I had a friend in medical school who
was very bright and destined for a great career. In the summer of
our fourth year, he joined a group of medical students and a few
professors and went to Mount Everest with the intention of climbing
the highest mountain on earth. Through a freak accident he slipped
while not attached to the safety rope and fell to his death. We, his
classmates, couldn't believe it. What terrible luck. What an awful
roll of the dice.
One of the mysteries that confront
people who believe in God goes something like this: If God is good,
why does he let evil happen? And if God is all powerful, why doesn't
he stop evil from happening? And if Jesus promised that if we ask
anything in his name, it will be given to us, why is it so obvious
that this doesn't work?
There are many different answers to
this theological problem. One, advanced by the mathematician and
philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, is that of all the possible worlds
that could exist, this is the best. In other words, God has seen to
it that everything is optimal, and if you were to change one thing,
other things would change for the worse. This is the best of all
possible worlds. And of course the response comes: how do you
define “best”? Isn't this sort of a cop-out? Any human being
could point out a few little things that could make everything better
and if we are considering everything from a cosmic perspective, it is
no consolation that there is innocent suffering and tragedy in this
particular moment in space and time.
Our Muslim brothers hold that
everything that happens is the will of Allah. Most Muslims are like
you and I, they don't think too hard about what their religion
teaches. But a few who realize the implications of this are the ones
who will blow themselves up in a public square; after all, if it
happens, it was Allah's will. And if you truly believe this, then
whatever you do is Allah's will, even if it means that you end up in
hell. There is no wiggle room, there is no freedom at all.
Alfred North Whitehead theorized that
God was what he called “dipolar”. In his primordial nature he is
unchanging, all powerful, present everywhere, all knowing – all
those things we think about when we think about God. But God has a
consequent nature as well; he is affected by everything that happens
in the universe. Everything that happens is received by God, who
saves everything that can be saved. God alone is the sum of
everything that could be; and the things that make up the universe as
yearning for permanence, for transcendence, which only God can
provide. So God and the universe are interdependent, in a way.
Professor Whitehead started a movement called “process theology”
which still has many adherents. While this is a solution to the
problem of why bad things can happen, it goes against the Judeo
Christian conception of God as completely independent of the
Universe.
But Jesus gives us an insight today.
He talks about sparrows, and that not one of them falls to the ground
apart from the Father's care. In other words, sparrows fall to the
ground. The fact that they do does not deny that God cares. The
fact that a sparrow falls is not a moment of bad luck, an unfortunate
circumstance, a chance happening. At the same time it isn't
something God causes to happen. It is as though God steps back,
allows his creatures freedom, and then takes whatever happens and
weaves it into his grand plan for the universe he created. Do we
have anything to say about this? Not really. God's will will
triumph, and we can't do a thing about it. But what we can do is
align ourselves with God's will. We have the example of Jesus, who
prayed, “Father, if you are willing take this cup from me, but not
my will, but your will be done.” We have the example of Mary, our
mother and Jesus' mother who said, “Be it done to me according to
your word.”
Everything that happens is God's will.
But we are not robots, we are not puppets in God's hands. God gives
each of us total freedom, so that we an always choose to do his will
or to resist it. And if we resist it, in a sense we create our own
reality, in which we choose not to be part of God's plan, which
ultimately is hell. Saint Theresa of Avila said two things about
hell. One was that she had experienced a vision in which she
experienced hell. It was not hot, there were no devils poking her
with pitchforks. It was a state of having no sensation at all. She
could not see, hear, taste, smell or touch; she was aware of being
entirely alone – forever. She could not even experience the
passage of time. When you think about it, that is worse than any
picture of hell you might have imagined. Human beings, even hermits,
are social creatures, and we define ourselves in relation to other
people. To be deprived of this is devastating, and babies who are
not touched and held and spoken to wither away and die.
Saint Theresa also said that she truly
believed in hell, that there was such a state of being. She did say
that she did not think there was anyone there.
So whatever we do, God's plan goes on.
We see this in the Old Testament; whenever the Jewish people abandon
God, he rescues them and gets them back on track. The individual
people who might have lead the Jews astray may die, but the plan goes
on, and it still does.
And the best thing is that God has
revealed in Jesus his plan for the universe, his plan for the human
race, and his plan for you and I. And as Jesus has shown, and as
Mary has shown, those who embrace God's plan, those who choose his
will over their own, they are the ones who can expect resurrection
and eternal life. There is no chance in God's world, no bad luck or
good luck. There is only the unfolding of the plan, and our freedom
to be part of it or not. Today let us pray that we will be willing
agents of God's plan by listening to His Son.
