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The Pharisees came forward and began to argue
with Jesus,
seeking from
him a sign from heaven to test him. He
sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this
generation seek a
sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will
be given to this generation.” Then he
left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.
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In
the movie “Contact,” brilliant scientist Ellie Arroway had
lost her Mom and Dad
when she was very young. To her
brilliant young human mind, such a thing should not have happened, and
therefore from her point of view, a God who wants to help us should
never have
allowed it. She is like the thousands of
people who do not understand the evils that are part of the world God
created. Why are innocent people
hurt? Why are some people so blessed
with health and wealth, and others, through no fault of their own, die
homeless
infected with disease. And if members of
our family have to die, why can’t we talk to them again. Why don’t they communicate with us? We simply do not understand.
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St.
Thomas Aquinas, states well the problem we have with understanding God:
“Concerning God, we cannot grasp what He is, but only what He is
not, and how
other beings stand in relation to Him.” The
Hebrew people wanted an easy sign about God from Jesus, and Jesus
refused to give such a sign because he knew that they would not carry
out in their
lives what such understanding demanded.
Once a person misunderstands God, it is a short journey to statements that call into question exactly what God’s nature is. We may conclude that there must be many gods in the world, as did many pagan religions, or we may conclude that God is the figment of our imagination, as Ellie Arroway came to believe as a scientist in the movie "Contact," and as many atheists accept. We are believers, but it is very important for us to see exactly what we believe. We do not claim to know everything about God simply because we believe, nor can we explain well the problem of evil on a personal and global level. But, because of what we see around us, we are led to say that God really does exist, and at the same time, we know that we who occupy this world possess free wills. God therefore must have created us that way. We can understand the evils in our world in the sense that we have misused the freedom that we possess. But it still does not explain the ins and outs of why God works the way God does. We seek signs and answers about God’s presence, but an understanding of God is never easy. We simply must believe that God is present with us, and arrange our lives accordingly. |
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THOUGHT
What
is the best way
to “prove” that God exists?
PRAYER
Good and gracious
God, we
believe that you
exist, but there are many who refuse to believe because for some reason
they
simply do not understand. May the way we lead our lives lead others to
believe in you. Be with us, we pray.
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |