There is a God who is powerful, good, and always present; who controls nature and order; who guides the events of the world, yet how come there existed a killer bus. It claimed two lives, leaving two children instant orphans. Could not God stop the accident? If God can, why did he not stop the tragedy? Perhaps the religions’ assertion of a powerful someone out there watching over the affairs of human beings down here does not really exist. Or if He does, as the Deists alleged, He left us to operate on our own - like a maker of a watch who passed on the responsibility to the consumer to take care of the product. Any attempt to answer the hard question does not, however, prevent people from asking the same question all over again. Perhaps because an answer tends to set-aside circumstances and intends to end the question. So, rather than approaching the subject matter as a question that needs an answer, we will call this reflection.
My point of reflection on the question of a powerful and good God co-existing with human tragedy in general and Alamags’ tribulation in particular , is this: The question of the Alamags’ Tragedy in the presence of a good and powerful God is properly a question about God as given in human experience, rather than calling into question the existence of God.
The God as given in our human experiences is the God who is present in us and with us in His apparent absence.
When you and I move from seeing to listening, from hearing to discerning, from calculation in exact precision to the language of approximation, from seeing our tragedy as a dead-end to a possibility of infinite reality, it means we move from the lens we use to read our human experiences. I mean a move from the logic of cause-and-effect to the logic of super-abundance.
But first, we ask, what is this logic of cause and-effect about? It is this: the adversity or adversary is powerful. He is all anti-god value. But God is more powerful. Moreover, the accident devastated lives, property, and religious beliefs of the children and some Christians who in one way or the other had been touched by the ministry of this couple. So we come up with possible explanations. God did not stop the accident. He either is not too powerful to stop it paving the victor Satan to promote his agenda, or He does not really exist. Further, God is good but maybe He does not care. So how can a good God not care?
I suggest that the cause-and-effect approach may not be sufficient to explain the difficulty of the situation and the concept of God.
Let me suggest to you that we use another lens to read the Alamag incident. This lens is called the logic of superabundance. By this I mean, that this so-called catastrophe should be understood as a metaphor of God’s silent presencing in tragedy.
As a metaphor, let us look at the co-existence of a good and powerful God and the killer bus as a pay-pay (an open fan). The closed fan represents the single direction of the cause-and-effect worldview. It puts all of our human experiences to such ordering. It has merit when the issue could be identified as a matter of cause-and-effect, as for engineering and medicine, for example. In religious experience, there has to be a framework that should account for the complexity of relationships. One is to see the tragedy as a metaphor. What could this metaphor do to us? It could give rise to deep reflection. One could learn the values of circumstances through this metaphor in that it opens dimensions of life that had not been emphasized before, values that were not obvious in normal circumstances. Just like an open fan, the metaphor points to a different world of values - justice, peace, generosity, kindness, love, and environmental sensitivity - replacing the long-standing wars and national interests with the unprecedented cooperative efforts of churches and nations.
What values do we learn from God’s word, which could be the bases for cooperation?
The Value of meaning and purpose. God’s word provides us a framework for understanding our human experiences that are good or bad into divine economy. “Only one life will soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last.”
The value of relationship. The tragedy has replaced human beings’ “I don’t care” or taking for granted attitude in this stressful world.
The value of the dignity of life. The unprecedented display and outpour of everybody’s presence, prayer, “text messages,” and help-- testify to the fact that human beings affirm the value of life. We all denounce reckless driving in Commonwealth Avenue.
The value of hope. God is not only “up there” but is within us in our difficult and trying journey. The resurrection event speaks of the reality of unlimited possibilities. In Theology, the depiction of virtues in tragedy is called God’s redemptive immanence in human history. God in the midst of tragedy is at work in the struggle of the victims and humanitarians to rebuild lives. The power and love of God is not only seen from a distant all powerful throne in heaven, but from human history itself enabling people to get the best out of it ( Today 1/17/05,p.11).
How then, does the metaphor of the Alamags’ Tragedy open up our thoughts and acts concerning human values?
Because the demand for proof in the cause-and-effect framework no longer measures up to the complexities of our human experiences, we suggest the metaphor of silence.
Matthew, using a chiastic literary device, articulates Jesus’ response as silence in his moment of pondering on this question of suffering.
A “Why has thou forsaken me?” (34)—a question
that requires an answer but silence
B “Some bystanders hearing it said, Listen ” (35)
B1 “Let us see ….” (36)
A1 “Jesus uttered a loud cry (but wordless ) (37)
Silence is not absence; not compliance or consenting. Silence is not resignation and apathy. It is a metaphor, in a manner that we have defined – it “gives rise to thought and profound reflection” because silence invites response. It is reading beyond the demand for proof and does critical reflection. The “silence of God” and the “wordless sigh of Jesus” do not imply resignation to misery and defeat. As in the case of Job, through the silence of God and the verbosity of his miserable comforters, we observe: “the irony, the humor, the questions, the metaphors all go beyond rational discourse (I add, the logic of cause-and-effect) . . . the silence at the end of the dialogue is the silence of presence, of assent and communion, rather than misery” or defeat (see Robert Paul Dunn, Semeia 19, 1981, 38-42).
What then is this presence of silence in the crucifixion account of Jesus? It is this, the presence of the realization that the self-pretension of the “criminals” should give way to the voice of the other (Jesus and the Father) who had been silent in the unjust transaction of justice.
What is this silence of the other in our presence? The silence of the other is the sound of self-reflect, suspicion, and self-criticism. It is a voice that requires we should check on our attitude and pre-understanding because there is more out there than our peculiarities.
That was the experience of the centurion. He said Jesus was the Son of God contrary to the voice representing the bystanders. They were too focused on their concerns that they silenced the presence of the strange things. In other words, the approach to our human experience from the logic of cause-and-effect must give way to the metaphor of super-abundance. It is the open fan of faith. And with that it discovers dimensions of life which otherwise could have not been noticed. The metaphor of faith ushers in the logic of surprises.
How do you handle the apparent absence of God in your experience — by using the logic of cause-and-effect that leads to dead lock and dismay or by using the logic of super abundance, which escorts you and me to the reality of unlimited possibilities? Calculating or submitting to His will?
