People often say that God is love. They describe a God with so much love, who expresses love as such a totality of being and action that love is at the root of what it means to be God. The concept of God as love is expressed in the First Epistle of John in the New Testament, and the idea is present in much of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
It is worth exploring where this comes from theologically speaking. It may be hard to think of God as love if you have difficulty rationalizing an anthropomorphic God with human emotions. Is this just a whimsical notion? A trite, over-simplification? (and who is to say that "whimsical" is not a gateway to the Divine!) It feels good to think of God as love, but where does that idea come from?
I see the relation between love and God when I look at God as Creator. God creates. Look around you. Look what's there. Its created. God makes stuff. God brings life into the world. I think it is therefore fair to say that "life-giving" is a qualitiy that is very God-like.
If you sit back and think about what it means to be "good" or "evil", your definitions probably resemble something like this: Killing is "evil" because it takes life away. Charity is "good" because you can save someone from suffering, perhaps even save a life. You would probably assign the label of "good" to actions that support and promote life, and "evil" to the opposite. You would probably do the same with the word "love": Love supports life, evil the opposite. Something is "bad" because it hurts someone (it is worth pondering whether human conceptions of "pain" and "suffering" are truly negative from God's vantage point, or whether they are simply another way of experiencing life which may benefit us later).
This may be a very moral view of theology. Others may see a relationship with God in more covenant terms, i.e. God has rules that may be hard to understand--in fact, they might be completely arbitrary. Yet, keeping the commandments is therefore considered "good," and breaking them "evil." I hold a more "moral" theology (I'm not sure if there is a better word for it than that) in that I find the Godliness in the goodliness of the world. That which is "right" is that which is "good", i.e. that which supports and enhances and promotes life. Therefore, something like homosexuality is not "evil" because there is no inherent negative impact on the world. In fact, there is a positive impact. Homosexuality is people in relationship, and how people act in relationship is more important than who they are in relationship with. There is no reason to believe that a man loving a man brings any loss of life to the world in any sense. In fact, it offers more opportunities for the giving and receiving of love, so it is a good thing--it is better to have homosexuality than not to have it.
My moral compass is "life," and what is good for life I believe to be good for God. Why? Because life is very much important to God. God is a creator of life. That's a key attribute: God the Creator. I hold that the act of creation itself is an act of love. To bring life into the world is to love. Just compare the act of creation to the definitions above for "good" and "evil"--Creating is life-giving, and giving life is good, and goodness in action is love. So God the Creator is a model of love. That same swirling, creative, myterious energy that gave us life and which gives us life today is something we can share in as we co-create in our world today. When we are loving, we are creating and we are sharing in this creative energy of God.
This is why love is key: The extent to which we can love is the extent to which we share in this thing called God. When we love our brothers and sisters, we are doing what we can to support, nurture, protect, enhance and promote the life around us, which is what God does when s/he creates life. This ranges from protecting the physical life of someone to promoting their well-being, joy and fulfillment. That whole range of activities is life-giving. When we do this, we are co-creating with God. When we see this universe around us, it is very much created by someone or some thing that is life-giving--by definition. And we tend to think of life-giving as good and loving. So here we are: God is love.
God also created a world where people die and in which evil is all-too-possible. Does this rob God of the identity as being love? I don't have the answer to this. "Process theology" would hold that God is not necessarily all-powerful, and this would give God an out here. God is the force that brings life into the universe, but what the universe does with it is another story. But what I do know is that when we support life, we are co-creating with God, the wondeful life-giving force that created this universe.
Well, this idea of God certainly has its theological "problems" as they say.
ReplyDeleteI can't--I refuse--to believe in a God where a simple profession of belief in this life determines your fate for all eternity. That's absurd and insulting.
There are passages in the Bible which will confound in this regard, though.
I think that one of the reasons so many churches have latched onto the "faith in Jesus = salvation" is a way of avoiding all the other verses in the Bible which link salvation to good deeds done on earth. This includes not just fundamentalists, but many Catholics and mainline Protestants. Catholics can be just as narrow, something like "getting communion = salvation". It is just as bad, it is just not preached as loudly these days but the idea is the same. It’s all about finding an "easy" way out and having reassurance. Making a profession of faith or going to communion is a lot easier than taking up your cross and following Jesus up the road to Calvary, which we’re supposed to be doing. It’s also more re-assuring because you have clear parameters. Check my post about Matthew 25--we're supposed to love one another, but without any clear parameters! That can be very disconcerting to someone when you ponder your fate for all eternity on a faded and dusty treasure map with missing information. I think the Bible writers understood that we’re not supposed to be so “reassured” but rather to keep working at it daily.
Matt 25 is a great example: It’s a scene in the "afterlife" and God separates the sheep from the goats (I like goats, but they got a bad reputation in the Bible). The ones invited into the kingdom are those who have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, etc., and the ones who did not went to hell. It becomes clear that "loving one another" is the same as loving God, faith is empty without deeds—good deeds on this earth toward other people. I don't see how people can look at a passage like this and still profess that a simple belief in Jesus is what determines our afterlife, but hey, they do.
Personally, I don't think all the passages in the Bible about what brings salvation can be reconciled with one another. They all probably hone in one some important aspect of God or faith, but don't tell the whole story. Words are limited. Some talk about faith, some talk about love, some talk about good deeds, some talk about commandments. I don’t have any problem picking and choosing between them, but that is a problem for people who see the whole Bible as one Divine Word. As you can see from the example of Matt 25, even fundamentalists who take the Bible “literally” find a way to side-step this passage.
