God and Man: the Love Hate relationship
Have you ever been in love? Most of the time being in love is the best thing in the world. Your everyday life suddenly has more meaning. You have someone else to strive to be better for. The sun shines a little bit brighter every morning you wake up. This type of love can be the marital love between a man and a woman, the friendship love between two men or two women, or anything in between. The important part is the love that you feel for one or perhaps many others. But, often times in the beginning of a relationship, there is the sneaking suspicion that the one you love doesn’t return the affection. This concept is very scary. You have given this one person all the ammunition they would need to destroy you and a clear way to your heart. What if they turn on you? What if they don’t love you like you thought they did and are just out to hurt you? They don’t even have to be out to hurt you, they could do it without even knowing it. As someone who has been in this situation, that hurts the most. Hate is not the opposite of love. At least when someone hates you they constantly think of you and still spend time interacting with you. Indifference is a much crueler beast. When someone is indifferent to you sometimes all you can do is forget about him or her. Sometimes you need to forget about them and move on, force yourself to no longer be in love. If you are successful you can still be happy with someone else. If you are not, that one person is able to draw you down, pull you into the most extreme type of depression where you doubt eveythign to do with love. But that only happens if you let it. Now, imagine that you loved everyone. Every single person that you know, you love fully, for exactly who they are. You might think that this amount of love would make a person unconditionally happy. But imagine the amount of pain you would feel, all the time. Some people wouldn’t love you back. Some wouldn’t acknowledge your presence and would continue on with their everyday lives like you don’t matter. Some go out of their way to hurt you. Does the love of a few make up for the pain of the rest? To make up for the pain of seeing these people you love turn away from faith and charity and choose to hurt others. To still unconditionally love them as they choose to do evil things to others. In case you haven’t understood, I am speaking of God. God loves each one of us unconditionally, and couldn’t turn away from us even if He wanted to. But the important part is that God doesn’t want to. He wants to unconditionally love us, even with the pain. That is the single most important difference between man and God.
Yes, God is almighty and infinite while we humans are finite and feeble. But there is no better way of proving to others the difference between God and us than to hypothetically try to place us in his situation. Would any human being be able to love the human race unconditionally as God loves us? We are not strong enough to endure the constant pain of betrayal of those we love. Only God can do that. One of my favorite quotes sums this up perfectly. “People cry, and it’s not because they’re weak. People cry because they’ve been strong for too long.” Human beings can only take so much pain before we fail. God is superior to us because he takes the pain of the human race turning from him everyday and never fails.
Some people might say that God is not human, and he doesn’t have “feelings” like this. But I beg to differ. Were we not made in God’s image?
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”- Genesis 1:27 (New King James Version) We are not really so dull as to think that this means that we look physically like God. Science has proven that the human form is the way it is because of a multitude of factors in our evolutionary past. The large cranium was able to hold a larger, and more intelligent brain. Those with this attribute lived to procreate, while those who did not died off. Every physical feature we have is an example of Darwinism. I believe this but I also believe that we were created in God’s image. How is this possible? We were given components of God that make us human. This is the part of us that distinguishes us from other animals and makes us the creatures God cares about most. Along with this are the feelings that humans feel. Although science says that all feelings are just chemicals reactions in the brain, science cannot yet tell us why these reactions are there. Charity, or being kind to one’s neighbor, is not a Darwinistic trait. In fact, if feelings were just another part of chemical evolution, we would intentionally treat our neighbors badly. There is a finite amount of resources on this planet and we would want to keep them for ourselves, and keep our neighbors away from them. But God teaches us the opposite, and that is where our feeling f compassion comes from.
Let’s start from the very beginning of God’s interaction with humans. The Most Ancient Church contained the people of Adam and Eve. These people were the most closely connected to God. God didn’t love them anymore than he loves the people of Earth today, but they were the most similar to Him and had individual direct lines to Him. God gave them everything and in return he asked very little. He asked humans to do as He did; to love each other and to behave with faith and charity. To live full, exciting lives while knowing all the time that God was the reason for everything they did and were able to do and to love him all the more for that. But what did people do? They weren’t satisfied. They begged God to be allowed to be free. They begged to have the illusion of their own lives and to falsely believe that they were the reason for good. God, who loved them unconditionally, gave them what they wanted. Imagine how it must hurt to see the most important people to you, who you love beyond anything else, choose to be less close to you. Also imagine, if you can, not having the ability to not love them. When you love someone who treats you badly you must learn to let them go and to look for someone better. But God does not do this. Even if God was able to do this, I don’t think He would. He knows that it is better to love us; the stupid, cruel, shallow people we are, than to leave us without love. God sacrifices his own happiness to give us the semblance of happiness, even if it’s just for a short while. No one can understand what it’s like to be in that position, but many of us can at least try.
As each church evolved, every generation of humans turned further away from God. He gave us an inch and we took a mile. God could have stopped this if he wanted to. He is powerful enough to do anything. He does stop us from completely becoming entirely evil when he stops us from perverting the Word. An example of when God intervened is the story of Babel. We were taking everything that God had given us and were using it to make others worship us. This would have prevented future civilizations from being able to make the decision to be good, so God scattered the people of Babel. Maybe someday we will need to be scattered again.
Even today, even being the people that are so far the farthest away from God of any, we are still created in the image of god. We have the ability to feel a fraction of the pain that God feels every moment. But we were also spared and given the ability to turn away from that pain as well. God is there for us if we decide to turn back towards Him. He will always be there for those that wish to be saved. That is the true meaning of unconditional love. There is someone that is willing to feel all of this excruciating pain just to make us happy and who would never let us go.
It’s like the people of Earth have fallen off a ship and God is the captain of the ship that threw us a rope to keep us from drowning. The ship he is guiding is the way to true happiness, through faith and charity. He can’t just pull us up, we have to want to be pulled up, we have to want to be saved. But even though we thrash and kick and get farther away from the ship and try to pull the rope out of God’s hands, he hangs on. He holds onto that rope while a storm crashes down onto his back. He holds on while the rope chafes and makes his hands bleed. He stands, ready to pull us up if we chose to let him. He silently takes the pain, never complains and never gives up.
Some say that if God truly loved us unconditionally that he would not allow there to be a hell. I used to be part of the people that thought this. I know what it is to love someone. And even if they are a bad person, it doesn’t warrant punishing them for all eternity. If I wanted anyone, even someone who had wronged me, to be punished to hurt this would make me just as bad as them. I reasoned that God is good, so He wouldn’t want that either, so there is no real hell. The more I understood of this religion the more I understood that God does not condemn us to hell. Hell is a choice that we as individuals make. The Last Judgment made this even clearer. We judge ourselves. God doesn’t want us to be in hell, but if we are truly happy there, there is nothing He will do to change that. The more we read about the Ancients Churches the more I understood. The only hell that God has a say in is the hell of the Nephilim who are the daughters of man sons of god. This hell was the first created and it was created by God to protect the Nephilim from having to see God all the time. Later there was created a locked off portion of hell and it protects the good from the evil. This section wasn’t fully locked away until Christ came on earth.
You might ask yourself- if God is almighty then why does he allow evil? If He truly wanted us to be happy, He would just take away all evil. Then we would all be good and all go to heaven and He would be happy as well. The answer to this is as follows.
“Being Mercy itself, the Lord is constantly forgiving a person’s sins; but sins cling to a person no matter how much he supposes them to have been forgiven.”
AC 8393
God doesn’t keep track of our sins. Our sins come from us. Sins are evil. This is why evil comes from us. We started evil the moment we asked to turn away from God. God gave us free will so that we could be content in being good, because without free will how can you take pride in anything you do? He gave us the ability to choose good or not. Not good is evil. We mostly chose evil. Hopefully people from now on will start to choose good. This will make us and God happier.
God is always present in our lives, always watching us. He watches without judgment, just with unconditional love. He is hurt when we choose to do evil things but He does not try to stop us. A very long time ago people asked to be given free will for their own happiness. God granted it and to this day stands by it so that we may be happy in the way that we think we will be happy. God has to watch us condemn ourselves to eternal hell and loves us unconditionally all the same.
17 comments:
I don't know why it did that weird white section. Let me try this again.
Re-entered it. Enjoy!
Thanks for making me pause a moment and consider just what "unconditional love" on God's part might mean to Him, Katrina. Although, as you point out, we cannot possibly fathom what it must truly feel like to watch us so often turn away from Him while He wants so much for us to be with Him, trying to imagine it just a tiny little bit brings me to a fresh appreciation and gratitude for all that God does for us. I found your metaphor of God being the captain of a ship during a storm in which we are drowning particularly apt.
One thing I was wondering about in your paper is: when you refer to the fact that we are made in God's image, which specific passage from the Writings were you thinking of? You write that it gives us "components of God that make us human," which I agree with, but I'm not sure that means that God has "feelings" in quite the same way we do, which I thought you were trying to say. He feels, of course (He is, after all, Love Itself), but He also does not have evil pulling at Him the way we do. Do you think that the fact that we are in this state of equilibrium between good and evil, and that we have inherited evil tendencies, means that our "feelings" operate differently, and so in and of themselves, don't necessarily correspond to the "image of God"?
At another place in your paper, you write that as people turned further from Him,"God could have stopped this if he wanted to." If God were to stop people from turning, would that not be violating our freedom and so not within the Divine Design (Order)? If God is the Divine Design, can He do something that would be outside of it and still remain God? Just a thought that occurred to me...
Thanks, Katrina. Really effective intro that drew me in and had me agreeing with all your comments on how much it hurts to not be loved back by someone you love... and so when I realized where it was going, I was already agreeing with you. Nicely done!
I have a similar question to Ashley - while I believe that we are made in God's image and that God does feel things, I don't think it can be said that we feel them the same way as Him. I do think your metaphors and comparing our feelings of hurt and rejection to God's are useful, because it makes the idea of actually turning away from God and seeing Him as human MUCH more meaningful and real. But, I don't want to slip in to thinking of God as fragile or breakable the way we are when faced by an onslaught of feeling. And, many of the feelings of heartbreak that we as humans experience, can come from a selfish place, which God doesn't have. I don't have an answer, but I just wonder to what degree it can or can't be said that our feelings are a minute mirror of God's.
I like how you pointed out that God not interfering in our lives, and allowing there to be hell is actually a symbol of His love. And I would say that your example of one place where He did interfere wasn't actually Him interfering. "An example of when God intervened is the story of Babel" - to my understanding, this story is representative, and so when it says God confused their language and scattered them, He Himself was not doing it, but it was the judgment they brought on themselves through adopting individual doctrines (focused purely on themselves and individual self love) that naturally drove them apart. And so rather than detracting from your argument, I think this adds to it because it is showing how God loves us enough to NEVER remove our free will.
Really compelling.
I think you are right that it is hurtful to the Lord when we are indifferent to Him, especially when He knows that we need Him to be happy.
I've had a lot of questions about the comparison of Lord's love for people with a romantic relationship or marriage. We hear about the Lord's marriage to the church, but the church is in the people or parts of people that return His love. (The relationship has to be consentual.)
At the same time, trying to follow the Lord's example of loving unconditionally too literally seems like a bad idea. I think that trying to have a relationship and express love to someone that hates you or is indifferent to you leads to only bad things. You can mentally love what is good in them, or want the best for them, but if you don't have infinite energy, don't spend it on them. Sacrificing yourself for someone who doesn't love you has a lot of red flags on it!
Katrina,
Thanks! It’s so useful to be able to realize that because the Lord is love itself we hurt Him a lot when we do evil. That's such a powerful thought.
I do agree with Ashley and Tania that I don't think the Lord feels like us...I think the solution is that we are made in His image but we can't put Him in our image because we are imperfect. I also think that being "an image of the Lord" involves acting like Him -- it isn't just our abilities which make like Him -- so that means we can be more or less an image of God interiorly depending on whether we are loving our neighbor or loving ourselves.
Thoughts?
~Dara
Thanks Katrina,
The imagery you describe of God loving us and constantly striving to make us the happiest we allow ourselves to be, while being thrashed on by a storm at sea is a really powerful illustration as to just how much God really does love us. Literally infinitely--more than we can possibly even hope to imagine.
One thing I question is whether God is "unhappy" when we turn away from him and do evil. It definitely makes sense that he yearns for us to choose him, for our own happiness, but is God constantly miserable and suffering while he watches evil people throw themselves into hell?
One more question is about the statement, "Even today, even being the people that are so far the farthest away from God of any, we are still created in the image of god."
In what way are we the farthest away from God? Do you mean because the MAC and AC had direct contact, and a knowledge of correspondences respectively? And the Israelitish and early Christian church had direct contact with God himself (Moses on the mountain, 10 commandments, and Jesus?) Does this make us farther away from God than the children of Israel, or were they so far from God that the only way he could get through to them was by drawing so near? I've always wondered where we stand in terms of how "evil" humanity is in this day and age compared to the past 5,000 years. What do you think?
Thanks again!
I think that feelings, especially feelings like love, come from God. We have feelings that stem from evil as well- you know, sins. But I think that God has feelings.
And yes- very much so. I meant hat God is powerful enough to do that- but never actually would because as you pointed out it would go against free will.
I really do think that our feelings are "images" of God's. It's a personal belief that isn't really backed by New Church doctrine, but it is what I believe. And I didn't intend for God to sound breakable- that was my point. That we humans undergo not even slightly the same amount of pain and hurt and break while God endures so much more and remains strong.
You're right. I guess I took the story of Babel too literally.
I still think that God has feelings- haha. Maybe it's because I can't fathom the idea of love without feelings and if there is love therefore there must be feelings. But that is a belief of mine that isn't entirely back up- so I can't try to ge you to change your mind. I also agree that in the image of the Lord means striving to act like Him. I'm just saying that in order for us to act like him we have to be able to act like him from the very beginning.
The comparison of God and us love and relationship love was just to try to get people to understand on a small scale what it is like. To me, it's the most substantial love that the most amount of people share, in the New Church and out. So a taste of love and a reminder of how painful it is to not be loved back is just an opening into the explanation of God's unconditional love.
Once again, I guess I am unique as to think that God has feelings like being unhappy. I know He isn't human, but I still like to think of Him as similar to us. (Well technically us being similar to Him.)
I also think that we are slowly pulling away from God. I don't think that necessarily makes us evil, but just not as connected. Feel free to argue back. haha
Katrina,
I just got confused when you said "I reasoned that God is good, so He wouldn’t want that either, so there is no real hell" then later on you said "Hell is a choice that we as individuals make". So is the hell that we choose a fake hell? as earlier on you said there is no real hell? If you could clarify that part for me, that would be helpful.
Other than that, thanks for sharing you stance on what love and unconditional love is on both our part and God's part and for bringing up the "unconditional love" concept.
When I said that first thing I was explaining that I didn't believe in a hell before, but i do now.
Your paper reminded me a lot of that Jeremy Camp song "You Never Let Go." It's hard to conceptualize the idea of unconditional love, especially in the world that we live. The idea that God is the ultimate form of love, I think, in some ways makes it even harder to understand. If he really does feel rejection to the same extent that we do, how does he continue to love with the same intensity? The infinite is unfathomable, but I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around even the very basic concepts.
Katrina,
Your paper was powerful and motivational. Never before have I looked at God in that light but after reading your paper it makes complete sense. After I finished reading your paper I just thought to myself: why have I never thought of God in that way? Is it because I think of him as almighty and powerful? Your paper made me realize that God is not just some all powerful being but that he is so much more. I know that God is love but I never thought of "God is Love" as "God as feelings"
Your paper was so well written and truly changed the way I think of God. I have been hurt before but I could never imagine the pain God goes through everyday when the people he loves the most turns away and ignores him.
It was a truly powerful paper. Thank you!
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