Terry Paul Choyce
October 22, 2006, Brunswick Street United Church
Last week at Living the Questions session I go to, I asked a question that has been plaguing me for a long time. If God is all loving and compassionate and good, and if God created everything, then how could evil, hatred and fear exist? How, or why, could a perfect God originate a negative, destructive force ? It makes no sense to me.
One minister said that God did not create evil, people did. I said that if God created people, they should be as loving as God. Another minister said that ultimately, God is a mystery, and that we are incapable of knowing the full magnitude and capabilities and objectives of God. We just have to accept that all life is complicated, and that we must do our best to bring love into our lives and into the world. Another minister said that there are dualities in all facets of life. There is night and day, hot and cold, good and harmful. We could not have the positives if the negatives did not also exist.
These are all reasonable explanations, but they are not complete enough for me. I am trying to come up with a concept of God that fits with my experience and perceptions of the world. I want to understand God from an historical perspective, and from a practical one that fits with Christianity, and fits with what I see happening on our planet. So here goes my own theory.
I believe God is an intelligent energy that is everywhere in the universe. God is in me and you and in elephants, tulips, and fleas. Through God we are all connected. This concept of God is really quite mainstream today . Theologians and scientists alike are coming to the awareness of the divine life force that is a huge part of everything. In fact quantum Physics is now proving this. They may not call it a divine force, but they do acknowledge that we are all more alike than different in our biological make-up at the cell level. Everything is made up of lots of energy and just a bit of matter. It is the frequency of how that energy and matter vibrates that determines the form and hardness and appearance of everything. In John 10 verse 38 Jesus says "you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father." This another way of saying that God is in Jesus and Jesus is a part of God. Jesus was in human form. I interpret this to mean that God is in all of us and we are all a part of God.
So where does the evil come in? In Genesis it says we were created in God's image. I do not interpret this as God being in human form. I interpret this as meaning we have many of the characteristics of God. Our spirit is a part of God's spirit. Our desires and hopes, and yes even our fears and our anger, are part of God. As depicted in the Old Testament and in religious texts from most religions that came from the time period of the Old Testament, God was loving, but he was also angry, vindictive, judgmental, and, in my opinion, cruel. The God of those times destroyed people in floods and famines and war. They believed that God wanted blood sacrifices, and that people were sinful and God punished them, in this life and in the life to come. God was also generous and forgiving and compassionate. In short, God had all of the characteristics of humans.
One of the things that humans do is change and evolve emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually. So it makes sense to me that God changes too. Over 2000 years ago God became more loving and more understanding . People still believed he was a God to be feared and who needed to have sacrifices of animals to be happy. God wanted to have people become more loving and responsible to each other. He wanted them to have a different understanding of him and a different knowing about themselves. So he created Jesus Christ to be our teacher. Through his words and his actions, Jesus showed how we should live in a loving, healing, accepting way. His death was to be the last blood sacrifice to God. And we were to know that when we each die, there would be a wonderful place for us. Physical death was simply a change, not an end. Our spirits, or souls, would continue to be one with God.
For over 2000 years people have believed in a loving God. And, I really think people have become more loving themselves. Our natures have changed. I think that in the world today there are more people who try to be compassionate, generous,and responsible in how they treat each other and everything on earth. And these people are not just Christians. The positive energy of God has infused millions of people worldwide. And I pray that daily more people come to know the love of God and how we are all part of God and of everything God created.
So, how do I answer my question about how a loving God could create evil? I say that God is evolving, just like everything else. God is alive and changing. It is possible that God was once angry and negative, and thus evil was prevalent.God is now a loving mystery that is in us all, and wants the best for us and this world.
