DIALOGUE OF MINDS...IS GOD PARTIAL?

Certain questions bother the human mind which only very few are brave enough to ask. Many avoid such questions like a plague when they concern GOD, the Creator, the Supreme Being, the Alpha and the Omega. Many ponder over them only in the recesses of their hearts. They sleep with such questions and they die with them. But human progress has not been achieved by unquestioned acceptance of myths and beliefs. We are where we are today by inquisition, by challenging tradition and popularly accepted norms and practices. We might as well rack our brains and prod our intellect by considering one of the controversial questions people shy away from – IS GOD PARTIAL?

To a casual observer this question is deeply preposterous. Can God who sends rain on both the theist and the atheist, who allows the sun to shine on both the good and bad, who gives freely the breath in all, and allows the same red blood to flow in all veins: white or black, Arab or Jew, tall or short, young or old, be partial?

But then, some of humanity has always asked particularly in their moment of despair and desperation: since God created all living, why are some people black and some white? He says of Himself in Exodus 4:11 that he makes the blind and the seeing, the deaf and the dumb as well as those who can hear and speak. Why do some people deserve to be lame and some born without legs at all? Why do some people die of cancer and some peacefully in sleep? Why are some people born in America and live an enviably fulfilling life while some are born in Somalia, where want, disease and deprivation are their permanent companions? To the Somali God is partial to have created him a Somali. To the blind, God is partial to have allowed him to be born without eyes.

What do you think? Is God really partial? Please your reactions are welcome.

-by funso babatunde.