“The atrocious and senseless killing of Christians and tourists in Sri Lankan is still on my mind. These acts of terror were uncivilised, in fact, barbaric, perpetrated on the most sacred day of Easter.
Our prayer continues for the dead and injured, and for the families and friends who live with disbelief and fear that further crimes will be committed against them by extreme fundamentalists. ”
Following on from the tragedy in Sri Lanka, we heard of yet another attack in a synagogue in San Diego, California, another hate crime against a minority.
Cardinal Ranjith of Colombo authorised the cancellation of Sunday Masses and the closure of schools across Sri Lanka when he was given an assessment that more terrorist attacks were possible.
News like this will provoke deep questions for us. It will be easy for us to become confused and angry with the actions taken by extremists which have no moral justification.
The cardinal remarked on the immorality of the bombings in Sri Lanka by saying: “We cannot kill someone in the name of God…”.
For some of us, the questions will be about the very existence of God or what kind of God do we have anyway. The existence of evil is a problem for us and always will be.
Of course, the question of God is age old. Every people has pondered on this question and found reasons for believing. The Catholic catechism characterises humans as religious beings, predisposed to religious belief.
Yet for all the arguments for God’s existence there will always remain the problem of how to explain the existence of evil, which seems to contradict the notion of the God of goodness, love and mercy.
Questions rise up within us: if God exists and he is good, why is evil, injustice, and suffering permitted? Why are these so much part of the world which God is supposed to have created?
I have struggled with these questions like everyone else. What I have had to acknowledge first is that I will be able to see or understand only a part of reality. This is the limitation in being human. I will never have the ability to see and know everything as God does.
The next thing I have learnt has been that I need to keep looking at the life and teaching of Jesus in order to know God. Again, my particular experience has limitations. Yet pondering on the experience of Jesus has allowed me to discover much more about God.
Jesus knew very well the power of evil. He was born to very humble circumstances. His family was not part of the elite and powerful.
He lived as all people live and experienced all that a human must experience, including suffering and eventually death itself. Jesus had to deal with the temptations that come through life to take short cuts, to be a success and to work things out for himself and not depend on God and his plan.
Those who were the first to follow Jesus spoke about how he was impacted by evil and how he confronted evil.
His passion and death were the indelible events that they would never forget. Jesus freely accepted the horrific death of crucifixion with nothing left for him but trust in God: that somehow by yielding to his Father’s will, the plan to save humanity would be served.
It has been by looking at Jesus, his life experiences and his faithfulness that I have found the path to better understand my life with its joys and sufferings.
His experience of suffering did not destroy him but resulted in something unimaginable. His resurrection gave answer to his obedience and dreadful suffering.
By being raised to life, the greatest good was achieved for humanity. Evil was defeated and life was restored for Jesus and the sons and daughters of Adam.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus points us to a pattern that exists in our lives. There is in life the pattern of dying and rising.
Suffering often is followed by real happiness. It was because of the goodness and love of God that he has revealed this to us in the life of Jesus.
Our suffering can have meaning and can serve our continuing growth as persons, and our deepening in faith and trust in God.
So it has seemed to me that evil and the suffering that results are not enough to dismantle the idea of a loving, good God. Instead, there is a paradox. Because of their existence, we have been given greater insight into God, through Jesus, who confronted evil and destroyed its power over us.
This is why I believe in God.
From pages 6 to 7 of Issue 19: ‘Why Believe In God’ of The Record Magazine.