Charles Krauthammer was a Pulitzer-prize winning author, a political analyst who appeared on our television sets to give us his observations concerning Washington DC and its daily machinations.
He had a persevering spirit in spite of a tragedy that occurred in his youth: An accident as a first-year medical student left him with an injury that altered the course of his life but never slowed his accomplishments.
He comments: "I had a diving accident actually in a
swimming pool right on the grounds of Harvard Medical School, off the diving board, my third dive of the day and hit the bottom with my head . . . And my head wasn't hurt at all. I didn't even have a scratch. But it
severed my spinal cord, and I was hospitalized for 14 months."
JEWISH
Krauthammer has Jewish roots, went through a bar mitzvah as a young
man, but maintained a mostly secular outlook:
"I'm not the first to say it. I don't believe in God, but I fear Him greatly." He goes on to say, "Our ability to understand is about akin to that of a snail on the shore of an ocean trying to work out the tides through physics. And
that, to me, is our position, understanding the workings of the universe, and the wonderful mysteries, awesome, I mean, literally
awesome mysteries that lie behind it."
He was captivated by what he saw as the mystery of it all: "I have enormous respect for [Judaism], and in some sense, I'm not a terribly religious Jew, but I follow some of the rituals, and I do attend on the important days. But when it comes to the relationship to what is out
there, to me, it is rather complicated and mysterious."
ASSESSMENT OF ATHEISM
He was perceptive about atheism: "Of all the theologies or anti-theologies, I think atheism is the least plausible of them all. It's not only the irrationality, but it's the coldness, the soullessness of atheism that strikes me. But as to what lies on the other side, I'm the snail on the side of the ocean. I don't even presume to even be able to begin to understand it. All I know is
that it's far beyond me, and it deserves reverence and awe."
SNAIL?
Krauthammer sees the human being like a snail in the face of a great unknown. What a far cry that is from what the Bible tells us: man is a special creation and in the image and likeness of God. The human being, a creation possessing intellect, emotion, and will.
I wonder if anyone reached out to him to help him know and understand that "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers [Charles' ancestors] in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world."
I wonder if anyone shared with him John 14:9: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." Or did someone lead him to the classic text, John 1:18: "No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." For the mysteries that awed Charles' Krauthammer, there was One who came and explained those awe-inspiring mysteries.
Did anybody write Charles to show him that in Christ's explanation of God many of those mysteries clear up; the human being isn't a snail incapable of understanding. God has spoken and communicated to the human race.
Charles Krauthammer passed into eternity on Jun 21, 2018, age 68. God wept.
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