Death of an Adept

"Adam, this may be heresy," she said quietly, "but I can't help asking what my father ever did to deserve a fate like this. He's always been a good and upright man, a man of principle and integrity. Surely he deserved better than to end his life like this… suffering so."

The slight catch in her voice was like the first crack to appear in a dike. It bespoke a crisis of faith that had been many months in the building. But Adam had seen enough of human grief, in his personal life as well as his professional experience, to recognize the thorny issue that lay at the heart of the matter.

"What you really want to know," he amended quietly, "is, 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' Or, if you prefer, 'How can any God worthy of the name permit such a blatant miscarriage of Divine justice?' You're hardly the first to ask such questions, and you certainly won't be the last. I pondered the problem long and hard myself when my own father passed away."

"And what conclusions, if any, did you come to?"

To answer obliquely, Adam realized, would be tantamount to condescension. Nothing less than total honesty would do.

"Let me see if I can articulate this without sounding like a psychiatrist," he said. "First of all, I've come to understand that suffering is not to be seen as Divine retribution for some past unatoned sin. On the contrary, it's simply one of the dangers inherent in being the mortal creatures that we are.

"Human beings appear to be unique amid the whole of creation, for having both a spiritual and a physical aspect to their existence," he went on. "As physical creatures, we're subject to the same natural laws that govern the rest of material creation. Nothing stands still in the material world; everything is caught up in a complex pattern of cause and effect. If these overlapping patterns of change now and then give rise to some destructive natural event in our vicinity - say, an earthquake, or an accident, or the encroachment of some deadly disease - we're compelled by our physical nature to suffer the consequences."

"I understand that much," Ximena said. "What I don't understand is, If God is as loving and benevolent as Scripture claims, why doesn't this God intervene and stop us from becoming victims of these natural disasters?"

"Because such intervention would violate the conditions that enable man to operate according to his own free will."

"How does that follow?" she asked.

"A fair enough question. One of the proofs that we have a spiritual, as well as a physical, side to our makeup is our ability to override natural instincts to control our own behavior. In other words, we are free to make conscious, evaluative choices regarding what we do and how we do it. In order for us to exercise that freedom of choice, however, the surrounding world in which we operate has got to be coherent and consistent. Do away with these governing principles, and you're left with nothing but chaos - a chaos as devoid of meaning as it is of morality."

"You're saying that God can't set aside His own law?" she asked.

"Of course He can," Adam replied, "since, by definition, God is omnipotent. But He doesn't; nor should He. If God were to suspend every process that might have destructive consequences, the effect would be to undo creation itself. A world governed by natural laws, therefore, is the only world possible. If, in the process, the physical body falls victim to the operation of those natural laws, that is the price we pay for spiritual immortality - the voluntary ability to seek and find union with God."

"I suppose this is meant to give me comfort," Ximena said miserably.

"It is," he replied softly. "Because this much is also true: that when the physical body fails. God is on hand to guide the spirit home."

She gazed at him for a long moment, then said softly, "You really believe that, don't you?"

"I know it," he corrected.

Sighing, Ximena set her hand on his.

"I wish I had your faith," she said. "Maybe you could spare me some."

"It's been my experience," Adam said, "that those who want faith are given it - and from a source that flows far stronger and clearer than my own."

Ximena had little to say while they dressed and made their way to the hospital. It was plain from her expression that she was deep in thought. What the outcome of her musings would be, Adam could not begin to predict. He could only hope that he had succeeded in pointing her toward some resolution.

While she was off giving her presentation, he made his way up to the floor where her father was in residence. Alan Lock-hart was still asleep - if his drug-induced state of temporary oblivion could rightly be called that. After re-introducing himself to the nursing staff and acquainting them with his credentials, Adam took advantage of Ximena's absence to read over her father's medical records in careful detail. He was pondering the results of his reading when Lockhart's attending physician arrived for morning rounds.