16. Suffering
This is the sixteenth article in the series From Particles to Angels. If you are interested in this article you should read the previous articles in the series in order, beginning with the first (On Happiness).
In the article On Happiness it was suggested that occurrences of physical death did not pose a serious problem for religion if we accept the premise (part and parcel of religion) that the destruction of the physical body is not the end. However in the same place it was stated that suffering experienced in the course of living did pose a problem. "For instance, how do we correlate the torture and terrorising of children with a loving and merciful God?" In this article, we seek to tackle this difficult issue.
At the outset, it should be recognised that human beings very very very very very very very much do not like to suffer. Consequently, no explanation or justification offered is likely to meet with acceptance. So that this article is doomed before it begins. While we might accept philosophically particular rationalisations, these cease to bear weight in the presence of actual suffering. As in many other parts of this series of articles, we cannot offer a real explanation, but only, so to speak, point in the direction of a kind of explanation.
Another fact to note at the outset is the value that life holds for us. It is not perceived as trivial, but it might have been. There may be times when people are bored or unhappy with their lives, and wonder if it is worth the trouble. But imagine the same person standing on rocks at the seashore, unexpectedly swept into the surging current by a large wave. Imagine them grabbing for the rocks with bloody fingers in their effort to scramble ashore again. Life is not messing about. Life is serious shit. We do not merely mourn the prospect of the loss of life, we experience terror in the face of it. Such is the dearness of life. But it might not have been. Can the same be said for any of our fantasies or ideals? From an evolutionary point of view it is easy to see how our frantic desperation to preserve our own existence serves the ends of the survival of the species, although as has been pointed out, our consciousness of this activity is not required.
The kernel of this article is an equation, or more precisely an inequality.
"So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature.
"So he ordered. And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Cronos. Forthwith the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her, and the divine Graces and queenly Persuasion put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers. And Pallas Athene bedecked her form with all manners of finery. Also the Guide, the Slayer of Argus, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora ["the All-endowed"], because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.
"But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argus-Slayer, the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift. And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men. But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood.
"For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar [sometimes translated as "box"] with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full."
("Works And Days" by Hesiod (c.700 BC), translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914))
"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' ... So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man....
"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."' 'You will not certainly die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'"
(Genesis: 2-3)
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
(Matthew 10:16)
Much of what we call sin is a residue of the predator instinct that was once a natural characteristic of our animal predecessors, and the reason for our creature survival. As we evolved to a higher form, we developed instincts contrary to the predator instinct. The evolutionary benefits of socialisation, cooperation, mutual benefit and also self sacrifice set up a conflict with self interest and the genesis of morality. We learned empathy for our own victims. This core conflict, together with mortality and pain, constitutes the "bitter mote of the soul".
An electron stays in orbit around an atomic nucleus when the attraction to the nucleus is stronger than forces attempting to tear away the electron from the atom. The animal's hunger will overcome its tiredness so that it will continue to live. We endure the struggle to cooperate in families, communities, and with our lover, so that we can obtain the rewards. Always our path is navigated between tensions: between desire and responsibility, loyalty, empathy, guilt, fear, assertiveness, submission, independence and cooperation. To embrace this tension is to live. To flee this tension is to die. To exist is to stand. The dream of heaven may be confused with the dream of an end to tension: an "eternal rest" in the grave.
"They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within by dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is shall shadow the man that pretends to be."
("Choruses from 'The Rock'" by T.S. Eliot)
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
(Revelation 21:4)
Our imaginings of a perfect world is a world that has no need for courage, perseverance and endurance, hope, tolerance, character, humility, kindness, or any other virtue. Virtue is a new state we are evolving into, in the struggle of life.
There are primitive electric or wind up toys on legs or wheels that children can send down a hallway. You can watch them veer to one side, colliding with the wall on one side, then turning and heading off for a collision with the wall on the other side. Back and forth it goes, left to right to left to right. It succeeds in making its way down the hall from one end to the other, but by means of a series of collisions. People may live their lives this way. Lunging blindly between two opposite extremes, to and fro: between trust and cynicism, relationship and isolation, greed and generosity, addiction and abstention, cruelty and kindness, in a kind of spastic navigation. By eventually learning to foresee consequences and to use sound judgement based on their experiences, the human being may learn grace, and the "straight path".
God does not deny someone entry into heaven to punish them for being bad. He denies them entry into heaven because they do not belong there, because they still belong to the animal kingdom, and not to the kingdom of men. It is not a question of fault, it just is. An evil person is evil in the same sense that an alligator is an alligator. If there is a threat attending the failure to be virtuous, this creates a tension that drives us to evolve and achieve the goal of being virtuous. But only some creatures respond to this incentive. It can be painful to see this fate befall someone, since in every other respect they appear just like a person. We experience this process as "moralising" and "judging". This is the price of being an evolving being, able to experience change, instead of a being born complete and perfect, and unable to change. Long ago, in the evolution of living creatures on this world, there were no organisms eligible for eternal life. Then at a certain point there was the first person who was eligible, the first true person. As time and evolution progressed, creatures eligible for immortality became more and more common. We are adventurers and explorers, and not perfect pieces in a clockwork moral universe.
"Do to others what you would want them to do to you."
(Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12 (known as the "Golden Rule"))
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
(Matthew 7:1-2)
The Golden Rule had been around long before Jesus, but the acceptance of the relativity of right behaviour is vivid in his words: "the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you". Jesus reserves his condemnation for moral hypocrites. These are people who have a double standard; one for themselves, and another for everyone else; and who act contrary to their professed intent, that is, who are deceivers.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel."
(Matthew 23:23-24)
See also the following.
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others." (Matthew 6:2)
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." (Matthew 6:5)
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting." (Matthew 6:16)
"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:5)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces." (Matthew 23:13)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are." (Matthew 23:15)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." (Matthew 23:25)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean." (Matthew 23:27)
“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'" (Mark 7:6)
See also Matthew 15:7, 22:18, 23:29, 24:51, and Luke 6:42, 12:56, 13:15. The implication of all this is that the Viking can get into Valhalla if he is a good Viking according to his own sincerely held beliefs. Warriors are free to do battle on condition that they do so with other warriors. Warriors become murderers and hypocrites when they involve bystanders in their war who do not want to be a part of it.
"Give to everyone who asks you"
Jesus' persistent message about hypocrites: "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence": "You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean": "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me": is that it is not enough to pretend to be a person for the social success it brings. You have to actually be one. The charms of the sociopath will do them no good at the gates of heaven. The hypocrite never attempts to resolve their own contradictions, and therefore fails to knit impulse into personality, or biology into personhood. The meek may eventually inherit the Earth (Matthew 5:5), but before that happens, the talented predator will rule and be esteemed. At first the predator acts openly, but as the meek rise, he must disguise himself as one of them or they will tear him to pieces. Eventually he is like a fish hiding in an evaporating lake. Confined to shrinking puddles and on the run. As civilisation evolves, tension is not eradicated, but scaled down to a new level: in gentleness. The terrors of survival becomes the anguish of responsibility. As terrors fade, the gentle heart opens, feeling more fully, so that it can seem as if living is as tense as ever it was.
If you want to know how to spot a hypocrite, consider the following.
"do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others"
(Matthew 6:5)
In Luke 11:1-4: "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray...'" and he teaches them what has come to be called "The Lord's Prayer". So too in Matthew 6:5-13 where Jesus also says: "when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen." The impression is that when Jesus prayed, they could not hear his prayer, either because he went off by himself to do it, or because he did it silently in their presence, thus prompting the question for him to teach them how. Occasions like the following: "as he was praying, heaven was opened" (Luke 3:21). "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16) "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." (Luke 6:12) "Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him...." (Luke 9:18) "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place." (Luke 11:1) "When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley." (John 18:1) "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." (Mark 1:35)
However, there appear to be exceptions to this, so the matter is a little more complicated. For instance, there are instances where Jesus gives thanks for food. "Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people." (Matthew 15:36; see also Matthew 26:26-27, Mark 8:6, Mark 14:22-23 and Luke 22:19) Jewish tradition had formal thanksgiving blessings (berakhah (בְּרָכָה)) for various occasions. The official blessing over bread was: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth." The blessing over wine was: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine."
Other exceptions are where Jesus is making public statements to God. For instance, outside the tomb of Lazarus he says: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." (John 11:41-42) John 17 consists of a long public prayer immediately before Jesus is arrested: "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed ..." to his Father in relation to the success of "the work you gave me to do". Another instance is when the crucified Jesus calls out: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) Or his out-loud recitation of the moving Psalm 22 from the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).
True prayer is a deeply personal interaction between God and person. One of the means by which a direct connection is made. Formal thanksgiving can be a pleasing and healthful ritual. If your priest or the leader of your church group thinks they can pray to God on your behalf as Jesus did, or lead you in prayer in a kind of conference call with God, or collective bargaining, well I guess that is a judgment about their role that they make for themselves. The proposition seems to be that they somehow rally the prayers of the masses, to increase their presence and potency in influencing events, amassing all of the lighting bolts in their hands to channel them heavenward. They might instead just get out of the way. (cf. The Urantia Book 144:3.13)
Happiness is not the absence of sadness. Human beings can experience a multitude of emotions simultaneously, and these various emotions form meaningful relationships. The most profound of joys can be accompanied with tears, and we would not have it otherwise. It is sometimes suggested that the best thing about hitting your hand with a brick is that it feels good when you stop. Although this principle has some serious shortcomings, nevertheless the joy of achievement is in the wake of struggle, of victory in the threat of defeat.
In computer games human beings create their ideal worlds. But aside from the cute cartoon characters in colourful gardens we have the likes of Doom, Resident Evil and Silent Hill. When human beings are able to create their own worlds and realities, what will they create, what really is the human heaven? If they create a little of each, haven't they just created a world like the one we have now? A world where the contrary pulls of beauty, safety, horror and perversity cancel each other out to form the tepid reality we call ordinariness. As human beings clamour for ever more convincing and real violent dystopias, might they at some point want to be able to forget it is only a game, as in the "Total Recall" movies (from the Philip K. Dick short story: "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"). As series of fantasy novels grow ever larger, the theme of "delay" grows in importance, so that the reader may savour each period of the journey.
We may admire and adore people for their strengths and talents, but we love them for their weaknesses. Reality is the ultimate story; with a cast of billions, a sweeping historical, multigenerational drama, comedy, tragedy, adventure. It is a story of animals awaking into self-consciousness in a strange world, and of their struggle to survive and find happiness and meaning. In a story we sit on the edge of our seat following the drama of our favourite protagonists, feeling their joy and sadness, crying for them when they suffer and cheering them when they succeed, and all the while loving them with a fierce passion, sometimes more than the people we actually know. We see great and important people changing the world, and we see ordinary people at some pivotal place and time, and we see also the struggles of timid and powerless people, and also unimaginable villains, and we see it all knitting together into the social and evolutionary progress of mankind in the greatest story ever told. We learn that happiness is less about getting what you want and more about becoming who you want to be, and in surrounding yourself with those you want in your life.
This point of view if difficult to sustain, since there seem to be clear indications that it is false. Obeying God's commandments and being a good person seems not to be any protection against serious mishap. One method of accounting for these events is to imagine that they are "tests" of some kind. But these tests still undermine the logic of doing God's will, and going on to explain that this will is "mysterious" does not help much. So more recently, the idea has grown up that it is not necessarily in this life that we receive the benefits of our righteous actions but in the next.
There is a strong tendency in the religiously and spiritually inclined person to read meaning into events. If I am feeling very full of myself and then I am caught in a sudden downpour of rain that ruins my clothes while I am on my way and dressed for some important formal event; I might be inclined to attribute the environmental event as a kind of cosmic, karmic response to my hubris, overconfidence or pride, and the rain was God's way to: "bring me down a peg". For the religious person, the natural world might be experienced as an intricate web of spiritual meanings; a kind of dialog with deity. But the natural world is already an intricate web of material causes. Do we imagine that God affects the world's weather in order to cause it to rain on one man for the purpose of making some minor point? "God doesn't make cars crash and you know it." (Dolores Landingham in The West Wing, "Two Cathedrals" (2001))
We spoke previously about the idea that if deity was constantly interfering with the natural course of events, science would be impossible because natural events would not consistently follow any natural law. If supernatural events occur at all, they must be freakishly rare and unverifiable. The consequence of this is that our interaction with the natural world is not the kind of dialog with deity that it is imagined by some to be. We might say that the natural world is in some sense a representation of the will and character of the creator, but only in a limited sense. For instance, the design of a car may reflect the character of the car's designer, but our interaction with the car is not in any very direct way an interaction with its designer.
If the natural world obeys natural law; of physics, chemistry and biology; then the material world is a machine rolling on its own implacable course, and we sensitive souls have merely been placed helplessly in the midst of the workings of this machine. If we do not get out of the way of the gears and cogs, we will be crushed indifferently. The world of more-than-perfection is the world of good, evil, and of indifference. "Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent." (Matthew 10:29) While God might intervene at any point to change the course of events, in general he does not, he allows the natural course of events to play themselves out in the absence of divine intervention. So that the rain does not fall on someone in order to make a point, and someone is not hit by a train or contract typhoid because they are a sinner. Bad things happen to people because we live in a dangerous environment. Our souls are protected, but our bodies are not. But while natural events may not have meanings in themselves, we may be inspired to derive meanings from them, meanings that have value for us and our development. There is ample opportunity in the random course of events to learn all there is to be known. The dialog with deity is taking place in the mind of the person experiencing the events, while the events themselves are indifferent.
To live in the material world, or any social world, is to live in a world not shaped by our will alone. Our role as spiritual beings is not merely to discover the trick to preventing anything bad ever happening to us or anyone we care about; it is to learn to accept that bad things, or things we don't like, will happen sometimes, that these are a part of the tapestry of living, and to carry on regardless, taking the good with the bad in our stride. If ever there was a vivid demonstration that bad things can happen to good people, it was the crucifixion of Jesus. But this point is obscured by the theory that Jesus was intended to serve as the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. In Christianity, the creator offered Himself up to the vengeance of His creatures. He permitted them effectively to say to their God: "How do you like it?" It was not God who crucified Jesus, neither did He crucify Himself. It was people who made the decision to crucify Jesus, He only allowed it to happen. He accepted these assaults as He asked His creatures to.
One of the more frightening possibilities is that God has in mind for each of us, not a destiny of harp playing and shuffleboard in the clouds, but sooner or later to become a hero, perhaps worthy of Valhalla (or a villain worthy of death). You may be familiar with the phrase purported to be a Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times". To a degree we all inhabit such times. In the West we refer to each as "a learning experience". Lord protect me from the learning experience. Boredom is produced by the fear of pain or mortality, but also if trapped in a room listening to someone you don't want to listen to. I will finish off this article with a few Urantia Book quotes that pertain to the special place in the creation of the creatures of mortal origin.
"Angels are so near you and care so feelingly for you that they figuratively 'weep because of your willful intolerance and stubbornness.'"
"On the mansion worlds I have often seen these dignified officers of the high courts of the superuniverse look so longingly and appealingly at even the recent arrivals from the evolutionary worlds of space that one could not help realizing that these possessors of nonexperiential trinitization really envied their supposedly less fortunate brethren who ascend the universal path by steps of bona fide experience and actual living."
(Urantia Book: 22:9.8)
In the article On Happiness it was suggested that occurrences of physical death did not pose a serious problem for religion if we accept the premise (part and parcel of religion) that the destruction of the physical body is not the end. However in the same place it was stated that suffering experienced in the course of living did pose a problem. "For instance, how do we correlate the torture and terrorising of children with a loving and merciful God?" In this article, we seek to tackle this difficult issue.
At the outset, it should be recognised that human beings very very very very very very very much do not like to suffer. Consequently, no explanation or justification offered is likely to meet with acceptance. So that this article is doomed before it begins. While we might accept philosophically particular rationalisations, these cease to bear weight in the presence of actual suffering. As in many other parts of this series of articles, we cannot offer a real explanation, but only, so to speak, point in the direction of a kind of explanation.
Another fact to note at the outset is the value that life holds for us. It is not perceived as trivial, but it might have been. There may be times when people are bored or unhappy with their lives, and wonder if it is worth the trouble. But imagine the same person standing on rocks at the seashore, unexpectedly swept into the surging current by a large wave. Imagine them grabbing for the rocks with bloody fingers in their effort to scramble ashore again. Life is not messing about. Life is serious shit. We do not merely mourn the prospect of the loss of life, we experience terror in the face of it. Such is the dearness of life. But it might not have been. Can the same be said for any of our fantasies or ideals? From an evolutionary point of view it is easy to see how our frantic desperation to preserve our own existence serves the ends of the survival of the species, although as has been pointed out, our consciousness of this activity is not required.
The kernel of this article is an equation, or more precisely an inequality.
perfection + imperfection > perfection
If you are not familiar with the symbol ">" it stands for "greater than" or "more than". So that the inequality states that: "perfection plus imperfection is more than perfection alone". I do not mean anything subtle or complex by this. It asserts no more than 1 + 1 > 1, that is, that two things are more than one thing. Consider the following vignette.
One day human software engineers succeed in creating sentient life within a computer network. There develops a society of thousands of living, conscious beings inhabiting a virtual world within the computer network. The software engineers do a fine job of creating an idealised paradise for the inhabitants of that world. The inhabitants of that world know nothing of any other world than their virtual world. They do not know there is another world outside of their computer network. They do not know they inhabit a computer network, but think they inhabit a world of sky, trees, land and water. They are all built to be happy, content and kind.
After much debate among the software engineers it is decided that contact would be made with the inhabitants of the virtual world. A single spokesman is chosen to speak in a disembodied voice to a couple of the inhabitants; a male called Epimetheus and a female called Pandora. The spokesman tells the pair that there is another world, invisible to them. The spokesman tells them that this other world is not like theirs, but contains things called sadness, suffering, evil and death. They do not really understand what he is talking about, so in an effort to help them understand the software engineers give them a faint and inchoate intuition of something dark and uncomfortable, and something like shame and regret. After a few moments, the intuition passes and the pair are told that in the centre of the garden they will find something that will take them outside, should they seek it, to somewhere you and I call "reality".
In the Beginning was Perfection
It is not unusual for creation myths to begin with perfection and paradise, then later something happens, and imperfection is introduced. The ancient Greeks had the four or five Ages of Man, beginning with the perfect Golden Age, followed by the less perfect Silver Age, followed by the bad Bronze Age and finally the terrible Iron Age in which we still live. For the ancient Greeks, everything started to go wrong for mankind after the Titan Prometheus decided to steal fire from Zeus and give it to men, and an act by the first woman, Pandora, put an end to the Golden Age.
"For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working.... But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men.... Zeus who gathers the clouds said to [Prometheus] in anger:
"'Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire -- a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.'
"'Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire -- a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.'
"So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature.
"So he ordered. And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Cronos. Forthwith the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her, and the divine Graces and queenly Persuasion put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers. And Pallas Athene bedecked her form with all manners of finery. Also the Guide, the Slayer of Argus, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora ["the All-endowed"], because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.
"But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argus-Slayer, the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift. And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men. But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood.
"For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar [sometimes translated as "box"] with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full."
("Works And Days" by Hesiod (c.700 BC), translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914))
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| "Pandora" by John William Waterhouse (1896) |
(This image is taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
In some myths Pandora was the daughter of Deucalion, the Greek Noah and son of Prometheus ("Catalogue of Women" by Hesiod). In Hesiod it is not made clear why Pandora opened the jar, but the tradition grew up that it was feminine curiosity.
"Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man...."
("Bulfinch's Mythology - The Age of Fable - or Stories of Gods and Heroes"
by Thomas Bulfinch (1855), Chapter II, Prometheus and Pandora)
In the Judeo-Christian Bible, the curiosity of the first woman is also the cause of the fall from original perfection. In place of cunning Prometheus we have the crafty serpent.
"Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man...."
("Bulfinch's Mythology - The Age of Fable - or Stories of Gods and Heroes"
by Thomas Bulfinch (1855), Chapter II, Prometheus and Pandora)
In the Judeo-Christian Bible, the curiosity of the first woman is also the cause of the fall from original perfection. In place of cunning Prometheus we have the crafty serpent.
"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.... The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'
"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' ... So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man....
"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."' 'You will not certainly die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'"
(Genesis: 2-3)
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| "The Sin" by Franz von Stuck (1893) |
(This image is taken from
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Suende_Franz_Stuck_ohne_Rahmen.jpg
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
The concept of Original Sin; that is, the idea that everything wrong with the world today was caused by the sin of some far distant ancestor; is still alive and well in some quarters, but is counter-intuitive to many people. Given that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in the middle of the garden, it was probably only a matter of time before someone ate of it. Taking the tree as a metaphor doesn't change this. The notion of original sin makes of the human condition a disaster waiting to happen. Like standing a tall crystal vase in the middle of the living room and telling your 4-year-old to be careful of it.
When Islam was introduced into Africa, the Swahili put their own stamp on it, producing the following creation myth. It begins with the creation of all perfect things.
"God now created the angels, a myriad voices who proclaim His praise. Out of pure light He created them; their minds are lucid as the light itself, their hearts are pure as morning air. The thought of sin never occurs to them, they never hatch evil plans in their bosoms. They are as honest as the light that is their element and always shines through their bodies. This is why they are devoted servants of their Lord, and the ideas of disobedience cannot arise in their hearts. Their wings are shining white and soft; they tremble with the fear of God.... He constructed the Universe in seven heavens, the seventh being the lowest level of Paradise."
