Logic Times

Soul-Making

Commentary by Aslan, 10/04/04. Comments (1)

God created us because love - which He embodies - is missing something when it is not reciprocated. He could create a robot that walked around saying, "I love you, God! You look marvelous today. Don't tell me, that's a new toga. Love you, big fella!" This would be meaningless. Love requires freedom and freedom requires a true choice. God now has a tricky objective - how to grant freedom and, at the same time, reveal His plan. If He reveals His plan by sitting in your rocking chair and lecturing you on theology, He erodes and or destroys your freedom. C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters says this best: "Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo..."

But to successfully woo Man is only part of His objective.

God wants something from you. This is not a free ride, this is a challenge. He is soul-making and you are hopefully a soul that will be made into something hinting at the divine, worthy of your inheritance. What is soul-making? It is something that happens when you are confronted with fear, doubt, evil, horror and pain and you choose the divine road rather than the mundane.

We are created with free will so as to hopefully exercise a choice to love and honor God. This desire for the sharing of love with another "free agent" has value inasmuch as the sharing takes place with another "theological sentient," which I will define here as successful acquisition of God-like qualities (i.e., honor, courage, justice, temperance, love, etc.).

When you loved your turtle as a kid, that exchange of love was certainly one way. The turtle possessed none of the characteristics that make for a rewarding exchange of love. A dog, on the other hand, possesses some of the human characteristics of love and thus the relationship is more rewarding - the dog's loyalty, recognition, affection, etc. are the traits that start to establish a tangible relationship and make it fulfilling.

God seeks to share love. In some sense, those free will created beings who choose to love and honor Him do so in proportion to their Sanctification (a Christian term for becoming more like God). The more Godlike traits possessed by this theological sentient (admittedly we can never come near to actually being Godlike), the more this moral free agent brings value to God.

So if courage, as an example, is a desired trait, it begs a question: what is the source of courage? Courage is defined as: "The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery." Without exposure to moral and natural evil, one cannot fully develop the trait of courage. What about compassion? Compassion is defined as: "Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it." Here, too, without moral and natural evil, compassion cannot develop. What about fidelity? "Faithfulness to obligations, duties, or observances." The underlying theme to this trait is a resistance of temptations and enticements to abandon duty. Again without the prevalence of moral and natural evil, the concept of fidelity would be incomplete.

So it is true that the intersection of hardship/evil and free will gives rise to most characteristics of the divine, of a theological sentient. A world without moral and natural evil would be as counterproductive to the shaping of God's children, to the inheritors of God's kingdom, as a football training camp without any physical activity would be counterproductive to creating football players. This does not suggest God created the evil - evil came into the world with Man; however, perhaps He did not scrap the project because something of value is emerging from the difficulties.

Comments

1: achryssos

October 4, 2004 09:55pm EST

In ancient times, the "Law" was God’s way of demonstrating to man, that...man was flawed!!! There could absolutely be no human-being who adhered to the "Law" completely, continuously, throughout one's lifetime. For the sake of argument then, lets suppose that every believer must've come to the conclusion sooner or later that he or she was at Gods mercy because of their flawed nature. The bar was set so high, it couldn't be reached! I also assume that there were those who were in complete denial about everything in life and could've cared less about any of this. I am sure that those amongst us today had their counterparts way back then! For the sake of discussion though, lets talk about "devout believers." Lets also concentrate on the Ten Commandments in view of the fact that there are many examples before the time of Moses where God demonstrated to man the flaws of his ways.

Could this then have been God’s way of enticing them into submission? Of deciding for themselves voluntarily and with logical reasoning that without God they were helpless and that in fact they were at His mercy. They were all hopelessly weak, unable to conform to the standard that God himself had set for them. They sinned involuntarily, in full knowledge after the fact that they had sinned again and again. Despite all their efforts, they would need Gods mercy. In answer to one of the questions that you pose, they came to this conclusion voluntarily, of their own "free will." Why?

You mention Love and forgiveness, and yet in the Old Testament we see strife, we see killings out of vengeance, and as punishment for failure to conform to the ways of God. "Conform to the way of the ‘Law’ or be prepared to surrender your life if necessary, if you step out of line." Yet, although they were all flawed and knew it, they had to create different levels of sin otherwise there would be nobody left to ...commit any sins! A petty thief was slapped on the hands but, if someone's wife committed adultery, she was stoned to death. If a high priest happened to "covet" his neighbor's wife, well, that was between him and God, or was this even a sin since he didn't commit adultery, or did he in God’s eyes? He wasn't telling anybody about that. But.... that high priest knew deep down inside, that he had sinned every single time that he had laid his eyes on that woman. He understood that God also knew! So what?

What's the big deal? If we cannot possibly conform, why not just carry on with our lives and do the best that we can? Well, that's what they did, because they just had to move on. They had to come to grips with the realization that the rest had to be left into the hands of God. A small matter that we shall call, "Life after Life"! This was the carrot! Paradise! The notion that we had a soul that needed to be saved was the sole motivating factor that brought man back to the realization time and time again, that we must try at all costs, to conform!! Man was not perfect and man knew it, still there had to be "hope"! How else can we go to paradise if we could not rid ourselves of our indiscretions?

It was the promise of the Messiah that gave them "hope"! God would send His Son to bear the sins of man. The sins of all those who lived before Him, and those who were to come. Messianic prophecies were scattered throughout the Old Testament. People living in those days, were comforted by the thought that they would do their best and if they fell short, at His coming, the Messiah would forgive the sins that they had committed even though they tried to live by the "Law" of God. Then suddenly, He was in their midst.

The great irony of it all was the fact that even though they had been waiting for Him for centuries, He had come and most of them didn't know it. They were looking for a "Knight in shining armor," and what they got was a pure and humble man with strong uncompromising convictions. He spoke of love for the first time, compassion, humility, forgiveness...words foreign to the Pharisees and high priests! Unbeknownst to the establishment, Jesus Christ would become the standard that believers would have to emulate. The standard that they would have to live by if we were to save their souls. For the first time, we were now to love one another, to turn the other cheek, to humble ourselves, to give to the needy.

Qualities becoming a believer were now to be gentle, hospitable, self controlled, temperate, respectable, sober, sincere, truthful, faithful, disciplined, peaceful, and certainly not materialistic! Are these qualities any less attainable? Is the bar not set as high? Yet, if we believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and are aware of the Truth of his coming, then we too can be part of the “Blessed Hope.” At what price?

You mention "courage." Courage to stand up for what is right in the eyes of God, never mind the consequences! Courage to live by your moral convictions, fully aware that you may be criticized by the pundits of a secular society. Courage to tell the world that Jesus is coming again, not as the Lamb, but as the King of Kings, wielding a mighty sword, and taking no prisoners! Courage to love thy enemy as you love yourself.

Finally, the courage to understand that no matter how bad things may get, the worse that anyone can do to you is to take your life, but never your faith!