Keeping It Real

                       

                          KEEPING IT REAL

                              Jack C. Getz

David Hume, the 18th century philosopher, said something that strikes me as brilliant; and important in any discussion about God: "To cite the order of the universe is insufficient, since there is also evidence of disorder, and both require explanation by the cause one assigns (The Birth of the Modern Mind by Alan Charles Kors, 74).

Hume's philosophy addressed the popular 18th-century belief that God's existence is proved by the natural order of the universe. You know, every tree or plant speaks brilliantly of the divine through its very existence, function, purpose and interaction with other living or inert organisms: leaves catch the sun and the rain, create sugar through photosynthesis, feed the branches, produce oxygen, discard the carbon,  and ultimately provide the roots the ability to restart the cycle. So, because of order and beauty in nature, it's an easy leap to suggest that the Creator has the same qualities. 

But Hume poked a hole in that tissue-thick argument by asking a simple, yet difficult question, "What about the disorder?" In other words, did the chaos of nature serve the opposite purpose of popular natural philosophy by regular demonstration that not all the universe was perfect, predictable and orderly?

Hume's logical question is one I claimed before I ever read about him. It was an intuitive response to what Barbara Brown Taylor calls "Solar Christians", those who wax on (and on) about God's beneficence, suggesting every sunset is his "handiwork" and every sunny day is his gift to humankind.  I, like Hume, long to counter such sanguine observations by asking how they define and explain the devastation of tsunamis or earthquakes that kill thousands and destroy cities? Are they not also his handiwork, or does the God of creation only get credit for beauty, but never blame for ugliness?   

The stunted logic and emotionally spiritualized observations that credits God with order but not chaos bothers me.  I am not out to ruin anyone's love-fest with the Almighty, but  I would welcome a place where I can join them in their effusive proclamations without selling out my need for balance and logic. So far, I haven't found that place.  

The yin and yang of a divine identity search demands that if one believes beautiful sunsets are his doing,  then things like tsunamis are either his, or not. The awe-inspiring beauty of the star-filled night must somehow be balanced by chaos and ugliness in the universe. How often do we hear about the good god's "miraculous" healing, but never about the evil god's negligence that allowed a young wife and mother to die in a car accident? 

Too many suggest, or worse, really believe that the opposite of divine beauty and order must be either Satan, or sin. You know, Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise because of justifiable divine justice; but the same God had nothing to do with poor Abel’s death. And bless all those weather-watching believers who credit the benevolence of the friendly weather god with providing  badly needed rain to drought-stricken California, yet won't ever blame the brute who floods out poor rain-soaked Louisiana. 

So is God fairly praised for the rain and the rainbows, but never associated with the same rain that floods the cities somewhere else? If he sends the good rain and gets credit for it, isn't it okay to blame him when it's bad rain?  Can the rain god be good when someone's really dry garden gets a good soaking, without being bad when the annual Sunday School picnic gets rained out?

The Bible suggests the rain falls on the just and the unjust, meaning that rain is neither a tool of God's love, nor a symbol of his enmity. It's just rain. Similarly, cancer is not a divine trick to scare a wayward sheep back into the fold, it's cancer.  If something is good today and bad tomorrow, maybe it's neither the handiwork or curse of some divine being, but a natural consequence of life.  It can't be good when a loved one recovers, and bad when another loved one dies of the same disease. It is not about favor, grace or mercy when it works out, unless it's also rude, negligent and cruel when it doesn't. Remember, Hume says that if God is proved by order, he must be disproved by disorder. 

Balance is part of the beauty of nature, of life and of God. A baby is born. Someone dies. Leaves sprout in Spring, then die in the Fall. Big, ugly animals eat eat small, cute bunnies. Mosquitoes and bats exist to each other's benefit, and not every creature is as lovable lovable as a puppy or a kitten. And, human beings joyfully find someone to love, then sadly lose them. If any of life is about God, all of it has to be has to be.

God must be seen in the entire natural cycle of life, not just the happy half. So, if a baby seal is eaten by a polar bear, it doesn't mean God is pro-polar bear, or anti-baby seal. It's just life.  

It's an ordered universe, seen in the orbits of the tiniest neutrino and the largest star. It's in the delicate beauty of the spring flower as well as in the violence of a dissolving glacier. To suggest that only the good side of nature represents God is naive at best, and breathlessly foolish at worst. 

Recognizing the reasonable balance of both rain and drought, life and death, and beauty and ugliness is a far more accurate way to see God, and those difficult questions about why ugliness exists - and whose fault it is - are swallowed in another powerful question, "Why not?"

Jack C. Getz

Revised 3/15/18

See: Barbara Brown Taylor - Learning To Walk In The Dark