After this, controversially, God decides to create man.
"One day, He called together His angels. They all appeared before His throne.... Then the Lord spoke: It has pleased Me to decide that I will create a being--with brains like you, but his substance will be clay....
"The angels are permitted to express their feelings, and the strongest one is apprehension. With their lucid minds they foresee what will happen.... [W]hat will man be like?... He will not be transparent like sunrays in the morning, he will be foggy like dark rainclouds. Apart from greed and cruelty, there will be stupidity and dishonesty in him. Brains of clay will be tardy and turgid. His thinking will be sensual rather than sensible, reluctant to accept the necessary, slow to service, prone to pride. He will hide his hate and lust behind a stony skull....
"But their Lord reassured them: do not fear, I will what I will, I know what I know. I have a purpose which I will fulfil after thousands of years. Then you will see the reason for the creation of man....
"Then God took some fat clay, grey and solid and kneaded it in the shape of a man.... Life spread though his body, entering through his mouth.... Adam shuddered: his eyelids trembled and then opened like the lid of a coffer full of jewels. The angels held their breath as they saw this handsome lad open his crystal eyes to admit the sunlight. Adam opened his mouth, drew breath, his tongue moved, and his voice rang out, proclaiming the greatness of his Maker....
"The angels were greatly astonished to see this clay creature speak intelligently and devoutly. They admired this beautiful new creation, and all obeyed their Lord when He commanded them to prostrate themselves before Adam and worship. Except one."
("Myths & legends of the Swahili" by Jan Knappert)
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| "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo (c. 1512) |
(This image is taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
The criticism is often raised that if God is all-wise, all-good and all-powerful, why couldn't He have done a better job of creating the Universe. Why in fact could He not have created a perfect universe of eternally happy, perfect beings; instead of the severely flawed creation we actually inhabit? And not having done so, why does He then punish us for His failures? The imperfections of the Universe and us are seen as evidence against the goodness and skill of God, and therefore by implication, evidence against His very existence. But myths such as the above not only have God perfectly capable of creating a perfect Universe, but actually creating one as the first of His acts, prior to creating our imperfect Universe. Having created His hierarchy of heavenly choirs of perfect beings (descending Sons) from Himself, what possesses Him to create a creature from inert clay?
Onto a foundation of perfection is added a new innovation: imperfection.
Perfection is a contrivance. It is a residue left after every imperfect thing is taken away. We can think of our actual reality as "total reality". While our reality may not contain every conceivable thing, it contains at least representatives of every conceivable thing. Our reality is not just perfection, but spans the entire spectrum of possible realities, from the best to the worst, the highest to the lowest, the brightest to the darkest. We have not been placed into a safe haven, a protected kindergarten shielded from harm. God has not created a flock of sheep only, but seemingly potential peers, knowing good and evil like Him. We do not inhabit a contrived ideal, but share in God's all-encompassing reality.
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
(Matthew 10:16)
Something that is striking about the fictional genre we call "Fantasy" is its relative poverty. For all its invention it is never really that different to the world we actually inhabit. It just rearranges the familiar elements of reality into unfamiliar configurations. It never contrives anything fundamentally new and unknown. Perhaps it is only that our imaginations are limited by our reality, or perhaps our reality already encompasses fundamentally every kind of reality. We inhabit the outside world from the moment we are born.
More than Perfection
There is a myth in child psychology that the reason infants find the game of "Peek-a-boo!" so limitlessly fascinating is that they believe that when things pass out of their field of vision they pass out of existence, and that when they reappear in the field of vision, they have been recreated. According to this theory, the child places their own perceptions at the centre of reality, as the determinant of the existence of things.
When we judge God's universe we are making certain assumptions. Human beings are inclined to judge anything they do not like as things that are "wrong", as "faults" with the universe. We think that if we do not like something, then "it should not exist". If something hurts us, makes us uncomfortable or we just find it unpleasant, it is wrong and therefore "should not" exist. Our own feelings become the judge of what has a right to exist in our egocentric universe. This is how aesthetic dislikes on things like sexual preferences and art, become moral stands of condemnation. It is how fundamentalists of every breed feel entitled to destroy everything they do not like. It is how women are comfortable to judge behaviours and attitudes typical of men as illegitimate, merely because they are contrary to inclinations typical of women (and vice versa).
The material universe is born in violence. Suns, galaxies, planets, atoms, are formed in collision and fire. Among vast cosmic furnaces and gravitational tides, worlds like particles emerge, as these giant energies are stepped down to terrestrial scales. Living creatures survive by consuming each other and competing to live. An animal takes pleasure in hunting and devouring another, and must to live, by design. The human being emerges out of this environment and being, rising up out of clay and animal nature to contemplate and take hold of the divine.
Much of what we call sin is a residue of the predator instinct that was once a natural characteristic of our animal predecessors, and the reason for our creature survival. As we evolved to a higher form, we developed instincts contrary to the predator instinct. The evolutionary benefits of socialisation, cooperation, mutual benefit and also self sacrifice set up a conflict with self interest and the genesis of morality. We learned empathy for our own victims. This core conflict, together with mortality and pain, constitutes the "bitter mote of the soul".
