Theodicy

Theodicy: All Problems Do Not Have Answers

Father, help me. Father, help me, over and over and over. We hear because we have a baby monitor for her safety, to make sure there are no more incidents like her Christmas fall when she lay with fractured bones on her bedroom floor for hours during the night before being found. Father, help me. She is nearing ninety-nine and ready for the Father. Nearly deaf. Nearly blind. Unstable, falls. Wheelchair, cannot walk safely. Requires help with all movement and functions. Cannot be left alone. Cognizant. Father, help me. Father, help me.

The theological, psychological, sociological question of theodicy has made skeptics, agnostics, even atheists out of many faithful Christians, believers, scholars, theologians. Conducting a funeral for a parishioner at Trinity, Apalachicola one chilly rainy afternoon, the funeral of a sublimely good woman within weeks of a sudden cancer that killed viciously, I remember stepping into the pulpit, looking down at the casket in front of me, feeling outrage boil up within me, turning to glare at the Altar and shake my fist at the sky as I shouted within my soul, "What the hell's the matter with you? Are you asleep?" 

Theodicy is the problem of a loving, knowing and powerful God in a world of suffering. The problem is unsolvable, there is no answer -- that is to say except for the foolish and simple who rationalize and justify God. I am of a mind that God doesn't need me to save Him, is Big enough to justify Himself, do His own explaining. 

Explaining? Perhaps in eternity ...

"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do," he promises (John 14:13). Help me, Father, she asks. Father, help me.

And yet. In my recent months of cardiac crisis leading to saving open heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic, I had such a feeling of being lifted up and sustained by the prayers of many, many, many, many people, friends, loved ones and strangers. What was the effect? Is prayer efficacious? Here I am, alive, well, healthy, strengthening daily. Sunday morning I walked out the front door down to the Bay and back up my front steps. Sunday afternoon I walked the block down Calhoun Avenue to the Bay again, up the front path and steps to the house. Sunday evening I went upstairs. Tiring, but done. I was supposed to be dead by now, shall I credit my existence to the prayers of so many? I cannot prove God exists and listens and acts in individuals' lives, and my agnostic friend cannot prove God does not exist, act, move. Does God answer prayer? ""Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do," he promises." I'm standing on the promise.

But, 

Father, help me. Father, help me. Father, help me. 

The problem of theodicy: only fools know the answer.

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