervening all-powerful being. How could an almighty, compassionate God of life allow such death, disaster and human suffering, they ask. It is inexplicable for those who have a fixed traditional understanding of a God whom they believe is in control of every aspect of life and death and can intervene or not. Have we invented a God to meet our expectations? The God we grew up believing in is one that has been described and defined by centuries of unchanging belief. God is cast at times in a unrealistic human image. Sometimes God is believed to be a super hero, a miracle worker, an almighty spirit that can be manipulated , persuaded and even bribed by offerings and donations to grant desires. If our prayer and offerings fail to get what we want, then �god� is rejected or blamed. Have we created a God to meet our every expectation, answer our every demand, forgive our blunders and outrageous behavior? If that is so, we have stopped trying to understand ourselves, our place in the world, in the universe and the meaning of �God� . We will live a life of disappointment and even despair. Accepting our place in the natural world Our understanding and acceptance of the natural disasters that befall our natural world, and their impact on us, ought to have grown with our knowledge and understanding of the Universe from which all force, energy, matter and living things have their source. Some enlightened believers understand the source of all life and consciousness as a benign positive creative energy from which the universe emerged, grew and continues to expand to infinity. God for them is this all positive energy, the power of that enabled the universe to come be. Better to be than not to be. Existence and be-ing is much preferable than non- existence and non be-ing. And so despite the disasters that befall living things, it is better to be than not to be, to live endure and suffer than never to exist. This is the inner drive that enables people to fight to survive the life-threatening evils. The will to live and continue in existence is a residue of the creative energy that made the universe. The creative energy that is in all existing matter and living things is positive, good and life giving. It is a penetrating energy that possesses all thing and radiates through them to every other existing thing. It is the infinite force of goodness present in all unifying, binding, ordering, continually creating the universe. It is �being�, �existence� itself present in the smallest particle of matter and the vastness of infinite unending space . The creative energy bringing something out of nothing. This positive infinite force of goodness is the prime cause and first mover that brought about the Universe. It is the creative energy of all matter and life. It is supreme energy that brought something (the universe) out of nothing. The sudden existence of all matter came from apparent non-existence in a instant, an unimaginable pulse of energy called the �Big Bang�. The explosion was so great that even a trillion hydrogen bombs would be but a candle in comparison. It was so perfectly timed that had it been slower by one millionth of a second or one millionth of a second faster, then the universe, our solar system and life itself would never have come to be as it is. The laws of physics that govern the universe are so perfect, so much in harmony that there has to be supreme intelligence within the energy of infinite goodness. From that single, perfectly timed explosion of unimaginable energy that occurred about 20,000 million years ago the universe came to be. What was there before that no one knows. How did it happen and what triggered it, no one knows . Did something have to be destroyed in that �Big Bang� so the universe could be ? No one knows. Our place in the universe. There are hundreds of thousands of gigantic galaxies that we know exist all greater than the one where our solar system is, called the Milky Way. This galaxy is composed of 200,000 million suns or stars, one of them is our sun and the few planets orbiting it makes up our solar system. It is an insignificant dot in the vastness of the universe and within this solar system is the insignificant planet earth. It came be 500 million years ago when the dust, gas, and solid fragments of debris of the big bang formed a single mass under the force of gravity and formed our solar system. They say we humans are composed of star dust. The earth was indeed formed from the galactic explosions of collapsing stars, and from this explosion of energy, all life emerged. Our bodies are made of this primeval matter . How amazing ! From the inert matter of a dead planet came the bubbling chemical soup in a volcanic pool that was cooked by the sun- perfectly placed with exact precision 93 million miles away influenced with such perfection that living bacteria formed and became the first of all living things. From the lower form of existence emerged the higher form of being, from the nonliving came the living, from what did not exist came new Desistance. The volcanoes, the turbulent climate, the earthquakes are the ongoing movements of these creative physical forces. The emergence of life from the chemical soup of these energies and the long history of evolution led to the emergence of the living upright creature that transcended the pure animal state when the first spark of awareness ignited in the growing brain. Consciousness had evolved. The human�s growing self-awareness moved it to make the first hand print on a rock and scratched stick images on a cave wall that said to all posterity � I am here ! I exist � Eventually the human could say �I know that I am� -Homo sapiens had arrived a mere 200,000 years ago. To be human is to have been formed by these creative forces which we continue to examine and wonder at. Having evolved from the cosmic dust , the volcanic eruptions, the gigantic upheavals of the planet we must continue to live and endure and survive them. Destructive as they may be we must remember they made us what we are, all life emerged from them and in many ways continues to be sustained by them as they influence climate, earth�s temperature, the ocean currents the wind and rain. These forces in turn make possible the continuation of life. They must be that we continue to be. To be human is to be an intimate part of these earth transforming energies that literally shape our world . Every heart beat, every breath, every action is drawing on the energies of the planet for sustenance and life. The sun, the rain, the soil, are all forms of energy that replenish the energy in ourselves. We are one with them as the infinite energy of existence is one with us. That is the pulse of life, we are the children of an infinite force of goodness that brought all into being. Call it what you will but we can never deny it or repudiate the processes by which we came to be, the same process that sustains the planet and each one of us. A living moving planet that carries on the processes of creation. both life giving and necessarily (and sadly) life taking. We cannot have one with the other. We choose life but it is finite yet it is more blessed to be than not to be, it is exhilarating to know that we know! It is deeply satisfying to be conscious of ourselves and say as no other creature can say �I am� and I know that �I am� . It is an unfathomable wonder that we can contemplate the infinite goodness from where the universe has come, knowing that it is the source of our existence. When we contemplate this wondrous truth, are we alone in thinking about the universe or is the universe really thinking about itself through us? Are we not the thinking, consciousness and self awareness of the universe ? The universe, the billions of fiery stars swirling in a galactic dance has, through us, come to consciousness. Through us then the universe is contemplating itself, admiring and wondering it�s own magnificence. We may not be alone in experiencing this magnificent reality. There are 100 million galaxies speeding away from us and each other at an increasing rate into infinite space. Infinite space !, it is beyond imagining. Perhaps there is another conscious being in this vast universe. Consider our tiny galaxy, with 200,000 million suns, most of them much bigger than ours, yet our galaxy is so vast that a speck of light traveling at 300,000 kilometers a second from one side to the other will travel for 100,000 years before it could arrive. Even our solar system of several planets moving around the sun seem to us to be stationary as does our sun. Yet the sun is hurtling through space circling the galaxy at the incredible speed of 210 kilometres a second ! and it takes our solar system with it. To make one orbit of our galaxy it takes 250 million years. It is indeed mind boggling to consider that our planet was created from these natural forces, its elements forged at the creation of the universe, from fiery beginnings of gas and minerals and from which life, consciousness and human intelligence emerged. From the lesser has come the greater and it strives to evolve to even higher levels of existence to be one with the creative force itself. We accept life and the violent earth shaking forces and eruptions that make life possible and we accept that these forces gives and takes it away in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. To be human is to be a child of these creative forces. The earthquakes and the Tsunami and volcanic eruptions are the destructive consequence of the living moving earth and to be human is to be part of the cycle. We exist and have our being within the creative force, as is, where is. We are grateful to have life and worship its source -if you will -call it God. Fr. Shay Cullen, [email protected] Olongapo, April 01, 2005 MY REPLY. Fr. Cullen, Thank you for your reaction. It will appear in www.tapatt.org. In addition, because your cosmology-based theology is so similar to mine, I would like reprint it in whole in a future column, together with my comments. Do I have your permission? Tony C. Abaya wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Thanks for your response. Nice that you are into cosmology-theology and so aware to this view of life.!! You columns are very insightful, thought provoking and interesting. Yes, you may run it, but please just wait a while and I give you the go signal, because my editor might want to run it first as a feature . I contribute to the The Manila Times and the Sunday Times here and several newspapers abroad and magazines. Best for now, Fr.Shay, [email protected] Olongapo, April 03, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Forwarded) Dear Fil, The comment below is from my former bible teacher, Fr. Franco Mendiola, a Farnciscan. You may want to forward it to Tony Abaya who, btw, is married to my high school classmate in St. Theresa�s College. In short, it�s all a matter of faith and trust. Best, Linda Panlilio Dear Linda: Thank you for the clippings and your interest. I don�t like your interest to cool down, so I write my word ahead. For me, suffering is a mystery. The whole Bible is the story of God�s righteousness in particular, on the knotty question of why the innocent suffer. Genesis explains suffering from sin. Job finds the explanation in God�s sovereign will. Ecclesiastes changes the question. For him, God wants us to enjoy life. Traditional teaching says that the sinner is joyless. For him, the joyless is sinning. So, enjoy. The highest thought in the OT is in the song of the Servant in Isaiah. Suffering is vicarious. Yet, the final explanation is the Cross. The end of suffering is the resurrection and life. But why suffering? Why should God want us to suffer before rising? The Cross does not elaborate. It�s a mystery. The question asked by the columnists is like a fallacy. By omnipotence, they understand that God can do anything. But God cannot make a square circle. He cannot contradict himself. Like the medieval fallacy: can God make a stone so big that he cannot roll it? God has given a law to Creation. He will not break not as easily as man would wish. God is beyond science, beyond logic. God is not a matter of proving; he is the subject of believing. For me, God is a mystery. If God had no mysteries, he would not be God. I would know as he knows. I could not understand many things. Therefore, I believe. From fr franco Addendum: Even prayer is a mystery to me. I cannot understand how we could influence the sovereign will of God. But I pray. MY REPLY. Frankly, not enlightening at all. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| ACA: None of the above really answers the question of where God was when the tsunami struck. They merely try to console with the promise that the best is yet to come. Ogie: Not unless we define God in the manner we know "IT" now to be we will be forever asking where God is during times of calamity. We can't go on with the old definition of God that puts the conflicting attributes of all powerful and all merciful lumped into one. Modern man needs to redefine God and puts ITS attributes properly delineated; none conflicting with another or others. If we agree to redefine God then it is inevitable that we accept the task of editing or revising the Bible, rid it of its thousands of inconsistencies and irrelevant entries. Make it easy for everyone to read. Ogie, [email protected] April 04, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Dear Tony, You never cease to be provocative. But it's exactly what's expected from a shaker of social conscience. The challenge that you pose to conventional wisdom is the fuel of social change. I hope you continue writing to a ripe age of 100. Now you ask, where was God in the Bay of Bengal during the tsunami? Christian teaching has it that a loving God has created us to share in his perfection. This God is also just and doesn't compel us to accept his invitation. So he places us in a situation where we can freely make our choice. This is the human condition where we make our choice between good and evil. The tsunami and other tragedies of human history are part and parcel of the human condition. It's our response to these tragedies and other challenges in life that makes us mice or men and determines our place in eternity. The suffering and death of Jesus Christ and other heroes of human history are examples of how we can carry ourselves with dignity even under the harshest reality of the human condition. If life were so perfect, what is the point? My three sons and I have just commemorated the passing of their loving mother and my dear wife. She has been diagnosed with cancer in 07 April 1996 and passed away in 12 April 2002. In a way, we have experienced our own tsunami. Faced with such tragedy, we could've despaired and blamed God for our misfortune. No, we've not taken this route. Instead, over six years of grueling chemotherapy, major and minor surgeries and endless trips to the hospital, we have chosen to bear our cross with dignity. My wife, especially, has faced the ordeal with exceptional courage and with the usual grace and kindness to others that has always endeared her to family and friends. In the end, my three young sons, then age 17, 16 and 12, has been able muster the poise to bid farewell to their beloved mother by writing and delivering their own eulogies apart from mine. I've watched them with great pride taking turns on the podium and displaying the courage of their mother in the face of mortality. Nearly everyone has felt obliged to say a kind word to me and hug the boys at the end of the ceremony. We're moving on well with our lives now imbued with a feeling of redemption rather than despair for our loss. Tragedies also remind us of the uncertainty of life, which also underlies the necessity for living it well. We never know when the next tragedy would come at our own doorstep. If we live our life well, we don't fear any tsunami engulfing us even as we sleep for we know our place in eternity. Jesus Christ has risen from the dead to make this clear. In other ways, other religions express the same point. There's a life beyond every tsunami should we live our present lives well. For this reason, I've not bothered changing religions even when I now find my own Catholic Church way out of line from its original ideals. As Jesus Christ has predicted, when he told his followers to abide by what the Pharisees teach but not their deeds, God is again seemingly absent in his own modern Catholic Church. Having gained so much wealth and power, it has lost its original sense of mission and could no longer identify with human misery. The Catholic Church has connived with and profited immensely from colonialism. It has failed to condemn Nazism for fear of losing its assets in Rome. For the same reason, here in our own country, it has taken some time for the Church to take a position against Marcos. Contrary to the example of Jesus Christ, the modern Catholic Church has repeatedly failed to dignify itself in the face of human tragedy. The Catholic Church here in our country runs the most expensive schools for the elite of society. This is the same elite that has kept the unjust and corrupt structures of Philippine society firmly in place since the colonial period. Ironically, we're both graduates of these same schools, aren't we? Save for a few exceptions, priests around the country are more concerned with constructing grand churches than with evangelizing, especially, the poor who have no access to Catholic schools. These schools are ever expanding their facilities to accommodate more of the elite with nary a thought for ensuring access to the poor. Corruption in the Catholic Church is also rampant. The admonitions of our bishops and priests against the ills of government and society are plainly hypocritical. They must first reform themselves before calling on other sectors of society to do the same. I would rather that Fr. Roberto Reyes, the running priest, direct his activism at his own institution. Perhaps, as he has done for other causes, he can again jog from Luzon to Mindanao for the transformation of the Catholic Church at least in this country. Even now there's no hint of reform forthcoming to the Catholic Church. Neither do I see hope in the attitudes of younger priests. According to an article written by a director of formation of a religious order and published on the Inquirer, most of them are just looking forward to a comfortable lifestyle and a privileged status in society. I certainly wish that the new Pope will launch a revolution in the Catholic Church and make it into what Jesus Christ has envisioned it to be in the first place. Regards, Gico Dayanghirang Davao City/Davao Oriental OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |