God’s Unsearchable Judgments
We have a lot of words that ask a question. We call them interrogatives—who, when, where, which, what, how, and so forth. Most of them require very short answers. When is Mass next Sunday? 10 o’clock. Where is the church? Urbana. Who’s saying Mass? Fr. Hall. But probably the most powerful of these interrogatives is the question ‘why’, and it usually requires a great deal more thought to answer it. Young children all go through that annoying stage where they want to know ‘why’ everytime you say something. “You can’t watch that show on TV, Jimmy.” “Why?” Because it’s not for children. “Why?” Because they’re doing things you shouldn’t see. “Why?” These conversations usually end with “Because I say so, and that’s that!” Young children generally fall into place with this definitive reason, even though it might not be the answer they’re looking for. But as they get older and parents persist in using this argument of authority, they’ll eventually find it doesn’t work at all with rebellious teenagers. The older we get, the more we imagine we absolutely must know the reason why we have to do or endure things we don’t like. The only place it doesn’t work is in the Army of course, where the only acceptable answer to a command is “Yes Sir!” The Captain isn’t interested in whether you think it’s a good idea or not, or if you’d like to politely suggest an alternative way of proceeding. Just do what you’re told and get on with it. But as for the rest of us, we just have to know Why. And it’s not out of mere curiosity, and certainly not because of our thirst for knowledge. It’s simply so that we have something tangible to argue against.
It’s no wonder then that our blessed Lord counseled his disciples to become as little children. Not just because of their innocence, their lack of guile and their simple straightforward behavior. Our Lord is also telling us that we need to have a child’s acceptance of things we don’t like. After all, we are the children of God, and we really should not fight against the commands he gives us. The laws of God are not there to hurt us, but to protect us. If God says Thou shalt not steal, it is our property he is protecting; thou shalt not kill, he guards our lives, adultery, our wives and husbands, our marriage. All the laws are there for our benefit. If we want to break them, it shows a lack of charity towards others and a lack of respect to the rights they have. So why would we question these laws when they’re for everyone’s good, ourselves as well as our neighbor?
It’s not just God’s commandments that upset us though, is it? There are all those unpleasant and often unforeseen circumstances that occur every now and again in our lives and turn things upside down for a while. Illness, bereavement, financial problems—things that really aren’t our own fault, things we can’t blame on anyone else either. So we’re tempted to blame God. And that question “Why?” comes up again. Why, Lord, did you let this awful thing happen? We’re overwhelmed with life’s problems and we end up questioning God.
If we ask this question with the innocence of a child, it is not wrong to ask our heavenly Father why he is “doing this to us.” It’s all in our motivation, and questioning in order to gain a deeper insight into the wisdom of God will not displease him. In fact, he will sometimes make it clear to us why he’s asking us to accept this or that cross. But other times we are met with stony silence, and we understand that God’s answer is that old familiar “because I said so.” Because this is my will, this is what I have chosen for you and it is not yours to know the reason why. All will be clear eventually, at least in the next life, but meanwhile you must simply trust me, my child, and know that I am your loving Father who knows better than you do what is best for you.
When the realization sinks in that this is the answer to our questioning, we have to choose between accepting as a little child the loving Providence of God, or refusing his gentle reminder that Father knows best, and rebelling like an unruly teenager against him. How sad and pathetic we then become, thinking we deserve to know everything God knows so that we may approve or disapprove of his divine will, imagining that we may compare our own wisdom and understanding of the world with his. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” says St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. “How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” St. Paul understands our groping search for knowledge and wisdom, seeking the ways of God so that we my know the reason why. But St. Paul’s answer for us is simply this awe-stricken exclamation of how far above our knowledge is that of God, and how much greater than ours is his wisdom.
Oh God, why? Why have you left your Church to be taken over by evil men, heretics and apostates? Why do you stand by and let evil triumph everywhere we turn? Why do you not intervene with your legions of angels and wipe out your enemies? We need to stop in our tracks when we find ourselves thinking like this. It is not a sign of wisdom but rather frustration. We need to stop demanding to know God’s reasons for what he permits. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord?”
Today is Trinity Sunday. The notion that God is comprised of three divine Persons with one nature is something we cannot grasp. We understand this and only this about the Trinity—that it is a mystery beyond our comprehension. And it is this understanding of our lack of understanding about the nature of God that is the answer to all our other questions. No amount of thought or meditation will ever bring us to a complete understanding of why God does this, or why he permits that. When we consider the distance between him and us in terms of wisdom and knowledge, our response must be the realization that we are nothing but little children compared with God. And having acknowledged this basic fact, let us then act like little children, humbly and with perfect resignation accepting God’s will simply because it is God’s will.