In a Great Course on Philosophy, I encountered the problem of trying to settle the notion that God is all three: omniscient, omnibenevolent, and all-powerful. If God is all loving, then God does not want us to suffer. If God is all-knowing, then God knows how to prevent us from suffering. And if God is all-powerful, than God can prevent us from suffering. But experience in reality tells us that this is not the case. Sure, there are a lot of self-imposed sufferings in our lives, for which we cannot in all honesty fault God. We make bad choices and then suffer the consequences. But there is also undeserved suffering, forced on us by malevolent individuals or systems or even the "bad luck" of natural disasters. These, we cannot be held responsible for even a little bit. So either we have a God worthy of worship who oversees all of this and feels compassion towards us, or we have a distant God who either ignores us or takes some sort of pleasure from watching us "figure it out" on our own. Or, as many religionists like to say, seeing the compassion of fellow humans coming together for the good of those who have been wronged in some way pleases God. Yes, but this is GOD, who supposedly should not have to make the victims suffer just so others can prove their worthiness!
After a lot of combinations and thought experiments, I have decided that if I am to worship God in any way, then said God must be all-loving. Anything less than that is not worthy of worship. And likewise, God must be all-knowing, for otherwise, God is in no way different from us, only perhaps without the physical limitations of earthly life and a material body. But I do not see a disconnect in worshipping and loving and serving a God who is more powerful than us mere mortals but nonetheless not "all" powerful to the point of being able to prevent all disasters and suffering and injustice. In that regard, God does the best God can, by being "with" us in our misery. Hence, the image of Jesus on the cross as the epitome of compassion - "suffering with".
It irks me to hear Christian traditionalists insist that God absolutely IS all-powerful, and that rather than acknowledging the lack of logic that follows (then God cannot be all-loving, or if God is, then God cannot be all-knowing), they whip out something about God working in "mysterious ways" and reference Isaiah 55:8, where we are told that God's ways are not our ways.
Ok, but if we are made in God's image, and we experience unjust suffering, then our experience of suffering is not "our way" and therefore a misunderstanding of God's way. We suffer when things go horribly wrong. Just like pain in the material body serves a physical purpose of helping to alert us to serious danger, so too should suffering alert us to something having gone terribly awry. It should "not" be seen as a mere "test of God". Any god who would test us knowing full well our limitations (remember, God is also all-knowing) is a god that is playing games with us as mere pawns. In such a scenario, we are no longer children of God but this god's playthings, avatars, puppets with life.
As I think back to some of the more trying experiences of my life, I certainly see an element of how I may have contributed to the experience being a bad one for me. I also see ways in which God took the lemons of my life and made me some lemonade. But some experiences cannot be said to fall under this category. What, pray tell, was the "greater good" of the Holocaust during World War II? In what ways did the concentration camp victims "grow in character" due to their undeserved suffering? What about those left behind, having to grapple with the knowledge of the suffering their loves ones went through? Do you think they appreciate that their loved ones' suffering helped them, the survivors, somehow "be better people"? Or would such an attitude precisely prove that they are not better people, because what constitutes "good people" first and foremost calls for an unequivocal stance against violence of any kind. And if you disagree with me on the point of violence, then we most likely serve different gods.
Why should I judge My Maker for not being "as powerful" as *I*, a mere mortal, have imagined that God ought to be? Isn't God nonetheless lightyears more powerful than me anyway? Isn't God the source of my very being? What more do I want from God's power? That is plenty of power for me to respect, reverence, and worship God.
And, not expecting God to be "all-powerful" allows me to rest in God's embrace when things get tough and I cannot find a way out, even through intense prayer. I do not fault God for not giving me what I asked for. I do not question God's love or wisdom. Rather, I rest in knowing that God, too, knows what it is to suffer and be disappointed and feel all alone. Believing in a compassionate God is what gets people through their suffering. Insisting that God is all-powerful yet chooses not to rescue us for some mysterious "greater plan" is saying that God is not good-enough as-is. And by extension, we God's creation are not good enough as we are. And so we start talking about sin and punishment and forgiveness and merit as if we could ever even begin to approach perfection. Matthew 5:48 does us no favors when it says, "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." What is perfection? Lack of blemish, lack of irregularities, lack of any mark of mortality, really.
In Romans 6:23 we are told that "the wages of sin is death", implying that death is some sort of imperfection, some sort of abnormality that was never part of God's original plan. But does that mean that everything in the universe is all wrong because Adam and Eve had the wrong snack? Plant life grows, reproduces, and dies, but in its death it does not cease to exist; it is transformed into something else, something useful, that in turn helps other life grow. The same is true for animal life.
How much more so (to use a popular Christian attitude) is human life and death a part of God's great circle of life. We do not cease to exist at death. We are transformed. Even if we believe that we are somehow "higher" than other animal life by having a spiritual component to our being, our death is the birth of something new. Automatically. There is no need to "earn" eternal life. Eternal life is ours by nature of us being spiritual beings. Nothing on earth (or in the cosmos, for that matter) dies without being transformed into something else. Recycling is not a hippie sentiment but part of the very design of God!
And so I struggle to find my place in religious spaces that fail to see this magnificent beauty of the real good news, the gospel of God that Jesus taught: "Fear not for I have overcome this world!" (James 1:12). You know what we can do if we're not busy feeling guilty about our shortcomings? When we're not kept busy with "penances" and artificial acts of piety that we hope will win our way "into heaven"? When we feel whole as a complete child of The Divine? We can live our lives fully for the love of others. We can be truly humble - without boasting and without groveling. We can actually put to good use the many skills and talents that have been granted us by our Creator for the sake of doing our part to build up the "kingdom" of God.
Imagine a place of worship where no one feels guilty. Not because they are ignorant of their shortcomings, but because they do not doubt God's unconditional love. Imagine a place of worship where everyone gathers for the sake of building each other up, improving their own unique talents, and brainstorming ways to go out into the world to help others do the same. Imagine a place of worship where everyone comes to be reminded how to be joyful and at peace, so that they can then take that attitude and spread it around everywhere they go!
Does such a place have a need for a hierarchy? For rules and rituals? For an ordained priesthood? Maybe. But only very limited, and certainly with no life-time commitments, so that everyone can have a turn at leadership, at different roles, and "so no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:9). Imagine a place of worship where everyone gathers because they woke up that day and felt the desire to be in the company of others who share their love of God and humanity. Imagine a place of worship where ....
Maybe we don't have to imagine such a place of worship. Maybe we need to "reimagine" our relationship to such a place? Maybe we need to stop identifying our very souls with such places of worship, and instead make our rounds at different places of worship, each reaching a different need in our souls? Maybe we go to be inspired and remember to take everything we hear with a grain of salt, since we are listening to fellow human beings. Ordination is not divination. We need to stop giving away our God-given power to transform our own lives and those of others!
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