As a mother, pediatrician, and citizen, I have had a heavy heart for the parents of the children of Sandy Hook. We all have grieved with them since the brutal attacks of the innocent little children who were killed a few weeks ago.
As a mother, pediatrician, and citizen, I have had a heavy heart for the parents of the children of Sandy Hook. We all have grieved with them since the brutal attacks of the innocent little children who were killed a few weeks ago.
Now that a bit of time has passed, some of us who have a faith in God are pressed to ask some painful questions, such as, where was he? This is one of the toughest questions a believer can grapple with because there seems to be no answer which lets him off the hook. But we must ask it anyway.
Anyone who has suffered pain has asked this question, but in a situation as horrific as this, we who believe demand more from God. There really are only two answers to this question.
First, we can assume that God wasn’t there. We reason that he was busy, perhaps, attending to the masses starving in Africa or enduring oppression by a brutal regime. In other words, we give God a pass. The difficulty with this theory is that it posits God as an uncaring, aloof being who is neither omnipresent nor caring. These don’t flesh with the God we read about in the Bible.
Second, we can say that yes, God was there, but he didn’t do anything. He watched, choosing not to intervene in the free will of a lunatic. This is more plausible if you believe what the Bible teaches about the character of God, but to those of us who believe in his kindness, it is tough to swallow.
I have a third theory about what may have happened. This theory stems from a similar story in the Scriptures. I am not a trained theologian, so you can do what you will with it, but I feel that it is a theory worthy of consideration.
I wonder, since God is omnipresent, faithful and full of more compassion and love than the human mind can conceive, if God was there and did act. My theory comes straight from the story in Acts where Stephen is being stoned to death (Acts 7:54-59).