The material universe, and psychology, work by tension. The human being is not intended to be free of tension, but works by tension, within certain bounds. All action results from the application of force by one thing on another, and all these contrary forces oppose each other to generate balance. That is how we walk and how we live. This tension is not "wrong". Two things are created and must compete, and the stronger, the more fit endures, while the other is destroyed. The two things might be two organisms or groups of organisms seeking to live. They might be two contrary desires in the same individual. They might be two manufactured products for sale. By competition creation is developed and refined.
An electron stays in orbit around an atomic nucleus when the attraction to the nucleus is stronger than forces attempting to tear away the electron from the atom. The animal's hunger will overcome its tiredness so that it will continue to live. We endure the struggle to cooperate in families, communities, and with our lover, so that we can obtain the rewards. Always our path is navigated between tensions: between desire and responsibility, loyalty, empathy, guilt, fear, assertiveness, submission, independence and cooperation. To embrace this tension is to live. To flee this tension is to die. To exist is to stand. The dream of heaven may be confused with the dream of an end to tension: an "eternal rest" in the grave.
"They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within by dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is shall shadow the man that pretends to be."
("Choruses from 'The Rock'" by T.S. Eliot)
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
(Revelation 21:4)
Our imaginings of a perfect world is a world that has no need for courage, perseverance and endurance, hope, tolerance, character, humility, kindness, or any other virtue. Virtue is a new state we are evolving into, in the struggle of life.
There are primitive electric or wind up toys on legs or wheels that children can send down a hallway. You can watch them veer to one side, colliding with the wall on one side, then turning and heading off for a collision with the wall on the other side. Back and forth it goes, left to right to left to right. It succeeds in making its way down the hall from one end to the other, but by means of a series of collisions. People may live their lives this way. Lunging blindly between two opposite extremes, to and fro: between trust and cynicism, relationship and isolation, greed and generosity, addiction and abstention, cruelty and kindness, in a kind of spastic navigation. By eventually learning to foresee consequences and to use sound judgement based on their experiences, the human being may learn grace, and the "straight path".
God does not deny someone entry into heaven to punish them for being bad. He denies them entry into heaven because they do not belong there, because they still belong to the animal kingdom, and not to the kingdom of men. It is not a question of fault, it just is. An evil person is evil in the same sense that an alligator is an alligator. If there is a threat attending the failure to be virtuous, this creates a tension that drives us to evolve and achieve the goal of being virtuous. But only some creatures respond to this incentive. It can be painful to see this fate befall someone, since in every other respect they appear just like a person. We experience this process as "moralising" and "judging". This is the price of being an evolving being, able to experience change, instead of a being born complete and perfect, and unable to change. Long ago, in the evolution of living creatures on this world, there were no organisms eligible for eternal life. Then at a certain point there was the first person who was eligible, the first true person. As time and evolution progressed, creatures eligible for immortality became more and more common. We are adventurers and explorers, and not perfect pieces in a clockwork moral universe.
In Australia, in the 56 years from 1958 to 2014, there were 72 known (unprovoked) fatal shark attacks, which averages out to about 1.3 Australians per annum being eaten alive by a shark while at the beach. This is more than double the rate in the United States, and a little less than in Africa. This is simply accepted as one of the hazards of a day at the beach in Australia. Some years ago a handsome young man fell victim to such a fate and his bronzed parents appeared on television to ask that the shark responsible not be hunted and killed. Whether or not their son shared the sentiment at the time of the incident, this is a vivid demonstration of the side of human nature that seeks to embrace the universe's distinctness from our own wish fulfilments. The warrior sentiment does not seek to eradicate danger from the world, neither does the mountain climber or the race car driver. The desire may be rather that we should be able to choose whether to place ourselves in danger, so that the innocent do not suffer. But even this may be too contrived.
Woe to Hypocrites
Different people have different moral views and standards. Vikings had different standards of behaviour than do most modern mall shoppers. Odin had a place waiting in Valhalla for the brave Viking warrior. While some religious texts (such as Deuteronomy) prescribe moral and ethical behaviour in great detail, such proscriptions are notably absent from the words of Jesus. Despite the clear opportunity to define right and wrong behaviour unambiguously for the human race for all time, he chose instead to provide the eminently obscure beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) and a couple of general principles."Do to others what you would want them to do to you."
(Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12 (known as the "Golden Rule"))
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
(Matthew 7:1-2)
The Golden Rule had been around long before Jesus, but the acceptance of the relativity of right behaviour is vivid in his words: "the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you". Jesus reserves his condemnation for moral hypocrites. These are people who have a double standard; one for themselves, and another for everyone else; and who act contrary to their professed intent, that is, who are deceivers.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel."
(Matthew 23:23-24)
See also the following.
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others." (Matthew 6:2)
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." (Matthew 6:5)
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting." (Matthew 6:16)
"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:5)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces." (Matthew 23:13)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are." (Matthew 23:15)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." (Matthew 23:25)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean." (Matthew 23:27)
“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'" (Mark 7:6)
See also Matthew 15:7, 22:18, 23:29, 24:51, and Luke 6:42, 12:56, 13:15. The implication of all this is that the Viking can get into Valhalla if he is a good Viking according to his own sincerely held beliefs. Warriors are free to do battle on condition that they do so with other warriors. Warriors become murderers and hypocrites when they involve bystanders in their war who do not want to be a part of it.
"Give to everyone who asks you"
(Luke 6:30 and Matthew 5:42)
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| "The Beatitudes Sermon" by James Tissot (c. 1890) |
(This image is taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
where it is available as "in the public domain".)
