After watching an hour of CNN, it's easy to understand how one could become an atheist. Personally, I feel an uncomfortable ambivalence. Whenever I begin to settle into the cocoon of comfort faith in the Divine provides, I can't help but think this: If I was in any sort of serious danger, I have no doubt my father would quickly come to my rescue. Yet our supposed Heavenly Father seems to be a negligent parent at best and a vindictive one at worst. With wars, typhoons, and genocides raging, where is this God people sing the praises of? And if he exists, does he even care about his creation? Fortunately, there is one man who has offered an appealing foundation for sustaining a belief in God while the world goes to Hell in a hand basket. Enter Hans Jonas.

Hans Jonas (1903-1993), a Jewish philosopher who lost his mother in Auschwitz and was chased out of Germany during WWII, somehow managed not only to still believe in God, but to believe that God is good and cares deeply about his creation. In fact, Jonas felt nihilism was the root of the evil that killed his mother.

So, how can God care about his creation and stand idly by while people destroy each other, themselves, and the planet? According to Jonas, it's out of God's hands. God is present in reality, but he has renounced his power. In Mortality and Morality Jonas explains, "In the beginning, for unknowable reasons, the ground of being, or the Divine, chose to give itself over to the chance and risk and endless variety of becoming." Therefore, in order to endow his creatures with the gift of freewill, he had to give up his own power to interfere in what we choose to do with this freedom. If, at any moment, God could intervene when he feels a situation has become too horrendous, we would have never have had freewill in the first place.  

Judaism has always held that God is good and concerned with the well-being of his creation. Jonas agrees with this, asserting that even though God no longer has the power to ensure our welfare, he wants and hopes that we will make ethical decisions; his powerlessness has no bearing on how much he cares for his world and its inhabitants. Jonas writes, "God's caring about his creatures is, of course, among the most familiar tenets of the Jewish faith. But my myth stresses the less familiar aspect that this caring G-d is not a sorcerer who in the act of caring also provides the fulfillment of his concern: he has left something for other agents to do and thereby has made his care dependent on them. He is therefore also an endangered God, a God who runs a risk." In Jonas' view, the future of God is now at our mercy. He warns, "Having given himself whole to the becoming world, God has no more to give: it is man's now to give to him."

God granted us freewill. However, if God were to intervene with that autonomy, then, by definition, it would no longer exist. Therefore, God had to relinquish his power in order to empower us. This concept defeats the painful idea that God is allowing us to suffer. Jonas' explanation also offers refuge from the fear that God is vengeful (an idea often touted by Christian fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell who look at tragic events like September 11 th as God's punishment for our sins), or that God does not exist (as nihilists believe), while providing an incentive to use our freewill thoughtfully. If Jonas is right, and God has given us the gift of the power to determine the fate of his creation, then we consequently hold God's fate in our hands. To destroy ourselves is to destroy God's creation; to respect and protect ourselves is to honor him.

Sweetjane109@sbcglobal.net