Saturday, June 20, 1998

God on trial: Teens go to court to debate divine responsibility

By Christine Wicker / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS -- The case was titled the People vs. the Almighty. The charge: crimes against humanity.

The witnesses didn't line up as one might expect.

Noah, among the very few whom God spared in the Great Flood, testified for the prosecution.

Speaking for the Almighty were Eve, who got thrown out of Eden, and Hitler, who stands for evil itself in the modern world.

Retired federal Judge Barefoot Sanders lent his courtroom, heard the case and issued a six-page opinion. Lawyers and witnesses were the teenagers in Temple Shalom's 10th-grade confirmation class.

"As a reminder, all witnesses and lawyers get rid of your gum," said their teacher, Dennis Eichelbaum, as the recent trial was about to begin.

"All rise," said the bailiff.

The robed judge swept in, sat and asked, "May we assume the defendant, the Almighty, is present?"

"Yes, your honor," came the defense attorney's meek reply.

Opening arguments began.

"Throughout history, God has committed crimes against humanity," said Boris Briskin. "He has exterminated men for the duration of history. The best example of his wrongdoing is the Holocaust. Other examples are the Flood, World War I, World War II and all natural disasters."

God's defense attorney, Brittney O'Daniel, stood.

"Your honor, our purpose today is to differentiate between the evils of humanity and the innocence of faith," she said. "The human race needs to learn to take responsibility for their own actions and quit displacing their anger, hurt, embarrassment and shame onto God. Your honor, by the end of this court case, you will make a decision. Choose the side of purity and innocence. Choose God."

The 16-year-old attorney was speaking fast. The judge asked for a summation. O'Daniel replied: "God is innocent of all wrongdoing, and man is evil."

Prosecution witnesses presented a callous, careless God who causes great suffering.

Aaron Weinstein was Noah in a fierce black beard and a bedsheet robe. "A loud voice sounded in my head telling me to do absurd things" -- to build an ark on dry land and gather the animals together, he said. His neighbors laughed, not believing God planned to kill them all.

"Was everyone in the world, in your opinion, truly evil?" asked the prosecution.

"None of them was evil," Noah answered.

A rabbi played by David Arndt told the court that during the Flood, the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, God "was probably up there watching and laughing at us."

"Why are we (the Jews) his chosen people?" he asked. "Because he needed someone to practice his torture on."

El Nino, played by Matt McCombs in a black trash bag with lightning across it, told the court, "I ruined countless lives because ... it was time for humans to suffer."

"Why didn't God intervene?" asked the prosecution.

El Nino replied, "He didn't care."

The defense did not let such ideas go unchallenged.

Could the rabbi think of any time when God killed someone by himself, asked God's attorney?

"No, I guess not," the rabbi answered.

"Did God tell you to cause children to go hungry and to kill people and to put people out of work?" defense lawyer Jaclyn Simon asked El Nino.

"Well, no," he answered.

God's defense was vigorous.

Hitler, played by Kim Munn, took the stand to say, "I wanted to create a perfect society." The Jews were responsible for Germany's troubles, and so he killed them, he said.

"Did God make you do that?" asked the defense attorney.

"It was all my idea. God had nothing to do with it," he answered.

Not only was Hitler responsible for his actions, but "if I hadn't taken over, someone else would have because there are more people like me."

Eve, played by Robin Miller, ate the apple "because I wanted to see if the snake was right."

"Why did God put the apple tree in the garden?" Briskin asked.

"He wanted to prove that we had brains," Eve said. "If God had his way, I never would have done it."

Then Anne Frank (Amy Corenblith) took the stand. "Humans do think for themselves, and it's not God's fault," she told the court. "We aren't puppets on a string. I think there's good in all humans."

Prosecutor Briskin zeroed in. "Even Hitler?"

"Obviously, it was deep down in Hitler," she replied.

Prosecutor Bryan Kluger had the closing.

"It is pure fact that God committed these crimes. God created man and earth, and he can easily destroy it. He can bring peace or war. He puts humankind in torturing situations and watches us suffer."

Hitler may have caused the Holocaust, "but why didn't God stop it?" he asked.

Simon closed for the defense. God never wills evil, and if we start to think so, the courts will become useless because justice will be impossible, she said.

"God put us here so we would have faith in him, through good times and bad," she said. "God can think for you as much as your peers can think for you. They can't, and God can't."

The judge deliberated for weeks and finally issued his opinion.

"In order for God to be guilty of crimes against humanity, it must be proven that either the Lord 'hardened the hearts' of the Nazis, so they could commit their heinous acts, or the Lord had the power to stop the Nazis, and chose not to take action (this presupposes there is a legal obligation to intervene)," he wrote. "We cannot accept the premise that all evil acts are due to the hardening of the heart God because that could create a defense for all misconduct."

Further, the judge wrote, "If God has the obligation to stop wrongs, then God must withdraw the ability to freely think and act. For every action there is a reaction."

If we judge God guilty for man's wrongdoing, how do we judge the actions of those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, the judge asked?

"To hold God responsible for not preventing the Holocaust is to deny the righteous their honor, for not having hardened hearts, and not standing idly by and watching their neighbors die."

In summation, the judge wrote that each person can choose good or evil. Most people live between the extremes of total evil and total good, he wrote.

"The members of the Temple Shalom confirmation class, just as the men and women of the Bible, and the guards at the Auschwitz death camp, have the ability to choose between good and evil. One cannot argue for independence of the mind, yet scapegoat God for that same independence when times turn tragic."

And so God was pronounced not guilty, and therefore acquitted.

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

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