Jesus' persistent message about hypocrites: "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence": "You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean": "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me": is that it is not enough to pretend to be a person for the social success it brings. You have to actually be one. The charms of the sociopath will do them no good at the gates of heaven. The hypocrite never attempts to resolve their own contradictions, and therefore fails to knit impulse into personality, or biology into personhood. The meek may eventually inherit the Earth (Matthew 5:5), but before that happens, the talented predator will rule and be esteemed. At first the predator acts openly, but as the meek rise, he must disguise himself as one of them or they will tear him to pieces. Eventually he is like a fish hiding in an evaporating lake. Confined to shrinking puddles and on the run. As civilisation evolves, tension is not eradicated, but scaled down to a new level: in gentleness. The terrors of survival becomes the anguish of responsibility. As terrors fade, the gentle heart opens, feeling more fully, so that it can seem as if living is as tense as ever it was.
If you want to know how to spot a hypocrite, consider the following.
"do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others"
(Matthew 6:5)
In Luke 11:1-4: "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray...'" and he teaches them what has come to be called "The Lord's Prayer". So too in Matthew 6:5-13 where Jesus also says: "when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen." The impression is that when Jesus prayed, they could not hear his prayer, either because he went off by himself to do it, or because he did it silently in their presence, thus prompting the question for him to teach them how. Occasions like the following: "as he was praying, heaven was opened" (Luke 3:21). "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16) "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." (Luke 6:12) "Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him...." (Luke 9:18) "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place." (Luke 11:1) "When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley." (John 18:1) "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." (Mark 1:35)
However, there appear to be exceptions to this, so the matter is a little more complicated. For instance, there are instances where Jesus gives thanks for food. "Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people." (Matthew 15:36; see also Matthew 26:26-27, Mark 8:6, Mark 14:22-23 and Luke 22:19) Jewish tradition had formal thanksgiving blessings (berakhah (בְּרָכָה)) for various occasions. The official blessing over bread was: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth." The blessing over wine was: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine."
Other exceptions are where Jesus is making public statements to God. For instance, outside the tomb of Lazarus he says: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." (John 11:41-42) John 17 consists of a long public prayer immediately before Jesus is arrested: "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed ..." to his Father in relation to the success of "the work you gave me to do". Another instance is when the crucified Jesus calls out: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) Or his out-loud recitation of the moving Psalm 22 from the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).
True prayer is a deeply personal interaction between God and person. One of the means by which a direct connection is made. Formal thanksgiving can be a pleasing and healthful ritual. If your priest or the leader of your church group thinks they can pray to God on your behalf as Jesus did, or lead you in prayer in a kind of conference call with God, or collective bargaining, well I guess that is a judgment about their role that they make for themselves. The proposition seems to be that they somehow rally the prayers of the masses, to increase their presence and potency in influencing events, amassing all of the lighting bolts in their hands to channel them heavenward. They might instead just get out of the way. (cf. The Urantia Book 144:3.13)
Story
We cannot judge the decisions and actions of God in the same way that we judge those of human beings. Human beings can apply an exclusive policy of avoiding, preventing or minimising harm because they have limited power. We know that despite their best efforts there will always be harm. However, God is omnipotent, if He decides something does not exist, it does not exist at all. God's decisions define the scope of reality, what can exist. As the power of human beings increase, we need to revise our values according to new standards. At one time, the desirability of protecting people from the possibility of shark attack would have seemed a simple and obvious decision, but also one impossible to implement. But once human beings realised they now had the power to eradicate whole species from the face of the Earth we revised the desirability, and choose to allow these deadly creatures to go on living even if it means sacrificing occasional human bathers to grizzly death. What are we willing to do to make the world a safe place? Put a fence across every cliff edge or level every mountain to stop people falling off?Happiness is not the absence of sadness. Human beings can experience a multitude of emotions simultaneously, and these various emotions form meaningful relationships. The most profound of joys can be accompanied with tears, and we would not have it otherwise. It is sometimes suggested that the best thing about hitting your hand with a brick is that it feels good when you stop. Although this principle has some serious shortcomings, nevertheless the joy of achievement is in the wake of struggle, of victory in the threat of defeat.
In computer games human beings create their ideal worlds. But aside from the cute cartoon characters in colourful gardens we have the likes of Doom, Resident Evil and Silent Hill. When human beings are able to create their own worlds and realities, what will they create, what really is the human heaven? If they create a little of each, haven't they just created a world like the one we have now? A world where the contrary pulls of beauty, safety, horror and perversity cancel each other out to form the tepid reality we call ordinariness. As human beings clamour for ever more convincing and real violent dystopias, might they at some point want to be able to forget it is only a game, as in the "Total Recall" movies (from the Philip K. Dick short story: "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"). As series of fantasy novels grow ever larger, the theme of "delay" grows in importance, so that the reader may savour each period of the journey.
We may admire and adore people for their strengths and talents, but we love them for their weaknesses. Reality is the ultimate story; with a cast of billions, a sweeping historical, multigenerational drama, comedy, tragedy, adventure. It is a story of animals awaking into self-consciousness in a strange world, and of their struggle to survive and find happiness and meaning. In a story we sit on the edge of our seat following the drama of our favourite protagonists, feeling their joy and sadness, crying for them when they suffer and cheering them when they succeed, and all the while loving them with a fierce passion, sometimes more than the people we actually know. We see great and important people changing the world, and we see ordinary people at some pivotal place and time, and we see also the struggles of timid and powerless people, and also unimaginable villains, and we see it all knitting together into the social and evolutionary progress of mankind in the greatest story ever told. We learn that happiness is less about getting what you want and more about becoming who you want to be, and in surrounding yourself with those you want in your life.
