The Accused

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS

Rant Number 305 29 May 2008

The Accused

Jews sue God. No kidding. Lawyers for something called the Tribe of Abraham have filed suit against the Creator. In New York’s Southern District Court. Alleging breach of contract. 117 breaches, to be exact. Despite solemn promises in the Bible to his chosen people, God has failed to protect them. Damages? Of course. A mere 4.2 trillion dollars. Chickenfeed if you are the Lord of the World, surely…

There is something waggishly rabbinical about this wheeze. But it isn’t new. Martin Buber tells of a Habsburg emperor about to make an edict exacerbating the laws for the Jews. The religious student Feivel then goes up to Rabbi Elimelech. Trembling at his own hubris, he stammers: ‘Master, I wish to bring a suit against God.’ After Elimelech has summoned a tribunal, Feivel makes his case: ‘Why are we being persecuted? In the Law, God calls us His people. Yet we suffer. He should look after us, so we may serve Him.’

Before deliberating with his fellow judges, Elimelech states it is customary at this stage for both plaintiff and defendant to quit the court. And he intones: ‘We cannot ask You to withdraw, Lord of the Universe, as Your Majesty is everywhere. Without You, we would sink into nothingness. We will not, however, let you sway our judgment.’

Hours later, the rabbis tell Feivel their verdict. His claim is upheld. At that very moment the emperor cancels the edict.

Very heart-warming. Yet, the Tribe of Abraham’s action shocked one of my Muslim correspondents. He thought it impious. Or is the whole idea simply barmy? Let’s see.

The Bible calls God a king. Could a king be prosecuted by his own subjects? Not in today’s Britain. ‘The monarch can do no wrong’ is a principle in constitutional law. If Queen Elizabeth II smoked in the Ritz Hotel tea room, she could not be prosecuted under the smoking ban. Because all public prosecutions are brought in her name – Regina vs. Bloggs – and so the courts cannot try her – she would be prosecuting herself!

Civil lawsuits against the Crown are however possible. Under a 1947 Act. Not against the monarch herself though. Only against her government. Of course, God has not got a government. He rules and directs the entire cosmos off his own bat. That lets him off, I think.

(Parliament of course could strip the Queen of her prerogatives. Even abolish the monarchy and create a republic. The Nepalese have just done that. But the human analogy breaks down here. The ruler of the universe cannot be dismissed.)

Actually, an English king was once tried and beheaded by his own subjects. Charles II, in 1649, after the Civil War. But was it was done lawfully? Before the trial and during it Charles reminded his enemies that no law existed by which a king could be tried. ‘I would know by what power I am called hither…I would know by what authority, I mean lawful’, he demanded at his trial. The King compared his captors to ‘thieves and robbers by the highway’, bandits who can rob and murder but who have no legitimate right to do so.

Charles had a strong point. Cromwell and his followers could hardly square their prosecution with English Common Law, a law based on practice and precedent. No precedent existed in England for the trial of a king. And even if the Puritans had claimed that right in the name of Parliament, no House of Lords was present at the trial. In law, Charles was impregnable. But his judges charged him with making war on his own people. Rightly or wrongly, that cost him his head.

There is no precedent for trying the Creator, lunatic asylums apart. The poor priest knows nothing of rabbinical matters but he surmises that any body of divines could only draw its authority from divine law. Now, ancient Israel’s law was covenant law. A stipulation made between God and his chosen people. It meant the sacred nation was to live under God’s demand, within his covenant. It was Israel that was accountable to the Lord, not the other way round. Jewish kings were of course subject to God’s law. The Heavenly King was not. Because, the Torah being one of God’s attributes, like his power and his glory, he could not more be tried in his own religious courts than the Queen of England could in hers.

Thus far the legalities. But what about a purely ethical perspective? Maybe the Almighty could be arraigned before a moral tribunal. The Tribe of Abraham brigade instanced wrongs innocent Jews have suffered down the centuries. That cannot be gainsaid. Although the accused could invoke his crashing mega-power and thunder out to his chosen, as he did to Job: ‘Where were you when I laid out the foundations of the earth?’ But might does not equal right. God morally must do better than that.

The Bible teems with man’s infidelities. Again and again, the people play the harlot and forsake their part of the deal. We see God’s holy nation apostatising after foreign gods, committing injustice, oppressing the poor, etcetera. (Like the ‘Christian’ West today!) Counsel for the defence could easily exculpate his client by pointing out his children’s persistent breaches of covenant. That’s why they got it in the neck. It’s their fault. As you make your bed, so you must lie on it. Blame yourself, mate!

True but harsh. Here is another line. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard examines Abraham’s frightful paradox as set out in Genesis. God demands he sacrifices his son Isaac. The father of faith thus is caught between religion and ethics. Nothing can justify the murder of an innocent child. On the other hand, God’s commands command absolutely. The modern mind would say either Abraham must have got God’s command wrong or bite the bullet and opt for overriding an atrocious, immoral injunction. A British court of law would lock up Abraham and take Isaac into care. But what if even the most sacrosanct ethical rule admitted of exception? Couldn’t God, the source and ground of ethics, suspend any given law, if he chose? Kierkegaard darkly warns us: ‘When you subordinate God’s judgments to ethics, you kill Him in your own heart’.

Hmmm…terrifying, the priest admits it. May the Accused come up with something better, insh’allah.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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