By Paul Andrew Bourne; MSc. (candidate), BSc. (Hons)
Over the years, God has had two faces. On one instance, he had the heart of mother Theresa; the Red Cross; UNICEF; Father Monsignor Richard Albert and sometimes the Salvation Army. On another occasion, he was a hungry boar with the kindness of intent to maim and mow humans like the Tsunami.
Although God is ‘love’, has understanding and knowledge of all things, some members within Christendom and Other religiosity have made him out to be a vicious monster, lacking in basic tolerance and critical reasoning while allowing the poor to be exploited, abused and discarded by the affluent.
Let us analyze the first face of God. Is God love? Love is gentle, forgiving, compassionate and merciful (1 Corinthians 13); Does that depict characteristics of Traditionalists’ God? When God is spoken of in the New Testament, he is love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so who so ever believeth in him so not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3 vs. 16) this shows the extent of his/her love for mankind in addition to the traits of love as spoken by Paul (in 1 Corinthians 13). By ‘Jesus’ offering his life for all races, God showed that his compassion for man and woman goes beyond life’s existence to pure love. This depth of compassion for man is the heart and life of “Mother” Theresa.
Christ sojourn on earth displays God’s gentleness for peoples by walking with them. That doing offered God mercy to life through an operation of sacrificing his very being. Furthermore, in wanting to restore man to his former glory, he gave man an opportunity for redemption through Christ death. This is similar to any friend offering himself as a martyr for another, that friendship goes beyond mere earthly socialization. It is a display of mortal compassion in the persona of a mother (i.e. always offering every thing “good”). Therefore, if a friendship embodies love, why has God’s love for humanity transformed into viciousness. Has he forgotten that he died for man?
Oftentimes Christendom’s postulations of God’s persona depict short sightedness and intolerance. When all God can offer those, whom he died for is destruction heartaches and sorrows this leaves little to be imagined.
Before I forward the second position of God, I genuinely hope that your love for God does hold “firm” hereafter.
When did God lose his love for man?
If God creates all things and without him, nothing made that was made, did he simultaneously create peace and evil and if he did for whom? As a mere mortal reasoning, men construct prison to suppress and by extension “rehabilitate” the non-socialized being within our society with that perception, why He (God) created evil. (Isaiah 45:7). What is the fairness in evils’ creation or the justification in sorrow’s wisdom?
Oftentimes when I peruse the Old Testament (i.e. King James Version of the Bible), the experiences of peoples therein are comparable to viewing a horror movie. The Israeli in the wilderness and other peoples from Genesis to Jeremiah (Old Testament) are just gruesome, bloody and destructive. If you did not have think for one second of love, that was my intent. Wow! If a parent in our contemporary society mistreats a child in his/her care, our socialization defines this as cruelty; and so the guilty party is liable to be imprisoned for an extended period.
For the purpose of simplicity and space for this paper, let us compare our contemporarily experience with the traditional culture: Jonah for not ‘listening’ to the “words” of God was imprisoned in a whale. “Why was he punished and what was the fairness of that case to our contemporary cases?” Moses did not see the promise land for simply behaving like a human. Why was he punished by the system? Where was the fairness in the justice meted out by God? An entire society was destroyed because of a number of ‘evilous’ men. “A few evilous, men”.
Within our contemporary societies, it seems that God has become extremely tired and bored from all his actions in the past so much so that he just does not have the time for many of the “evilous” things carried out by people today. “Is it that He has run out of ideas in punishing men?” I must hasten to add that the race is not for the swift but for those who can endure to the end. What do you mean by the end? End!
When those movies of God will ends? Men are now duplicating the expertise of God in the movie production business so much so today that it seems God does not have a lucrative market share in the business he began in the Old Testament. Sorry man, why did He start that business in the first instance without an indefinite patent? Did He not see it coming?
In concluding, it seems that man’s creation of the illusive picture that God is love and within the same breathe callous does not scar man anymore. Some simplistic traditionalists argue that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for rich man to go to heaven. Nevertheless, in order to survive moreso in developing countries poor individuals must open themselves to various devious means. This by its very nature will bar the anyone from enjoying the gifts of heaven. Therefore, who will enter that place but the man who is unlikely to commit survival mischief? Within the same, breathe, if a poor person performance acts that are against the principles of “God” then, he/she would have experience hell on two (2) occasions. The reality is he/she would experience it in present and future existence. Whereas the rich in his/her present life would enjoy heaven, in the future hell. Where is the just “God” in all of this?
Why did He construct a hell if not a punishment? Because if the punishment is only after death, how will He rehabilitate man to become good. With hell constituting of fire, misery and punishment for man, can a leopard change his spots because of time. If God who is knowledgeable and that he who knows all things create man for hell, where is the love? On the other hand, if God is love, is love destruction and viciousness? Alternatively, is it that God is shortsighted and lack tolerance? Why create man, and if he decides to be of a particular sexual orientation, God becomes displeased and all he is able to do is to kill the man as self defense. Where is the man-like love in God? I believe that if we create a God that does not depict a mother-like characteristic of Sister Theresa, then God has two faces.
Paul Andrew Bourne
Graduate Assistant
Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus
Kingston 7