What is the Religious Meaning of Coronavirus

Recently I referred to Jesuit Priest James Martin's essay where he referred to the "inconsistent triad." This is the religious notion that God is all powerful and all loving. An all powerful and all loving God would eliminate suffering. God does not eliminate suffering. Therefore God cannot be all powerful and all loving.

Father Martin, relatively young, has just completed cancer treatments so he knows about confronting his own death. He concludes there is no escape from the "inconsistent triad". It is an impossible dilemma for Christians and the only solution is to put this part of the faith on a shelf and move on to some other religious concept. He suggests the life of Jesus.

New York Time columnist, Ross Douthat, a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism, wrote today that Martin's view is unacceptable. Douthat says Christians must continue to seek understanding of the Coronavirus. He admits lots of Christians feel they understand God perfectly when good things happen to them, it is a reward for their faith. They want to hide from understanding, however, why bad things happen. He thinks people need to work at figuring why bad things happen, though he has no explanation himself.

Douthat says a common interpretation is bad things, like the virus, are punishment for sin. Another is that there is reward in the virus, we will learn about it later. And then, God is mysterious. There is meaning and a good purpose but we cannot understand it. Or, God is here to help us through tragedy but not to prevent tragedy. Douthat does not know if any or all of these are correct.

As countless readers on the NY Times comment page pointed out, Douthat is full of it. There is no religious meaning in the death of suffering around coronavirus. It is just the same randomness that science and history tell us has happened since humans evolved. Animals go through it and we are just another branch of animal.

People like Douthat, religious pundits and clergy, make a living messing with peoples' minds. The sooner the stop doing that the sooner the world will be a better place. Searching for religious meaning when there is none fits the definition of a fool's errand.