HUMAN NEGLIGENCE AND THE ACT OF GOD: TOWARDS AN AUTHENTIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OF THE WILL OF GOD SULE DANIEL As an intellectual being growing to the point where I could engage reality with the powerful God given gift and tool of reason, I had continuously attempted to unravel the mystery, so as to understand the question of the origin of evil in the World created by a good God who himself declared that all he created was good. At some point, the Augustinian paradigm of dissecting evil into moral and natural evil in which moral evil which was more predominant was attributed to the misuse of man’s freedom to be responsible for the origin of evil was not appealing to me because of certain reservation. However, overtime I have come to a conclusion that it is a tenable response to the question of the problem of evil. The relevance of the above point could be deciphered when viewed within the context of what many have termed the “insensitive” statement of the Minister of Aviation in Nigeria in the wake of the recent plane crash that involved the family, friends and the corpse of the late Governor of Ondo state. The Minister was said to have attributed the crash to being, an act of God. (Crashes generally). This statement for me is theologically disturbing because it has multifarious implications on our understanding of God. Even though many have responded emotionally which is accepted, I have decided to react from a philosophical and theological point of view. The reason being that a good number of christians and even pastors of souls go about with this erroneous and pseudo understanding that every action, happening or event is principally caused by God, even the ones that are obvious to have emanated from human negligence. Hence, it is not far-fetched to see somebody who out of careless about health, now begins to attribute his/her poor condition to God and so instead of seeking solution in a medical facility, lives in the illusion that remedy must necessarily come from God, when according to the Yoruba proverb, “What you are looking for in Sokoto is in your Shokoto( Trouser)”. It is plausible therefore to say that the idea of attributing certain event like the plane crash to an act God is a sheepish way of refusing to accept responsibility for human negligence, as there were evidences to show a high level and display of nonchalant attitude on the part of those concerned. Another way of looking at that statement is to say that it is God who causes men to be negligent so as to perpetuate a will of his which will involve the destruction of lives. This for me, apart from the fact that it is theologically disturbing, that conclusion denies man the gift of his freedom, which comprise of his intellect and will. By implication, to accept this, is to say that we are no longer humans, because freedom to a large extent defines us as humans. (I wish that this statement should be taken in context, to take it out of context could raise unnecessary philosophical question about Man and freedom). Secondly, to attribute human negligence to God, is not only being unfair, for me it is also an insult to the God given gift of the intellect to human; a rational faculty which is supposed to be invested so as to be able to navigate through the complexities of the universe. In my own opinion, the injunction by God to Man to go into the world and subdue it can be interpreted as an instruction to man to use his intellect and his will to make creative the universe. In other words, he is to add value to the universe, which involves using his intellect to avoid or forestall destruction in the universe. These can seen in the great contributions of science and technology, in the field of engineering, communication, automobile and the likes. So it will be a contradiction, for the same God to now reduce man to a state of being negligent in the manner of not being able to put his intellect and will to use, just to cause a dreadful event. Moreover, what could be the reason for this? How could God be so heartless to the point of making useless that which he gave to man to be useful? Definitely God cannot be up to such. Lastly, which is so important to me, is that to subscribe to such ideology is theologically problematic. The veracity of the above can be seen in the sense that such conclusions initiate a dualism into the nature of God which is obviously heretical because God is one. The reason being that, it leads to point where it is tenable and logical to say that the God who causes men to be negligent in this part of the world like Nigeria is not the same God in other part of the World like Europe, where the humans via their intellect and will have set up structures and system to guide against human negligence, thereby minimizing the rate of such bizarre happenings. It is only in this part of the World that we hear of failed engines of aircrafts and tyre burst of aircrafts. We see old, rickety and cracked aircrafts in operation in our airports and the authorities are comfortable, only to say that crashes are act of God. Again, how could we conclude that the daily auto crashes on our roads are act of God, when the roads are left in their deplorable conditions, while those responsible to put them in order bluntly refuse out of selfishness, only to public declare that the destruction of lives on our roads should be arrogated to God. Suffice to say that the Christian understanding of the will of God does not subsume human negligence and by implication, its consequences. We can only begin to discern the will of God, when in conscience, all possible human efforts have being exhausted to contain or forestall situations. It is only within this context that God’s will, can be said to take pre-eminence. However, when God in his infinity mercy, sovereignty and magnanimity decides to intervene to avert the consequences of human negligence, we can refer to such as miracles which happen daily. It should be noted, that such are not a right of the creature but a privilege from the creator. This should draw our consciousness to other sphere where human negligence is seen as God’s will. God has given us the intellect and the will to understand the implications and consequence of our actions, so when we fail to invest them properly, God cannot take the blame. So, it is not out of place to use this medium to advice those saddled with the responsibility of engendering sanity into our existing systems and structures to brace up and live up to their responsibility to the masses.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:35:27 +0000
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