Tragedy and Loss: Should We Blame God?

Tragedy and Loss

…should we blame God?

This is the second in a series of posts looking at the question of God's protection in the face of tragedy. Read part one here.

There Must Be Someone To Blame

Tragedy often causes us to look for someone to blame. I understand why we are prone to point the finger. When bad things happen our brain naturally searches for a reason. We desperately want to make sense of what happened. So we go looking for answers. To find a culprit helps us regain some level of control in a senseless situation. But our desperation can lead us to some false conclusions.

We Blame Others

Someone messed up. Bad things don’t just happen! We want answers. It’s my boss, or my spouse, or my kids, or the government, or a company. It’s their fault. And we want them to fix it now!

We Blame Ourselves

Many people wonder if THEY are to blame. People who are insecure or shame-based will often jump to this conclusion first. Am I suffering because of something I did, or didn’t do? Did I get cancer because I never forgave my father? Did I get in a car accident because I haven’t been in church for five years?

In other words, is this tragedy some kind of divine retribution or the yang of the ying you did earlier in life? Is this some kind of cosmic payback or karma for your past failure?

When I was in high school, I made the brilliant decision to sell drugs. Not my finest moment. Thankfully, that career was quickly cut short by the police. My parents were shocked, of course. They had no idea what I was up to. I kept it hidden from them very well. But my parents immediately wondered where they went wrong as parents. They blamed themselves. 

Isn’t that what every parent does? Where did we go wrong? It must be our fault that Remy is a juvenile delinquent. It couldn’t possibly be that their son was just an idiot! They decided that they erred by not giving me the same exposure to church that they gave my older siblings.  So we returned to church in hopes that religion would fix me. But after three weeks we quit church... again. It didn’t offer us anything.

We Blame God

We blame others. We blame ourselves, and some people blame God. They feel betrayed. Suffering wasn’t part of the deal. They thought that if they believed in Jesus, and went to church, and said their prayers, and volunteered their time, and put some money in the offering, then God would keep them and their loved ones safe. But when that didn’t happen, they immediately started asking: Where was God? How could he let this happen? He let me down.

But there are no guarantees in scripture that we won’t suffer hardship. In fact, Jesus specifically said that we would have trouble in this world.

Twisted Thinking

This is how the thinking goes: if God is in control, then tragedies shouldn’t happen. But if tragedies do happen, then God must not be in control, or doesn’t care, or maybe...doesn't even exist. And I have to admit, there’s some logic to that line of reasoning. But that logic is missing something.

Honestly, I don’t know what's missing. It's just that we, as humans, can’t see a big enough picture of what’s going on to appreciate it. It’s a paradox. A paradox is when two truths exist simultaneously that appear to contradict each other. How can God be in control and tragedies happen? I don’t know.

Embracing the Paradox

Sometimes we have to let go of one truth to embrace another one that is equally true. It’s true that God protects us. It’s good that we pray for protection. We should. But it’s also true that accidents happen.

You see, life can be random. Not random to God, but random to us. And because of that, we don’t have to assign blame for a tragedy to anyone: yourself, others, or God. That reality requires that we adjust our worldview and our theology. We can’t live in a bubble thinking that we are impervious to pain. We need to develop a theology - a view of God - that incorporates suffering, and sees God in our suffering.

There's another mistake we make in the face of tragedy besides blame. I'll talk about this in my next post.

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