Many readers will probably remember a big news story from back in 1987, when 18-month old Jessica McClure somehow managed to fall into a well on her parents' property in Midland, Texas. She was there two and a half days before finally being rescued by the valiant efforts of local firefighters and others.
I understand that Jessica, now a teenager, evidently thanks God for her rescue. And maybe that's a natural reaction, considering how horrid an experience it must've been. This was, after all, a well 8-inches wide at the top, with a 20-foot drop. It's amazing (but far from miraculous) that she wasn't hurt more than she was.
And while I'm sure she's grateful to those rescue personnel, it frankly bothers me that she isn't more effusive in her thanks to these people who worked around the clock for 58 hours to get her out. Were their actions not significant enough to warrant eternal thanks from Jessica?
And yes, I know I've written about this in at least one other article, but I swear I'll never "get it." So I have questions. Maybe Jessica can answer them. Maybe someone else can.
Like, why did God allow paramedic Robert O'Donnell, one of the primary rescuers of little Jess, to commit suicide in 1995? Did he think so little of one of his "tools" in rescuing Jessica that he permitted this poor hero to fall into despair? Why?
Also, if God were really looking out for Jessica and orchestrated her rescue, why did he let her fall into this well in the first place? What offense did an 18-month old commit to so irritate God? (I'll let slide the question of how it's even possible for an omnipotent God to be upset by anything we insignificant humans do.) Why would he have her suffer through more than a dozen surgeries in the years that followed? And why would he also inflict her with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis? This is a nasty autoimmune disorder in which the body's defensive systems mistakenly attack healthy tissue. Doesn't sound like God's still looking out for Jessica, does it? Or maybe he never really was.
Yes, I know Jessica doesn't have the answers. Nor does anyone else. Questions like these have stymied theologians and philosophers for century upon century.
But I have to continue to point out these types of questions. I mean, you'd think that after thousands of years of thinking about such questions, there should have been at least some progress made in answering them. Even the thornier problems in science make some progress in a matter of decades, let alone millennia.
Believers tend to chalk these questions up as "unanswerable" questions, giving pat replies like, "God works in mysterious ways" or "Who are we to question the motives of the Almighty?"
But the rational person instead asks, "Isn't it likely that such incomprehensible things are not due to the actions or inactions of God?" The rational person realizes that, in fact, these questions cannot be answered in a way that allows the existing god-paradigm to survive intact, and therefore the existing god-paradigm is fatally flawed.
It's time to put it to rest.
