When Shaun asks: "But does God’s domain have its boundary or limit?" perhaps he is wondering if God’s concept of Goodness is altogether different than the human concept of Goodness.
This often-quoted passage from Mathew can lose some of its simplistic reassurance when we stop to think that God created the sparrow hawk that brought the poor little sparrow down–all as part of His Plan. It is up to each of us to construct a worldview that can perceive an ultimate Goodness in what, to human eyes, may seem ultimate evil.
Some fifty years ago my nephew, Jackie, contracted leukemia, and he fought it bravely for two years before finally succumbing to it. Jackie made visible to me, and to dozens of others, that somewhere, perhaps hidden deep inside the human psyche, was the Image of our God–and that Image was intimately associated with suffering. Jackie’s funeral was attended by as many nurses (nuns) as could be spared and the hospital chaplain got permission to say the eulogy–they all felt compelled to testify how deeply a pre-teen boy had affected their lives.
He certainly affected mine. I had a fresh Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and was planning a career with Shell Development. Instead we sold our brand new home in a Chicago suburb, and I took a postdoc position with an NIH grant to develop new computer methods to develop better anti leukemic medicinals. Its hard to say just how much good our efforts actually did over these intervening years, but all the big pharmaceutical companies in the world still use our software.
So exactly what reward did Jackie, that freckled faced little league baseball player, get out of life? I leave that up to God’s generosity. And for anyone who searches for Him as you search, @gmt, I am sure you will be rewarded, I just don’t know how.
Al Leo