Raymund Fernandez
God can very well take perfect care of Himself. What dent in the cosmos can another insult against Him affect? Nothing…
Except to make us laugh.
A grown man, this powerful, pursuing his childish war against Christianity in this time and age can have no other effect but give us a clear view of what goes on inside a powerful despot’s mind, pointing us to characters straight out of the stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
And we can guess where all of this is going.
The emperor strips himself naked this way.
We snicker.
We chuckle in embarrassment.
But our God can very well take care of Himself.
Thank you.
He is used to being insulted this way as He has always been insulted by tyrants over centuries.
Not so capable are the 27,000 dead who never saw their day in a court of law.
What demented cause did they die for? What stupid war?
That is the big travesty made worse that good people were more insulted by an insult against their God and gave hardly a pip, a chirp, nor any expression of outrage equal to their God being called stupid. 27,000 dead is the worse insult against everything God stands for.
He died on the cross to save us. Rich, poor, powerful, powerless, guilty or not, we were all saved. He commanded us to love each other, as we would love ourselves. Thou shall not kill. He saved us for us. He can very well take good care of Himself, thank you…
Not quite so capable is the Philippine Constitution. It guarantees freedom of religion and the separation of Church and State.
A president attacking a religion, any religion, this way is a travesty not against God – He can very well take good care of Himself – but the Constitution that the president, any president, is sworn to protect.
President raises his right hand, his left hand over a Bible, or any Holy Book if he is not Christian, and swears to uphold and protect the Constitution. We know what is meant by “Constitution.”
But now we must wonder what book he put his left hand over if he thinks the Bible is stupid. What unnamed book? What nameless God? What un-namable entity?
But our God? He can very well take good care of Himself. Not quite so capable is the Office of the President itself.
That will be changed for the rest of history.
Our expectations of it will be changed as if changed by a god-like presence of one who is not quite subject to anything sounding like humility and the moral limits men put on themselves.
He is not subject to God, not subject to the Constitution, not subject to the demands of justice and fair play, not subject even to reality itself
What then is he subject to?
Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat – “Those whom God wishes to destroy he first drives mad.”
This is an adage as old as kings, and so old it cannot be attributed to anyone by any degree of certainty.
But the adage is not quite right. It places too much on God, who for all intents and purposes may not ever act against the foible and weaknesses, the pride of powerful men. We are quite very well capable of
going mad by ourselves.