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Timothy George writes: Haiti has rather slipped from the front pages, but several hundred thousand people died, and the problems and needs of that unhappy country will be with us for years. As always people ask “Why?” There is a mechanical answer: tectonic plates shifted, and there was an earthquake. But it doesn’t answer those who say that a just and loving God would have stopped them. He must be a fraud, they say, assuming, that is, he exists at all. Or, perhaps, God is punishing Haiti for sins. I do not believe his judgment could be so indiscriminate.
At one level we can argue that the forces at work in the world and in the universe – and the laws that govern them – are necessary to development and part of God’s plan, even though they are at times random in their effects. They involve death as well as life, pain as well as joy. Existence would however be impossible without them; and to break the rules would take away our free will. That was the answer of the Enlightenment which strove to reconcile religion and science. It explains the physical realities. But it leaves God marooned in outer space, with nothing to do but watch his creation work out its destiny. His place is here – and everywhere.
The answer also leaves out Jesus. He is our precious link between God and humanity, creator and created. Jesus was born to identify God with the human condition. He locks him into the here and now. God created the universe out of love, and Jesus was born not to change the natural order within which we live, but to change the way we operate within that order, and so to keep us in eternal life. He identified with the human condition in its worst as well as its best aspects by experiencing it. In reaffirming that love is the only proper response to God and our fellow humans, he gives purpose to our existence. In so doing he gives hope in our darkest moments – as the people of Haiti show when they gather to praise him at services outside their ruined churches. That is Good News.
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