I was looking through an insurance certificate last week and smiled to myself at the expression "Act of God". I imagined a farcical situation in which God sat daily and planned some atrocity or another: "Maybe today I'll rattle California with an earthquake, or flood the Yellow River. Maybe I'll set Mount Etna off. I haven't forced a decent crop failure anywhere recently - decisions, decisions!"
Farcical as it might seem, there are many people who still make images of God as a vindictive and vengeful person. The seventh gift of the Spirit - Fear of the Lord - is for many a very literal belief. There will always be people who see God's retribution in any sad situation. In this view, God is an avenger and a punisher and should therefore be appeased. This is such an unfair image of God that if it was true, and I was God, I would wipe out humanity for defamation!
Faith in a vengeful God has enjoyed a long history. The Pharisees belonged to a faith whose literature attributed every disaster to God's annoyance. From the plagues of Egypt to every military defeat, and from famine to any death, the answer was the same: God was punishing the people (or some person) for their sins. As the lectionary takes us through the disputes between the Pharisees and Jesus we are encouraged to view the Pharisees with contempt.
This is unfair! Imagine the panic of these God-fearing people when Jesus started preaching a user-friendly God. Would it have been inconceivable for them that God could have instigated one of his trademark acts and punished the nation with a Roman clampdown? For people who genuinely believed in a vengeful God it was essential that Jesus had to be stopped in order to save the nation from disaster.
The evangelists tell us they were trying to catch Jesus out. Would it be fairer to say that they were trying to protect themselves against an uninsurable risk? By the Middle Ages, the vengeful God had changed tactics and was consigning the objects of his anger to eternal torment. In more recent times, theologies highlighting everlasting punishment have lost their medieval appeal and we have returned to the natural calamity model preferred by the Pharisees.
Reconciling this concept with the merciful and parental God that Jesus preached is impossible. What had the vengeful God who punished promiscuity and self-toxification got against hemophiliacs when he devised AIDS? Why did the merciful God who blessed us with prosperity forget about the people in Sierra Leone? These questions cannot be answered because of their internal contradictions; the answers lie with the way we act and not with God.
Time and time again researchers show us that many so-called natural disasters are more the results of our own activities rather than accidental happenings. Scientists continually warn us that we are setting ourselves up for some phenomenal Acts of God. If and when these occur, will our belief in divine intervention or the disaster being natural be as authentic as the Pharisees' was? Will we make God and the planet scapegoats for our own failures? The Kyoto Accord is under pressure. Deforestation, desertification and greenhouse gases are threatening the world we live in. But when Errigal erupts and Skibbereen sinks, when Malahide mudslides and Inverin ice-locks, we can muse on the age-old adage, "God works in mysterious ways!" - and forget that Christianity has always taught us that "grace builds on nature".
All told, maybe insurers would consider rewording their policies and calling an earthquake an earthquake - and maybe consider that Acts of Human Greed and Injustice are more likely to cause loss than Acts of God are!
F. MacE.