Murray Haar On Religion: God, Suffering and Evil: Part Two

Thursday, March 19, 2015

God, Suffering and Evil: Part Two

As a Jew, I am certainly not alone in my wrestling with and about God. Thousands of years ago the writers of the Jewish Bible also wrestled with these questions. I studied these stories: Abraham questioning the justice of God, Jacob wrestling with the God in the middle of the night, Moses puzzled about God’s methodology, Job questioning and accusing God of wrongdoing, Jeremiah disputing with God about the ethics of his calling. I immersed myself in the laments of the Psalter. Over one third of these prayers are made up of questions addressed to God. I even wrote a doctoral dissertation on these laments. But there was a difference For all of their questions, the biblical writers would not or could not conclude that there was no God. As the text asserts, “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1) The writers of the Bible looked at and experienced the nature of the world and trusted in God despite. And right there was the real difference. They experienced the world and trusted despite. So many Rabbis throughout Jewish tradition were able to trust God despite, in spite and even to spite God.

I experience the world today as a modern person and sometimes conclude that there is no God. Am I wise or a fool?

1 comment:

ruable2thinkMay 5, 2015 at 12:13 PM
Though I am not a "trekkie" I think you and I could be called "Klingons" since we want to cling to the hope that there is a god! I have been a Lutheran pastor for nearly 30 years and I struggled during most of that time with the reality of God, the definition of God, and the character of God. Honestly, I hope there is a god and that all the promises of God will come true, but frankly I see no evidence of that being the case. What kind of god is worth worshipping who turns away from the immense suffering and sorrow of the innocent that plagues our world? And why is all of this necessary in the first place? If there is a heaven, why put us here - why not skip to the chase? Just sayin...It doesn't make sense. I am a father and I would never treat my child like God treats us. Why the mystery and the intrigue? Why the indifference and the distance? Perhaps it is God who should be begging for our forgiveness instead of the other way around, for creating and then abandoning a world filled with evil, sickness, suffering, and sorrow? Just a thought..
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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Thursday, March 19, 2015

God, Suffering and Evil: Part Two

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