What if God were brought before the court of law for trial? Well,
that would be quite a difficult as well as intriguing proposition. The charges
levelled against God should be so mystified as much as they are unfathomable just like God
Himself!
And that is what the Jews in the concentration camp in Auschwitz
during the World War II think when they assemble a court to put God on trial.
The charges against God or rather one grave charge is that God had not kept the
original covenant. The film God on Trial
(2008), seems weird in its content and yet rich in arguments.
Director: Andy de Emmony
Film Clip
To those who are familiar with the Torah of Jews or the Bible, God
chooses Jewish people as a chosen generation and makes a special covenant with
them to that effect. However, the Jews in the concentration camp, well many of
them, think that their present plight suggests that God has rescinded His
covenant; that God has not been faithful to His covenant and hence has forsaken
them and made them unjust victims of a blood-thirsty racist in the person of
Hitler.
But there are also other voices among them who hold that God is
present even in such dire straits and that certain suffering is necessary for
purification and so on.
There does not seem to be a consensus when it comes to convicting
God, but the ‘jury’ has to make a decision. That seems to be an important
climatic and yet difficult part of the film and the story.
Some gems that are said during the trial are worth taking home: ‘Small
fire will be put out by wind, but great fire only grows greater.’ ‘They may
have taken everything, but let them not take your faith.’ ‘God is the only one
which they cannot take away from you; keep your God, even if He were not to exist!’
- Melwyn Pinto SJ
