COVOD-19 PANDEMIC: A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE BY Cl. ROBERT MARWEIN, SDS

COVOD-19 PANDEMIC: A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE 

INTRODUCTION

The Covid-19 virus also known as Coronavirus is labeled as one of the deadliest diseases of all time. There are hundreds and thousands of people that have been infected and die daily from Covid-19, and it has caused a tremendous global crisis. Currently there is no vaccine or cure for the disease. Some people perceive Covid-19 as a blessing in disguise; some perceive it as a curse, but the majority of the people perceive it as an evil which interlinks into the area of human suffering. Suffering is inevitable, but too much suffering often gives rise to one of the age-old questions, where is God in suffering?

THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

It is true that many people wonder if God causes Covid-19. Is Covid-19 God’s judgment? How can a loving God allow so many people to be infected and die from Covid-19? These questions have drawn the attention of many elite personalities to recount the place of God in this pandemic disease. Too many people believe that Covid-19 is God’s punishment for the sins of humanity. A closer look at this theory recalls the doctrine of ‘Divine Justice and Retribution,’ that God rewards the just and punishes the wicked (Deut 11:26-28, 27-28, Ezek 18:26-27; Luke 5:20). The book of Job casts the same pattern as the three friends of Job claim that Job must have sinned, hence he suffers (Job xx:xx).  Literally, they reversed the truth of the Bible that both obedience and sin have appropriate results (Deut. 28). By reversing the cause and effect, they were saying that all suffering is explained by sin. This is a faulty reasoning, an over reading and a mechanical application of a proper biblical Retribution Theology. Their problem is that they applied rigidly the doctrine to Job without considering that he could be innocent. They did not speak to God; they did not have any personal language with God.[1] In another words, their problem is that they remained only in a rational activity based on reason alone, but failed to understand God’s words and action revealed in human history for the salvation of humankind.

In the Gospel of Luke 13:1-4, people asked Jesus about the reports of death of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices; Jesus answered them that the people who died were not more deserving of death than others. One cannot argue from sudden and violent death to the enormity of sin.[2]

However, we cannot speak of God’s Justice and retribution without speaking of God’s Mercy. God’s Justice and Mercy cannot enter into noble conflict with each other. In Justice God condemns us and in Mercy God redeems us (Matt 18:23-35; John 3:16; 1 John 3:16; 1 Tim 2:1-6). Mercy is the expression of love. God loves us and thus he chooses to show us mercy. Love conditions justice.

Pope Francis in his apostolic letter ‘Misericordia et Misera’ recounts the story of Jesus meeting with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). He, emphasizes that God’s love must take primacy over all else. Again he says that the Gospel account is not an encounter of sin and judgment in the abstract, but a sinner and her savior. Jesus looked that woman in the eye and read in her heart a desire to be understood, forgiven and free. The misery of sin was clothed with the mercy of love. Jesus’ only judgment is one filled with mercy and compassion for the condition of this sinner.[3]

Therefore, during this pandemic the world needs to listen to God in silence, to realize that humans are mere mortals, and there is no one just before God, “can mortal be righteous before God? …even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth” (Job 4:17-19). Human beings need to live with faith in God, and acknowledge the great mystery of God’s sovereignty together with the prayers and praises.  People need to invite God to come to their aid because he has promised that he will always come (Rev 3:20).

During his suffering, Job lamented, but his faith was unshaken (Job 17; 19:25) because he knew that his redeemer lives (Job 19:25-27). Like Job, Jesus lamented on the cross when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:xx; cf. Ps 22:1), Jesus did not lament because he doubted God, Rather, he expressed his deepest faith in God. Jesus Christ is the true innocent sufferer (Isa 42). But Jesus death on the cross appears to be as much a punishment for sin. By suffering for us he provided us with an example for our imitation (1 Pet 2:21; Matt 16:24; Luke 14:27), and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning. However, Jesus’ death on the cross did not bring suffering to an end. He does not even save himself on the cross. Instead, Jesus descends deep into the humanity to share it with us for love’s sake.

CONCLUSION

It is quite normal when people are actually suffering, appears to be drawn closer to God. Frequently during a time of crisis like the pandemic of Covid-19, the doctrine of Divine Justice and Retribution is invoked. We cannot attribute to God as the cause of Covid-19. Benedict XVI pointed out that humanity today no longer feel the need to justify themselves to God but instead thought God needed to justify himself to humanity due to suffering in the world. God is in heaven and we are on earth… (Ps 119:3). God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and neither are His ways our ways (Isa 55:8). But like Job and Jesus, we lament to God and hold on in silence, each one must look at one’s self, accept our mortality, and the mystery of God’s way, imitate Jesus and surrender to God in faith, because the mercy of God overcome suffering and judgment, “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (Rom 5:20).”

[1] Cf. L. Rambau, “Wisdom Literature,” Class Notes.

[2] Cf. D.J. Harrington, the Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina 3, 210.

[3] Cf. Francis, Misericordia et Misera, Art. No. 1.