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A tragic loss, and the question that follows

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April 5, 2001

The following commentary by assistant professor of theology Dan Malotky originally appeared in the April 4 Star Tribune. You may also view this article at the Star Tribune web site.

NORTHFIELD, MINN. -- The chapel service was full on March 26. The pastor noted that for many students, the recent spring break was not a time of relaxation, but a time of grief and pain. Others returned to St. Olaf in ignorance, only to discover that three of their classmates were dead. Five friends had been headed to New Orleans when their vehicle was hit by a drunken driver traveling on the wrong side of the highway. Only two survived.

And so we came to the morning chapel service to express our sorrow together. Those who knew the students well stood in small groups after the service -- holding each other, staring blankly, weeping. The rest of us spoke quietly, perhaps nursing the pain from wounds this tragedy reopened, perhaps battling our fears. If we were old enough to have a family, however, one fear overwhelmed all others. A colleague of mine expressed what I am sure we were all thinking:

"This is every parent's worst nightmare."

And yet, many parents are forced to live that nightmare. We all know someone who has lost a child. Perhaps you are reading this through the tears of your own loss.

What adds to the devastation of such a loss is the cognitive dissonance that accompanies it. Our children are the bearers of innocence and goodness -- certainly that can be seen in the current case at St. Olaf -- and for a parent, there is no age limit to childhood. These kids did not deserve to die, and so we are left with a problem. In religious terms, the classic formulation goes something like this: If God is all-powerful and good, how could God do, or allow, this thing that seems so palpably evil?

For the last couple of years, I have been teaching a class called "God and Human Suffering." The class examines a wide range of responses to this question. Some thinkers seek to defend God's purposes, suggesting that this sort of evil is good for us in the long run. Others are willing to say that God is not actually in a position to stop the evil of the world in an attempt to preserve God's goodness. Still others take a more skeptical turn, denying the existence of God altogether.

I must admit that I do not find any of these answers to be satisfactory. They either turn God into a cruel tyrant or a weak teddy bear. We are asked to deny the reality of the evil of such events, or we are asked to worship a God that seems to be exactly what Sigmund Freud said God was: a pacifier of our own creation, designed to soothe our anxieties. If we follow Freud, on the other hand, we are left in a cold, meaningless world.

Only one answer makes any sense to me; and as an intellectual response alone, it is still unsatisfactory. It asks us to accept one of the aspects of God that tragedy calls into question. It cannot be intellectualized. You have to "get" it. Christians sometimes say that you have to experience it.

We do not ultimately encounter the goodness of God in Divine Order. We encounter it in Divine Love.

God did not create a world in which everything operates perfectly. God created a world marked by freedom -- a world in which bad things can happen, but also a world in which we are free to love and be loved.

This possibility for love comes at a high price, but we do not have to be a Christian, or even believe in God, to see that love is the only proper response to tragedy. As parents, such tragedies remind us to love our children in a more conscious, intentional way. We are warned against simply going through the motions of love.

-- Dan Malotky is an assistant professor of theology at St. Olaf College.

Contact Dan Malotky at 507-786-3315 or molotky@stolaf.edu.