(We have a guest speaker at North Hill this Sabbath, October 9: Wally Lyder. So, this manuscript is only for reading here. It will not be preached. Comments are, of course, still welcome.)
The Trinity and angelic host was too meager a community. So God created the universe. All of it. Every last bit of it. Gravity. Planck's constant. Pi. Gluons and neutrinos. Water. Redwoods. Mosquitoes. Triceratops. Nebulae. The strong force. Electromagetism. Galaxies. Goldfish. Great blue herons. Rabbits. Puma concolor. Humans. Chimps. Archeopteryx. Cotton. Barley. All of it came from God's hand. Or mouth. And God was happy. More to love.
It didn't last. God came to regret creation. God's pain and remorse evoked by human wickedness were so intense he decided to wipe it all out—not just people but animals as well—every living thing on the surface of the planet.
Apparently, God had second thoughts when he contemplated wiping out every living thing. He loved the world too much to make an absolute end. One man in particular caught his attention. So God gave Noah instructions for saving himself and his family and a selection of the animals forming the basis for a new start.
The flood was horrifically devastating. When it was over, God regretted what he had done and vowed never to do it again.
One thing that jumps out from this story is the reality and intensity of God's engagement with the world. According to the Bible, we—humans, animals, the earth's biology—are God's world. What we do and what happens to us deeply affect God. We can make him happy. We can make him change his mind. We can drive him to the negative obverses of love (regret, pain, jealousy). We affect God's being. Enormously. Given what we know now of the universe—billions of light years of expanse sprinkled with particles, waves, dark matter, galaxies and billions of years of existence—this is an astonishing assertion.
Still, it is the central meaning of creationism and points to these twin truths: 1. We matter. 2. Others matter. All the others.
Old White men who have never known what poverty means matter. Young Black men whose primary job opportunities are selling drugs or running numbers matter. People with Down's matter. Muslims matter. Homosexuals matter. Truck drivers, professors, nurses, elementary school teachers, cashiers. Skiers and artists, beggars and prostitutes.
What happens to these people profoundly affects the well-being of God.
As children of God, we are called to learn from God how to regard people—ourselves and others.
People are ineffably precious. (So is all the rest of creation.) It is natural for us to get upset when people behave in ways that are wrong, annoying, foolish, selfish, immoral, inconvenient, disappointing, mean, stupid. We may imagine that life would be better if we could just eliminate the irritant. Get rid of the people. In the case of serial killers, execute them. In the case of poor-performing employees, fire them. In the case of ungrateful children, disinherit them. In the case of illegals, deport them. In the case of the mentally ill and decrepit elderly, euthanize them. Annoying spouses—divorce them. Heterodox preachers—defrock them.
If we are contemplating drastic action to eliminate inconvenient people, we have good precedent in Genesis. God did it. Since we are made in his image, we have the right and responsibility eliminate bad people. However, Genesis portrays violence as an ineffective tool for dealing with the pain that arises from love. God loved people and they betrayed him. When the betrayal became intolerable, God annihilated people—almost all of them. Then, in the aftermath, God said, “I'll never do that again.” There was no satisfaction for God in the devastation of his enemies.
In Genesis (and in 2 Samuel 24:16) we see God practicing execution, acting with the fullness of divine knowledge and the sturdy rectitude of divine holiness. In both cases, God deeply regrets his action. Judgment does not lead to satisfaction or happiness for God.
Why would we think it will work for us?
As we move through the Bible, we find mounting testimony in support of a different divine course in response to human failure: Redemption.
In Samuel, we read about the Wise Woman of Tekoa who in a contrived case, argues successfully against the execution of her murderous son because “God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him” (2 Samuel 14:14).
In Isaiah 53, the Lord's servant saves the people by taking on their iniquities.
Ezekiel writes that the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Then we come to Matthew who says of the Messiah, “He will save his people from their sins.”
And finally to John who writes, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believed in him might not perish but have everlasting life.”
God would rather die than live without us. The “enemies” of God are also his children. Just as David cried after the justly-deserved death of Absalom, “If only I could have died in your place!” So God is inconsolably bereaved by even richly-deserved annihilation.
John closes the New Testament with a picture of God sharing his throne with people. People! The beings who so infuriated God in Genesis that he regretted making them in the first case. The kind of creatures who drove God to wreak horrific destruction and then to profound regret at the destruction.
God is so enmeshed with people, so in love with creation, that the end of the 1600 page story featuring betrayal, weakness, failure, stupidity, duplicity, infidelity, seduction pictures God sharing his throne with the very beings who tormented him. If an atheist had written the story, we would be appalled at the disrespect shown to God. Surely God could do better than endlessly pursuing those who “are not that into him.” But God has no interest in doing better.
Jesus calls us to love creation the way God loves creation: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
These enemies we are called to love include politicians of all stripes. People with all sorts of sexual function and dysfunction. The mentally healthy and the mentally ill. The theologically correct and the theologically incorrect. Those with money and those without. People on both sides of whatever border matters to us.
Rage and disdain are ill-fitting for creationists—for people committed to loving creation the way their Father in heaven does.
