Joseph Mwaniki, IMC*
Where was God when all these things happened? This is not only a Henry Makori question. There are very many Makoris who are asking themselves the same question. In these days, there are so many tragedies that are happening and leaving behind many unanswered questions. Some have even lost their faith amidst such terrifying situations, to the point of entering into ancient heresy of “deism” which considers God a watch maker whose work is only to make a watch and leave it to the buyer. In a word, some people today believe that God is the Creator but His work ends after creation, leaving man alone and unaided. Today, what is coming out more clearly is the silence of God amidst the many difficulties that humanity is facing.
Looking at what happened in Haiti on that dark night of 12th January, it is not only Makori whose first question is where God was. Haiti is a country whose history counts nothing else but suffering. The majority are descendants of millions of slaves who were carried off from Africa. The country is already poor enough even after many years of independence and the people are fed up with many sufferings and challenges. It is not that they don’t believe. They are Christians and pray every day like other believers.
Then comes this earthquake that turned centuries’ work to nothing. Thousands are dead and the poor now remain not only poorer but the poorest of the poor with no basic needs and a very dim future. Somebody then asks, “why is it that the poor are always the less privileged? I can understand this if it was done by man, but is this not a natural cause of which God knew and held power to prevent?”
Makori’s question is important to many. When Pope Benedict XVI visited Poland in 2006, during his second International journey, he visited Auschwitz Camp, a place that carries the memory of millions of human beings that were exterminated by the Nazis. The Pope opened his speech thus: “In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dead silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?” And later on, he continued: “How many questions arise in this place! Constantly, the question comes up: Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?”
These are really very difficult questions to answer. Some, in the confusion of these unanswerable questions have gone to the point of affirming that God is the author of all these sufferings while others have tried to burn the Bible in an attempt to eliminate this God who is the cause of suffering. And what is worse is that His silence remains for us a mere mystery. But what does this His silence tell us?
Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Laureate in 1986 and a Holocaust survivor at Auschwitz, is a writer of over 50 books and a professor at Boston University. When he was asked if we could force God to respond to the injustices of the world, he posed a question, “why do the innocent suffer and yet the Lord remains dumb?” Trying to answer his own question, Wiesel narrates, “I was brought up in an environment that would expect very little from men but all in God. Even today, God is still a deep thirst inside me.” Auschwitz did not quench this thirst; in fact, it gave him deep reasons to continue believing despite this silence of God’s while still holding this cry of protest. And he adds, “(in fact), most of my books try to express this faith in God, despite His silence”.
Wiesel’s argument can give us a point of departure: Faith in the providence of God, despite the darkness in our days and the silence of the All Powerful. God is God and we can’t understand Him fully. We can only try to raise our heart and mind to the level of His transcendence. Suffering in itself is not evil. We can even call it a blessing, though it is very difficult to accept. The earthquake of Haiti took only few minutes but its effects will remain with us for decades if not centuries. But what is more important is not to understand where God was, but what He wants to tell us with this incident.
For me, the Haiti incident makes me enter deep into myself, reflect on the deepest realities around me, the vanities in my life and above all, to think about my ultimate end of which I know not when, where or how. God does not want the suffering of His creatures. He is the giver and the sustainer of life, and always accompanies it against its different pains. God suffers with those who are suffering and the best assurance He gives us is that we are not alone. When the Haitians and the human world are suffering, God is neither in silence nor sleeping. He is always suffering with us and for us, sustaining us with His unseen love and transforming our pains into a joy of those who believe that alive or dead, they belong to Him. We can only conclude together with the pope and Auschwitz that despite all these, our hope remains in the Lord for He is our shepherd and there is nothing more that we shall want, even amidst the earthquake of Haiti and the many tragedies of our days.
*Joseph Mwaniki is a student at Urbaniana University in Rome
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