A father told about the tornado that hit his home in April. Racing to his son's room as it approached, he had just touched his son when suddenly the tornado ripped off the side of their house and pulled his eight-year-old son out into the night. The father and mother held on to their other children and cried out prayers to God. Not long afterward, when the chaos of the tornado had subsided, the father saw his eight-year-old walking toward him. The boy said that he'd been taken up into the sky, then had floated back down. He saw the flashlights that his father and mother were holding and began to walk toward them.
It sounds like a miracle. It surely was a moment for gratitude. But where was God in this story? Was God in the tornado? Was God in the lights that guided the boy back home? Whatever God's role might have been, it seems clear that the parents were not responsible for the child's near death.
The story of Abraham and Isaac is different. Abraham seems to agree to take the life of his own son as an act of worship of God. In many interpretations of the passage, it is Abraham's obedience to God that is emphasized, along with its significance as a sign of Abraham's faithfulness. But to contemporary readers this obedience may seem immoral; Abraham's faithfulness seems to lead to cruelty. What terrible cognitive dissonance this creates. What a moral dilemma!
