On April 2, 2020 in A Letter from Catherine Keller, the theologian shared her answers to four questions with regard to what God is doing in this Pandemic:
- Is God punishing humanity?
- Is God testing humanity?
- Is God teaching humanity a lesson?
- Is God fixing the world?
Keller wrote,
For many folks who find solace and guidance from their biblical faith, those questions must somehow be answered ‘yes.’ And this sense of divine intervention may lead them to do good, moral things...I respect anyone’s sincere faith. But faith can get trapped in misguided interpretations.
It is important to note that on the date that she wrote her letter, globally, just over 1 million people had tested positive resulting in 50,000 deaths. In the U.S.A., 240,000 had tested positive and 5,000 had died. At the writing of this post: globally, 106 million have been infected and more than 2.3 million people have died. In the U.S.A. more than 27 million people have been infected by COVID-19 and 473,000 have died! Thus, the questions raised by Keller are even more pertinent for, and are in urgent need of answers from, people of faith.
To say one believes in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving God while tens of millions of people have been infected and millions have died, as well as hundreds of millions suffering mentally, physically, emotionally and economically as a direct result of this pandemic, must be enough to make one question such a perception of God.
Conservative evangelical theology had stopped working for me well before the pandemic, specifically due to a whole series of personal experiences from 2016 to 2018. My choices boiled down to three: (1) God either doesn't exist or isn't engaged in the universe; (2) God is cruel and sadistic; or (3) God is not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving. The standard answers from proponents of conservative theology no longer made any sense – that is, (1) God moves in mysterious ways, (2) God works for the good of those who love him, and/or (3) God is in control. So, yes, I was longing and hoping to be able to see God from a different perspective as the cognitive dissonance became unbearable. Then, in steps ORT, and specifically and initially, Thomas Jay Oord.
The question is: Could not an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving God find another way to bring about justice, test and teach us, and/or fix the world? Could God not have found a way that didn't involve the very real, intense and ongoing suffering of hundreds of millions and the deaths of tens of millions, most of whom are among the poorest, most disadvantaged, vulnerable, marginalized, and abused? But what if there is a God who, at the very core of God's nature, is love and thus who can't control those creatures whom God created with free will? What if God is at work in the universe for the good of creation but requires the cooperation of creation to bring about the most good? In other words, what if Oord (and others) are on to something theologically and that in reality God Can't?
I really appreciate that Catherine Keller answered each of the above questions with a resounding, "No!" So what is happening and why? Keller concludes,
God did not create the pandemic in order to test any of us; God didn’t create the pandemic! But perhaps we are being tested. Not by the torments of a bully God, but by invitation to rise to the occasion. To find the courage and the care that will sustain us...But isn't the ultimate biblical test always and only love? If we rise to the occasion, it is because we grow in that dauntless love that casts out fear..
How do we think about such a God? How do we relate to such a God? How do we pray? I so appreciate this prayer, posted by Mark G. Karris (author of Divine Echoes and Religious Refugees). This is the God whom I seek to know better. This is the God with whom I long to cooperate, to be God's fellow worker, as I learn to love as God loves.
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