Blog # 420 Evil -freedom -Love
This blog derives from notes I wrote back around 2001 after the tragedy perpetrated by the terrorists on the World Trade Towers in New York City. A friend had sent me an article that had appeared in one of the Chicago newspapers. Apparently it was the work of a regular columnist who writes for the paper.
The author refers to correspondence he had been having since the attacks with a friend of his who believes in God. Of his own situation with regard to believing in God the columnist says: "I don't". He continues: " I believe that the nature and desire of God, if any, are so impenetrable that trying to puzzle it all out is futile." If he meant by the phrase "puzzle it all out" understanding and knowing God on our own, what he wrote is good Catholic theology. What is so different in us and in God' infinity results in the fact we cannot in any natural way know in the sense of contain God in our limited created mind. However, having said this we do profess an ability on our part to receive from God elements of truth about Himself that make it possible for us to be in personal relationship with God, and intelligently respond to God in prayer and in an authentic awareness of God's will for us.
Further on in the article the author says if God wouldn't do any of a thousand little things that would have stopped the tragedy - if he wouldn't keep the towers standing long enough for the people inside to escape, and so on - then what is there to do other than live your life as best you can and hope for the best? What he is doing here is putting conditions on faith in God. If God will do this or if God will do that, I will or I will not believe in God. This of course shows an ignorance of our definition of faith and therefore that we are talking of two different things when we talk about the experience of faith.
God is the Creator of all that we are and all that we have. God is not our servant but our God. God is worthy of our unconditional trust and total love. No other love is worthy of God. Once
we put conditions on our faith in God and our love for God we are dealing with a notion of God that is untrue. God could have prevented the tragedy of September 11 but He need not have done so to be the true God we know, trust, and love. If all people knew and obeyed God's commands for us there would be peace and love for all. The tragedy of September 11 would not have occurred.
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