FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 653 26 October 2015 UNJUST GOD

WOULD GOD EVER REWARD AN UNJUST CAUSE? IT IS NOT EASY TO SEE GOD'S FINGER IN HUMAN HISTORY.
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‘The Almighty could never award victory to an unjust cause’. So the learned Mufti of Jerusalem assured Adolf Hitler in 1941.

Ironically, events soon proved the God of the Jews understood things in another way. Still, the Mufti’s theology was unimpeachable. Justice and righteousness are essential attributes of the Godhead. A God of injustice is nonsense. Nonetheless to discern the finger of the Almighty in history is tricky.

Israel’s God in 1945 awarded victory to the Allies, the Jews’ protectors and avengers. But in 70 AD the same deity had allowed the pagan Romans under Titus to conquer Jerusalem, pillage the Temple, massacre and scatter the Jews. (Dante saw that as a punishment for the Jews’ rejection of Christ and the Crucifixion.) A fickle God?

The battle of Karbala in 680 AD saw Imam Hussein, Muhammad’s beloved grandson, defeated and butchered, along with his followers. Hussein’s enemies were not Christians but fellow Muslims, obeying the dictates of Yazid, Caliph of Damascus. Pious Shia’ have mourned Hussein’s death ever since. Even a non-Muslim historian, Hugh Kennedy, has described Yazid as standing for ‘the forces of godless oppression’. Yet, Allah, the God of justice, did not send his angels to succour and save Hussein from his bitter fate, let alone bestow success on him. Why not?

In 1096 AD Pope Urban II called a Crusade. He summoned European princes to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims. Three years later the victorious Crusaders took Jerusalem by storm and created a number of Christian principalities in the Levant. God blessed the armies of the Cross, apparently. Sultan Saladin however reconquered Jerusalem a hundred years later and the last Crusader kingdom fell to Islam in 1291. Proof of the superiority of Allah over the Trinitarian God of the Christians? Might look that way but… today Jerusalem and parts of the Holy Land are ruled by the hated Jewish ‘entity’, Israel. Has Allah inexplicably rewarded a lesser, superseded revelation then?

Yesterday was the anniversary of Agincourt. 600 years ago the armies of the French and the English, two ancient Christian nations, met and slaughtered each other in the famous battle. The English, headed by Henry V, won a resounding victory. Alas, Henry committed a most infamous act, contrary to chivalry – he ordered a high number of French prisoners to be put to the sword. That aside, whose cause would you deem just? The French’s or the English’s? Well, Henry was not defending England, was he? He was fighting in France. He was the aggressor. Besides, both nations shared the same faith. There could be no obfuscation about believers fighting infidels or heretics. The French king, Charles VI, indeed boasted the title of Rex Christianissimus, Most Christian King. Regardless, God (if it was him) did not cause Charles but Henry to triumph. Unless you believe God is an Englishman…why so?

What rears its ugly head is the problem of evil. A.k.a. theodicy. How do you justify the Almighty’s goodness and justice vis-à-vis palpably unjust realities? The Bible raises this in the Book of Job. A very devout man is overwhelmed by plagues and sufferings for no fault of his own. So he questions God. Unfortunately the Creator’s reply disappoints. ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ God taunts Job. Basically, an argument from cosmic power. But power and justice are not the same thing.

The Fuhrer would have disagreed. For him power was all. ‘The future belongs to the Eastern nation, which is stronger’, Hitler wrote in his last testament, the Russian big guns zeroing on the Berlin bunker. I surmise the Mufti would not have gone along with that.

Some believers find refuge in dark counsel: ‘God’s ways are not our ways. It is impious to presume to understand them.’ This is true – up to a point. A divine revelation aimed at reaching human beings defeats its own purposes if it is utterly unintelligible. The great religious texts offer men guidance. They would be useless if that guidance was too obscure. The point is that reason is an attribute of God, as much as justice. Thus the enterprise of natural theology. By which many religious thinkers have tried to make sense of God’s seemingly mysterious actions.

A capricious deity would be a non-starter. Meaning a God who had no reasons at all for his deeds. A bit like a mad Caligula. Or a sort of obstreperous, naughty child. Interestingly, John Calvin himself, though not fond of rational theology, admitted that God has reasons for what he does, although you cannot necessarily know what they are.

One classic way-out tried by religionists is that of eschatology. Namely, putting explanation off till the Day of Judgment. The Book of Revelation is about that. So, don’t fret over contradictions. Christ will return in glory. Accounts will be settled. The wicked punished. The martyrs vindicated at last. (In a sea of blood…groan.) Similarly, the Shia’ believe that the Twelfth Imam will emerge from his occultation to right the wrongs suffered by Hussein and his descendants. And Sunnis as well as Shia Muslims expect the Jews to be expelled from Jerusalem one day, like the Crusaders of old. What the God of the Jews would feel about that…I am a poor Christian, I do not presume to know!

So, would God give victory to an unjust cause?

No. God would not do that.

Men do. And will.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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