"God is love" is also a problematic theology when you look at the circles of life in our world. Tigers exist, but in order for them to have life, they need to kill antelope. And antelope need to eat grass. And I massacre million of bacteria every time I spray Lysol (which is toxic so I rarely do it anymore, but that's another story). How can a God love life when the whole system is designed on a balance of life AND death?
However, there just might be something to the ideas of "faith" and "love" that are important. Faith in something beyond, reaching, embracing mystery . . . Love, being part of that swirling, creative, life-affirming energy of the universe. If God's energy is a current, I'd rather get sucked up in that current than some other kind of under toe.
Okay, I know it sounds hokey, but my concept of God is like the Force in _Star Wars_: there's a good side (of light) and a bad side (of darkness) to the same energy. And maybe at some point, there's a very hazy line between "light/good" and "dark/bad", as you brought up with the fact that there's a cycle of life that involves killing other parts of life in order for one type of it to exist. (Of course, fundies will say that all the "lesser" organisms were given to use by God to do with as we please -- that we are the most important life in the process.)
ReplyDeleteI think you've inspired me to read Matthew 25... I've read random parts of the Gospels. I've been trying to read the Bible more, but the task is so daunting. I want to read the whole thing to understand where everyone is coming from, but it's not like a book you can read from cover to cover. I've been trying to take it a book at a time. And I've found I cant spend too much time in the Old Testament, or I get mad or depressed (because I worry about people who take some of those passage literally).
Still, I was trying to get myself to read the whole thing at some point...
My take on process theology is that God is a not so much a force that brings life into the universe as a lure that evokes life into being. It is a co-creative process because the universe is acting in response to God's creative novelty and there is free will imbued at each process along the way.
ReplyDeleteLast September, I wrote in my blog about what I thought it meant for God to be loving. One point that I argued for was that Divine love necessarily entails risk, as all forms of love do. I think that the risk of evil and suffering was a trade-off that God considered worth making in order to lure life and consciousness into existence. The overall value of conscious beings in the universe was greater than a universe without conscious creatures. And that, too, is part of love.
Mystical Seeker,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments and welcome to my blog!
I like your points about the freedom and risk that is inherent in true love (in your comment as well as your blog), but I struggle with such things as "good" and "evil". If someone kills another, we call that "evil" but if they die of natural causes, it is... neutral? Death and life seem ultimately linked together.
A tiger needs to kill an antelope or else the tiger will die. There is something going on there besides just freedom of choice. If the tiger does not kill antelopes, then the antelope herd will overpopulate and die of starvation, anyway.
We think of actions that promote death as "evil" and those that promote life as "loving", but death is a part of life.
And, more to your point, Frank... you're talking about population checks and the balance of nature... so... what's keeping humanity in check? Is disease evil, or just keeping the population down? Are physical defects part of the process as well? Why would God create life only to let it be destroyed by a disease (that is really, another form of life, bacterial or viral, trying to thrive like everythign else) or a genetic defect? Are these population controls?
ReplyDeleteI think these are questions humanity has been asking forever.
Does Heaven have limitless space and therefore require no population control? Or is it, like the Force, that a person who becomes part of the life-giving energy of the universe more powerful in that existence than this physical one?
You guys have covered a lot of terrain in this thread. And, it has provoked many thoughts on my part.
ReplyDeleteThe first thought is that I do believe that God is all about love (Frank's original post). That He is love and is an active lover. Deep in my bones I sense that this is true.
I struggle with passages in the bible that describe different characteristics of God. Ones that involve wrath, anger and impulsiveness. I agree with marsgirl that there are many puzzles in the Old Testiment (describing a mean God). I am sure God can be multidemensional and have other feelings, I just don't think that anger is what God is ultimately about.
One of the things said here that really hit home for me is the exclusionary nature of religions. You either "get it" and are in, or you don't and you are sadly, but most assuredly "out". I can't stomach that notion. I have been seeking answers to that question for a long time and it has been one of the main reasons I remain a spiritual drifter.
I like how mystical seeker poetically asserts that "It is a co-creative process because the universe is acting in response to God's creative novelty and there is free will imbued at each process along the way.". This suggests an invitation by God to co-create with him. I like that thought.
We are invited into the process. I believe that process to be rooted in love and not fear. I believe fear is the opposite of what God wants for us. Fear may even be what the devil seeks to grow in us (if you believe in the devil).
I also know that my fundamentalist family and friends really fear that there is a good chance I am going to hell. They remain hopeful that they are either somehow wrong about their take on the bible or that I will one day "get it".
And, at the same time, I have a hope for them that they will get that God is a loving God and he loves them unconditionally. So, who am I to judge their judgement? But, if I am truly honest with myself and others, I stand in judgement or pity for them. Pity is never really a good thing. Maybe, if we studied it with new eyes we would see that it is a both/and situation. I would be sorely dismayed if they were actually right though. I just don't want to believe in a God that would condemn unbaptized babies, practicing Budhists, and people who don't confess that Jesus is their savior. And, if this is the case, I am hoping that Jesus would make himself known to us before or after death and not just earn a one way ticket to hell. I just sense that there is more grace in the picture than that.
I suppose we could all pull just about anything out of the bible and justify it. I like Frank's word confound. The bible does keep us guessing- and it definitely keeps me thinking. Calling myself a seeker is an understatement. I have resigned myself to the fact that it maybe about seeking rather than finding anyway.
At the end of the day, I want to feel connected with my Source -- receive and give love, live with a sense of purpose and remain open to possibilities and wonder. Sounds easy enough- huh?