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9 comments:
Aside from the chronology, there are enough parallels between the Big Bang & Genesis to raise the eyebrows of an Aborigine -- or a Hindu. But instyead of getting caught in the trap of "Genesis vs Darwin," we should recognize that ev ery people has its own creation story. All of these stories are sacred, and all are true when looked at from the relative perspective of "the people," because it is their story. (Of course, the rworld really began when Sky Maiden fell through a hole in the clouds, but that is another story for another day.)
There is an apparent Old Testament / New Testament contradiction: If we are “in the image of” why must we follow any particular path to be “sons of”?
While we are “of God” we are not Gods. Perhaps that is the root of God’s rage at Noah’s contemporaries: because we are not tempered by the knowledge that we could create or un-create anything, we do things without considering the consequences.
Rage and disdain are Godlike qualities. The alternative is that Jesus would not have been sent. What you do with rage and disdain is what matters. When how you act on rage or disdain causes regret, that is also Godlike, but not necessarily desirable. When your rage and disdain drive an improved state, i.e. the 2nd coming, that is both Godlike and desirable.
I have thought that it was very important for Adventists to discuss the impact of being creationists on their daily lives and their relationship to others. For me this is especially poignant because of my 27 year old severely handicapped non-verbal son and his "sisters" and "brothers" in the world of handicaps. It has always been interesting to me how people react to him - and I have to admit I judge churches and pastors by whether they can deal with broken people like my son.
It is easier to destroy and rebuild than to redeem and rehabilitate. But most of us would not "make the cut" if imperfect people were just trashed! Thank you for noting it is important to reflect on how being a creationist affects our daily lives. :)
Although we are made in 'His image' that does not mean we have his character. We may look like Him but we need to learn to act like Him by being less self reliant and more dependent upon His character. We are to God as ants are to us: we have neither the knowledge nor capacity to know and learn all the He knows. I am just satisfied that He created us and loves us. I don't care if each creation day was 24 hours or months or years. Who cares? He created us out of love and endures our feeble attempts to be righteous so we may develop characters similar to His. That will take a long time, that is what heaven is for.
RE Anonymous.
Likening humans' relationship to God to the relationship between ants and humans is often used on in Christian circles as a way to express believers' admiration of the magnificence of God and their acknowledgment of human brokenness.
However, it is an infelicitous metaphor. Perhaps even just plain wrong.
Among the metaphors used in the Bible to picture the human/divine relationship are those of sons and daughters to their fathers and mothers, an entrancing and infuriating young woman to her lover (Eze. 16), subjects to their king and friends to The Friend.
These are exalted positions conferring great privilege and responsibility on the children, darlings, subjects and friends. Humans are capable of rebellion and disobedience, yes. They are also capable of holiness, love, adoration and even worthy argument with God. (See Abraham, Moses and Job.)
Ants are not, as far as we know, capable of rebellion or holiness. Human happiness is not dependent on the response of ants to human initiative.
If we admit the Bible as reliable testimony on the subject, what humans do has a profound emotional impact on God. God's well-being is contingent on human response to his initiatives described variously as courtship, friendship, royal dominion, parenthood. Understood as metaphors for the relationship between God and humans, the goal in every case is a reduction of the distance between God and humans with the ultimate goal of humans sharing the throne with God (Rev. 22:5).
I am not aware of any human ambition to put ants on the throne or to bring them into our bedrooms or give them places at our tables.
I do recognize the ant metaphor is intended as a sign of respect for the greatness of God. However, we cannot really honor God by demeaning his children, lovers, subjects and friends.
Thank you.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
-Epicurus
Using biblical quotations in correlation with scientific facts is intellectually dishonest. When science contradicts the bible it is met with anger. When science falls short of explaining a phenomenon it is chalked up to the God of the gaps. One can not look at the stars and say "What does this mean to me?" before they ask "What is a star?" Science tells the most plausible scenario for the universes progression and changes this as more knowledge is found. It does not start with an assumption and then retroactively look for things that agree with those assumptions. "God spoke and it was so" does not equal a big bang. When you do not know, it is fine to say "I don't know yet, but I will not presume until I do."
The human does seem small in comparison to the universe but this does not mean we must be terrified by this; Cthulhu will always awake. But you don't need a supernatural buddy to hold your hand. There's billions of others on earth to keep you company, be good for goodness sake.
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane
I like this interpretation of God's love better that the one you presented on Friday Oct 15. I can understand how God could get so frustrated that he does something "stupid" that he later regrets. I can understand that he has never had to deal with rebelious kids before and has to figure out what works and what doesn't by trial and error just like we do.
I am still a little suspicious though. I would feel a lot better about God's supposed love if it were the people that died in the flood who were on the throne with him, but as far as I can tell, the only ones on the throne are the "few" that find the narrow gate, and those that Jesus successfully rehabilitates. All the others are fried in the fire. Didn't God learn his lesson?
Re: Annonymous
"Although we are made in 'His image' that does not mean we have his character."
I agree we don't have his character. I am glad of that or the species would be extinct. Look at how bad God's character is. Eve stole a piece of fruit and he condemed her to death. Would any parent do that to their kid? What would the court do to you if you killed your child just because he/she stole a cookie off the counter? God demonstrated some pretty bad parenting, and I wonder how much sorrow has been needlessly brought on the world by God leaving us such a horrible example of parenting to follow? How many kids have been beaten and abused by parents following God's example?
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