When bad things happen to good people
It is commonplace in religion to assume that doing what God wants (or the gods want) will cause good things to happen and prevent bad things from happening. This is the primary purpose in seeking to establish what it is that God wants us to do and then to do it. This is also the source of resentment when "bad things happen to good people", since it seems that God has not held up his end of the bargain while we may believe that we have. If something bad happens, it is not uncommon for religious people to search around to try to find out: "What did we do wrong", how they may have offended God, and how to appease that anger.This point of view if difficult to sustain, since there seem to be clear indications that it is false. Obeying God's commandments and being a good person seems not to be any protection against serious mishap. One method of accounting for these events is to imagine that they are "tests" of some kind. But these tests still undermine the logic of doing God's will, and going on to explain that this will is "mysterious" does not help much. So more recently, the idea has grown up that it is not necessarily in this life that we receive the benefits of our righteous actions but in the next.
There is a strong tendency in the religiously and spiritually inclined person to read meaning into events. If I am feeling very full of myself and then I am caught in a sudden downpour of rain that ruins my clothes while I am on my way and dressed for some important formal event; I might be inclined to attribute the environmental event as a kind of cosmic, karmic response to my hubris, overconfidence or pride, and the rain was God's way to: "bring me down a peg". For the religious person, the natural world might be experienced as an intricate web of spiritual meanings; a kind of dialog with deity. But the natural world is already an intricate web of material causes. Do we imagine that God affects the world's weather in order to cause it to rain on one man for the purpose of making some minor point? "God doesn't make cars crash and you know it." (Dolores Landingham in The West Wing, "Two Cathedrals" (2001))
We spoke previously about the idea that if deity was constantly interfering with the natural course of events, science would be impossible because natural events would not consistently follow any natural law. If supernatural events occur at all, they must be freakishly rare and unverifiable. The consequence of this is that our interaction with the natural world is not the kind of dialog with deity that it is imagined by some to be. We might say that the natural world is in some sense a representation of the will and character of the creator, but only in a limited sense. For instance, the design of a car may reflect the character of the car's designer, but our interaction with the car is not in any very direct way an interaction with its designer.
If the natural world obeys natural law; of physics, chemistry and biology; then the material world is a machine rolling on its own implacable course, and we sensitive souls have merely been placed helplessly in the midst of the workings of this machine. If we do not get out of the way of the gears and cogs, we will be crushed indifferently. The world of more-than-perfection is the world of good, evil, and of indifference. "Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent." (Matthew 10:29) While God might intervene at any point to change the course of events, in general he does not, he allows the natural course of events to play themselves out in the absence of divine intervention. So that the rain does not fall on someone in order to make a point, and someone is not hit by a train or contract typhoid because they are a sinner. Bad things happen to people because we live in a dangerous environment. Our souls are protected, but our bodies are not. But while natural events may not have meanings in themselves, we may be inspired to derive meanings from them, meanings that have value for us and our development. There is ample opportunity in the random course of events to learn all there is to be known. The dialog with deity is taking place in the mind of the person experiencing the events, while the events themselves are indifferent.
To live in the material world, or any social world, is to live in a world not shaped by our will alone. Our role as spiritual beings is not merely to discover the trick to preventing anything bad ever happening to us or anyone we care about; it is to learn to accept that bad things, or things we don't like, will happen sometimes, that these are a part of the tapestry of living, and to carry on regardless, taking the good with the bad in our stride. If ever there was a vivid demonstration that bad things can happen to good people, it was the crucifixion of Jesus. But this point is obscured by the theory that Jesus was intended to serve as the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. In Christianity, the creator offered Himself up to the vengeance of His creatures. He permitted them effectively to say to their God: "How do you like it?" It was not God who crucified Jesus, neither did He crucify Himself. It was people who made the decision to crucify Jesus, He only allowed it to happen. He accepted these assaults as He asked His creatures to.
One of the more frightening possibilities is that God has in mind for each of us, not a destiny of harp playing and shuffleboard in the clouds, but sooner or later to become a hero, perhaps worthy of Valhalla (or a villain worthy of death). You may be familiar with the phrase purported to be a Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times". To a degree we all inhabit such times. In the West we refer to each as "a learning experience". Lord protect me from the learning experience. Boredom is produced by the fear of pain or mortality, but also if trapped in a room listening to someone you don't want to listen to. I will finish off this article with a few Urantia Book quotes that pertain to the special place in the creation of the creatures of mortal origin.
"Angels are so near you and care so feelingly for you that they figuratively 'weep because of your willful intolerance and stubbornness.'"
(Urantia Book: 113:5.2)
"On the mansion worlds I have often seen these dignified officers of the high courts of the superuniverse look so longingly and appealingly at even the recent arrivals from the evolutionary worlds of space that one could not help realizing that these possessors of nonexperiential trinitization really envied their supposedly less fortunate brethren who ascend the universal path by steps of bona fide experience and actual living."
(Urantia Book: 22:9.8)
"The ascending mortals were vulnerable, but they withstood the sophistries of rebellion better than the lower spirits."
(Urantia Book: 53:7.10)
In the next article: Is God Good? - Part 1 we look at the morals of the Judeo-Christian bible and measure them according to modern standards.
Any comments welcome.
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