What reverence is rightly paid
To a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom He made
Perform the Acts of God?
--W.H. Auden “Friday’s Child”
The brave older students in our Advanced course, “The Challenges of Unbelief,” are struggling with Theodicy this week: How could an allegedly all-good and all-powerful God allow people to do the horrible things they do, to each other and to the planet? Or how could such a God allow the planet to do horrible things to the people who inhabit it (pandemics, shark attacks, tsunamis)? For religious people who have not yet done this work, this is not just an intellectual question but also a very emotional one. For those who have never invested in the idea of God it may begin as an intellectual exercise, but it quickly becomes emotional as well. It is hard for anyone to ignore the “Why?” question when faced with the personal and theoretical tragedies we challenge each other with in this unit. The discussions can get raw and difficult.
Just like the philosophers and theologians before them, these young people reach in every direction for their answers. I encourage them to reach within themselves, as well. They grab hold of something, they are challenged by themselves or by others in the class, then they reach out for something else. Can I live with a God who is not willing or able to stop evil, but is good enough to grieve alongside me? Do I prefer a God who is all things, including both evil and good? Or perhaps a God who is so beyond our limited understanding that terms like “evil” and “good” don’t apply?
The insights come to them first—you can see it in their faces, even masked!—but the ability to communicate those insights, even to themselves, takes a lot longer. It is a slow process, but a beautiful one; a human one! It is a fraught, and frustrating, and exhilarating, and sobering journey towards resilience.
--The Rev. Barbara Talcott
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