His Majesty's Hope(36)
“Well, the war came along …” He gave her a significant look. “And then I met you, of course, Schatzi.”
“Of course.” How could Gottlieb see what they had just witnessed and maintain his faith? “I assume you still believe in God?”
“Yes,” he said, taking a gulp of water.
Maggie reached over and stroked his cheek. Anyone looking would assume they were in love. “Well, I’m curious—how can a world, created by an all-powerful and all-knowing God, contain so much evil?”
Gottlieb pulled away from her. “God may have drawn back from the world, to give us free will. The problem of evil may be helpful, perhaps even necessary, for our spiritual development. Just as Christ’s Crucifixion was necessary for His resurrection.” His face was bleak. “I do think evil and the suffering comes from God—but I think it’s there to challenge us, and test us. How can we carry on believing in God’s love, even when it’s hidden from us? Even when everything we see around us refutes it?”
“If that’s the case, then I can’t see any good reason to believe in God, one who’s left us to battle evil—what we just saw, for example—all alone. Is this helpful for our spiritual development? There was a man hanged back there! What about his ‘moral development’?”
“If I knew that,” Gottlieb conceded with a sad smile, “I’d be God.”
Maggie and Gottlieb strolled the winding paths of the Tiergarten, under enormous trees with their mossy trunks, past banks of ferns, the clopping of horses’ hooves from the riding paths mixing with birdsong and distant traffic. “This is one of the only places that Berliners still feel at ease,” Gottlieb told her. “It used to be a hunting preserve for royalty. Now it’s for the people.” A siren wailed in the distance.
Maggie saw a sign: JUDISCHER BESUCH VERBOTEN. Jewish visits forbidden. She thought of Plessy v. Ferguson, Jim Crow laws, and the “separate but equal” segregation of Negroes and whites in the American South. The Nazis certainly weren’t the first to segregate and deny basic rights to human beings. “Not for all people,” she couldn’t resist pointing out.
Gottlieb nodded. “True.” They walked by the Victory Column, commemorating the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, topped by an enormous statue of winged Victory, looking like an angel. “We Berliners call her Goldelse.” Gottlieb indicated the winged woman. “It translates into something along the lines of Golden Lizzy. A lot of our monuments and buildings have nicknames like that.”
“Ah, the droll Berliner sense of humor,” Maggie said. “And, of course, every city needs its own phallic symbol.”
Gottlieb raised an eyebrow, then offered her his arm. “Come. As long as we are in the Tiergarten, you must see the rhododendrons. They’re legendary.”
They walked and walked through the ancient forest, Maggie’s new pumps rubbing a throbbing blister on the back of her heel. It was hot in the sun; she was starting to feel sweat on her scalp and her neck.
“It’s worth it, I promise,” Gottlieb said.
Finally, they came upon a lake ringed with blooms—fluffy clusters of pink, cerise, and coral. Some were on small bushes, some on towering, overgrown hedges. The cumulative effect was overwhelming. Maggie inhaled sharply. “Gorgeous!” she exclaimed.
“Now,” said Gottlieb, “how can you see this and not believe in God?”
“Because I’m a mathematician.”
“I was a top student at university,” Gottlieb said. “But I must confess, I was never all that interested in mathematics.”
“What?” Maggie exclaimed in mock horror.
“I just can’t see how mathematics relates to the real world.”
“But mathematics is the real world. It’s everywhere. See how those rhododendron petals spiral? Well, the number of petals in each row is the sum of the preceding two rows. It’s expressed mathematically by the Fibonacci sequence, which can be seen in, well, almost everything—the formation of crystals, the spirals of galaxies, the pattern of sunflower seeds. Math is nature’s language, its method of communicating directly with us.”
Gottlieb cocked an eyebrow at her passionate response. “It could also be God’s way of communicating with us, no?”
“The rules of mathematics don’t necessarily imply the existence of a deity.”
“Well,” he countered, “they don’t deny them, either. I choose to see the hand of God.”
“And I see science—rather than an invisible old man in the sky who seems overly concerned with my personal life. And sporting events, apparently.”