Making Sense of It All

- image from Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

In his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner posits that once we begin to take seriously the problems of innocent victims, our belief in an all powerful God is called into question. He asks us to consider that God may be a God of justice and not of power. Ah, sense at last.

Kushner suggests that if we can accept the justice rather than power hypothesis, then our question to God may shift from, "Why did you do this to me?", to "Can you help me?" We are invited to consider that creation is an ongoing process of transforming chaos into order, and that we are "in the middle of a Friday afternoon," with pockets of chaos still remaining. Chaos is explained as randomness, i.e., events happening at random. Chaos, therefore, is "evil" primarily because it results in keeping people from believing in God's goodness (rather than considering his malevolence).

John F. Kennedy alluded to the idea of God needing man when he closed his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, with the following words, "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm