Are You Angry at God?

Jan. 6, 2011 — -- It's a tough time to be God. Some leading scientists argue in widely-read books that God is no longer necessary. Science now knows how the universe was formed, how humans became what we are today, and, to some degree, what the future holds. Those questions used to be left up to God.

And now, it turns out, lots of ordinary folks are angry at God. Why does He allow babies to starve in third world countries, why does He allow bad things to happen, why does He -- either actively or passively -- cause so much grief?

What does it suggest when many people, according to various studies, are angry at the guy at the top?

"We find that anywhere between one third and two thirds of people we've surveyed in the United States admit they sometimes feel angry at God in response to some current thing they are suffering with, such as a cancer diagnosis," psychologist Julie Exline of Case Western Reserve University said in a telephone interview. "It's a very high number."

For more than a decade Exline has focused on anger toward God, and her current findings, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, lead to a number of provocative questions. If God is perfect, as many theologians argue, what's the point of getting angry at Him just because life isn't quite a neat as we might like? Is He prone to mistakes? Isn't anger basically questioning the very existence of God, or at least the limitations of His power?

"Some people feel God can make a mistake, and so for them it's not an issue if they get angry at God," she said. "But a lot of people see God as perfect and holy and not capable of making mistakes, and they still might get angry."

Many studies over many years show that untreated anger that is allowed to fester is a very bad thing, both socially and physically. When someone gets angry at another person, the two can sit down together and work out their differences and reach a compromise that allows the anger to fade. But can a human convince God to compromise and change his hurtful ways?