Thoughts from the Thinking

Recently there was a 7.0 earthquake in the small Caribbean island nation of Haiti. Perhaps you have heard of the multimillion dollar donations via text messaging or the downright astounding works of the US Air Force in getting the Port Au Prince airport up and running again…and maybe you heard what Pat Robertson had to say about the event.

“They (Haitians) were under the heel of the French…and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you’…and so, the devil said ‘Okay, it’s a deal’ and kicked the French out”, “They need to have…a great turning to God,”

There are a lot of things I can say about this event; the hypocrisy of people who only care when there is an earthquake rather than when hundreds die of malnutrition and disease daily is downright upsetting but when Pat Robertson opens his mouth, baby Jesus cries and I die a little on the inside.

Pat Robertson is an evangelical preacher and televangelist who is best known as the host of the 700 Club television show and for his apocalyptic preaching. My own grievances against televangelism aside, Robertson has had a nasty habit of saying things that are just wrong: things that have no theological or philosophical or even scientific basis. This particular quote among others with similar “God is punishing….” themes is, put simply, bad theology.

To say that God is love (1 Jn 4:8) and then suggest that God would deliberately kill thousands or millions of innocent people through some act of nature is absurd. The designation (for insurance purposes) of “Acts of God” is terribly unfair especially when it is taken to such a literal extent by the likes of Robertson who try to explain natural phenomena by saying that God did it as a punishment. God does not will us to suffer; we suffer simply because we live in a fallen world.

Such boldness is outright arrogance and insensitivity to the lives of countless innocent people who lost their lives and loved ones and what precious little possessions they had. At the end of the incredible Hebrew poem about Job, a righteous man who suffers greatly, God shows up to answer the accusations leveled at Him by Job and his friends:

Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance?

Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers!

God then goes on for 2 chapters about the splendor of creation. The hymn to the glory of God and the recognition of human ignorance, a humility that has been lost since Descartes, is quite extensive and powerful. In the end, Job humbly acknowledges his own frailty before the LORD God who created the heavens and the earth:

I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.

I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know.

I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.

We cannot begin to understand the “reason” behind things that happen in our life. The now is but a small piece of the great puzzle of life and only God can see the whole picture; only God has the knowledge of all things…who are we to say why something happened? What right do we, mere mortals, have to discern the will of God, the creator of all things, the Lord of all creation, the knower of all things now and forever?

Now, to the title of this post….I can’t say with any authority about the true state of Pat Robertson’s soul and his relationship with God at his death but my understanding of heaven and hell and purgatory may help my belief that he will end up in Hell:

Our individual decisions here on earth are, perhaps, formative and indicative to how we will choose in the end but the only truly important decision you have to make is after you die; Do you choose God and perfect love and holiness or do you choose something else over and above God?

Choosing God requires sacrifice since it would require us to recognize our own dirtiness; the state of our poor souls would need to be changed in order to truly enter the Kingdom. The purification process is our choice; it is our recognition of our own failings; it is humility. Of course, the way you behave and, in Catholic theology, your involvement with the Sacraments can help you keep your soul clean while here on earth but there is no way for us to be truly purified by any other means than fire…but the reward of our humility and desire for holiness is perfection.

I have heard that Hell is when a person chooses themselves over God and instead of turning towards God in heavenly worship they turn into themselves in such a way that they are completely blind to God’s love reaching out to them. Hell is a total rejection of the gift that God gives freely to us after our death. God’s love for us is so great that He allows us to reject him…as much as it hurts to be rejected, only true love allows someone to leave you. It is painful…but it is love.

We cannot know for certain the choice people make when they have to choose. I was once asked how I would feel if I saw Hitler in Heaven. Well, I wouldn’t notice because of the glory of God shining overwhelmingly upon me, but I can say right now that if Hitler went to Heaven, praise God.

I’m not sure Pat Robertson would be able to say the same thing, however, and I feel that his arrogance, or pride, is what will guide his decision in the end. His belief in a vindictive God is false and when he dies he I’m not sure he would recognize God standing there with open arms welcoming him to eternal life. Upon seeing sinners and prostitutes dinning at the table of the Lord, I fear that Pat Robertson would turn away from God thinking that he was looking at Hell instead.

Either way, I think he is in for a big surprise when the time comes…or maybe I am.

For Further Reading:

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote an excellent book When Bad Things Happen to Good People that describes Kushner’s attempts to deal with the untimely death of his son. It is a truly beautiful work and I highly recommend it.