CHAPTER FORTY
GOD, My View
The wealth of unanswerable mysteries which Life presents has led me to create a hoard of personal speculations as to their possible solutions. Following are those insights which I maintain as "possibilities" and those with which I heartily disagree. Included also are the possibilities with which my mind has struggled yet cannot truly "claim" as my own beliefs because of their sheer incredibility. Attempting to rationalize that which is not an "absolute" has always been one of man's delights and obsessions; my speculations have brought peace to my mind in a chaotic world. They are my own, with which I can live in harmony through all of life's crises.
When I was young, I would listen to the Bible stories and sermons and soon began conjuring an image of God in my mind; in essence, He was an old, white-haired man, seated in the clouds in a brilliant robe at a magnificent desk, holding in his large hands a mighty scroll of the names of his earthly subjects. As I learned more, and was given his personality as if it was truly a simple, well-known fact, I began to foster deep feelings of rebellion, yet I knew not the reason for my disgust.
Only years later did I realize I was not the pagan I had thought myself to be. I believed in an infinite creator, yet the problem I had with established religion and church was my antipathy toward the restrictive quality which language itself bestowed on God. To give attributes to God placed him within fathomable bounds and he could not be Everything, as I so needed to believe if I was to believe in a creator.
I think of God not as a person, or a being to whom one communicates as if to a friend, but rather as a core and ultimate unity of all creation. God is all things tangible and intangible…he is Everything. I do not worry over the question of whether God is the sender of morality among humans, for the creation itself is enough of a reason for me to justify a power which is to be awed. Injecting within an animal the capacity to love beyond himself, and mourn for more than the loss of his own life further supports my heartfelt admiration. I have never thought to blame God for wrongs and injustices because in nature all is not fair; we, as all creation, are part of a life cycle, an endless wave of being and nonexistence. God is my inner sense of wholeness and peace, melding me with all creation.
If one can accept the biblical statement, "God created man in his image," as true, then perhaps there can be other speculations drawn from that source. Since man is generally capable of growing beyond self-love, and, through life's observation and experiences, gaining wisdom; it is possible that God, also, is growing, reaching ever outward just as the universe itself is said to be expanding. As humanly inconceivable as forever seems to be, I feel God could be no less than infinitum. There is not a wall but that something exists on the other side; even within emptiness is the presence of nothing, which in itself is something!!
No one will ever know the mind of God while trapped in the vessel of human flesh… No one will know how much he controls, indeed, how much he is able to control. Perhaps he can control suffering but does not, or would control the pain but cannot. We must live with the knowledge that pain exists in the world for both the good and the heartless.
We are taught as children that if we behave we shall be amply rewarded. Eat your vegetables and you'll get a cookie. If one is an honest, diligent worker, he will gain success and honor. Religious teaching also states that the righteous will prosper. Attentively listening, many ingest these tales of fortune and assume that their earthly reward is forthcoming. However, the world cannot live up to the story-tellers "idealistic view" and we see with distress that our childhood tales had severely bent realism. A member of my church cheated on a test, unobserved, and later received an A while another student who also neglected to study received an F. The former was not punished, nor did the latter student, who honestly failed the exam, receive acknowledgement for his honesty.
A drunken man slammed into an unsuspecting car housing a mother and two children. The drunk barely felt the impact, but the mother and one of her children simultaneously cracked the windshield. It was the third offense, and again he merely paid a fine and the damages. No one was seriously injured, yet the man was not fairly punished for inflicting undeserved wounds and mental anguish on innocent victims.
While instances like those illustrated above are numerous and quite prominent in daily life, usually destroying the bulk of one's childhood idealism, certain individuals cling to the "reward ethic" until evil befalls their lives; it's difficult to completely shirk childhood teaching, so firmly rooted in the recesses of the brain. This is why, I believe, there is a possibility for tension between ones self and his religious stance upon facing unpleasant or shattering news. "God was supposed to be my shield from evil!" followed either by the conclusion, "God is unjust," or "I must have done some great disservice to the Lord."
If I needed a reason for the existence of "evil" in life, this is the most agreeable one that I could surmise. For there to be freedom in life, there must also be choice. Choice necessitates at least two possibilities, and perhaps it is here that good and evil come into view. If God is the ultimate creator of all things, He then knew that existence would bring nonexistence, and all things would have its natural counterpart. Good without evil would allow no choice for individuality and we would be reduced into mentally-bonded puppets. Being the creator of all things would not necessitate his intervening in all life, for within his framework, nature balances itself. The most calamitous effect on the natural world is when it becomes off-balance; thus to control suffering would also place limits and restrictions on humanity's freedom. Mental freedom is better than bondage, yet for freedom one must sometimes pay a great price. God can be everything without standing above humanity as a punitive figure; though he may embrace life he does not necessarily have to control it.
When viewing "bad" occurrences in a more practical light, perhaps it could be maintained that "badness" can only be so labeled by the one who is placed under an immediate threat. Surely a mouse dangling precariously in an owl's vice-like talons would call his predicament "bad," yet the owl would find only good in the circumstances at hand, for through the mouse, he is able to sustain himself. Consequently, I feel there must be illness and old age, and ultimately death. The earth could not support its population of animal and human life if there was not the presence of death. Indeed, those of us who live today would not have lived if there was not death; birth into a flooded planet would be impossible. Thus, nature controls itself; though imperfect, it is an infinite miracle, ever growing and continuous.
Perhaps it is because I never believed in the story-book image of God often presented to me from the outset, that I did not have to grapple with the seeming contradictions which life gradually brought to my view contesting either God's undying love or a person's goodness due to the presence of suffering in the world. When God is viewed as nature itself, or at least the core of the natural world, injustice becomes less of an issue regarding the distribution of pain among societal members. Each day in the wild, countless deaths make way for new births and sustain those beings which, for the time, live on. Life is agonizing for the victim and sweet for the victor; yet the one who survives may fall prey to the hunger of a greater beast. . . and life continues.