RE: Why Love God?

A friend recently posed the question, "Why love God?" (See this link) His question is based on a collection of linguistic, semantic, philosophical, and religious premises, some of which are oriented toward a specific worldview. I address the premises, the thought process, and the conclusions, as they are evaluated in the "traditional" context of Christian theology/philosophy. I also contrast these with my preferred view, the "Open View of God". Those of you who who have a Facebook account can find a discussion of these ideas under a group of the same name.

Please note that when I refer to the "traditional paradigm" I'm referring to the foundational mix of theology and philosophy that most people learn as typical Christian teaching.

Also, this response is a bit lengthy, and may seem repetitive, so bare with me and please pardon.

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First off, commentary of specific passages:

God creates human. God creates laws humans can’t follow. God punishes humans for their failure to follow the laws. God wants to be loved for being merciful and not punishing us for not following the laws it was impossible to follow in the first place.

This construct represents a rather cynically simplified version of the "traditional paradigm" in regard to God's relationship to mankind as most Christians understand the history of the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews. The last sentence of this construct contains enough negations to be confusing to a inattentive reader. I'll try restating it: "God wants to be loved for being merciful and [forgiving] us for [failing to meet the standard that] was impossible to [meet] in the first place." I have a few disagreements with this perspective, but I'll address that later...

It refers to God giving its son to humanity as a living sacrifice for all of our sins. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, made it possible for the imperfect (us) to commune with the perfect (God) – in other words, be saved.

Right, so this is generally agreeable (particularly to the "traditional paradigm"), though I don't consider song lyrics to be an authoritative source of theology. It should, however, be noted that the apostle Paul quotes a popular song in the early part of one of his epistles ... I forget where, I'll look it up if anyone asks.

if God knows all, and God caused all (being the first mover) it caused you and I to sin and, then, is willing to punish us for the very thing it caused us to do.

This series of assumptions is based on the usual all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good philosophical problem, which is a serious problem for the "traditional paradigm" and is the foundation of many opponents' challenges to Christianity as a whole. (They -- mostly academics -- make the unfortunately incorrect assumption that all Christianity is by nature based on these assumptions.) I also challenge these, but not with the intent of debunking all of Christianity, only to pursue a more accurate (and coherent) perspective of Biblical theology and philosophy.

The important part of the definition is “ownership.” [...] My question is: Was Jesus a sacrifice for our sins? [...] The traditional view of Jesus is that he was God. [...] Did humanity “own” him?

Then on the topic of "sacrifice" and whether or not we are at a loss when (supposedly) we present Christ as our sacrifice... This is actually fairly straight forward: Find me a passage of scripture which implies that we own Christ ;) Then consider Hebrews 9:26, "He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Also, part of your reference on the definition of "sacrifice" includes the following: "personnel that are sacrificed (e.g., surrendered or lost in order to gain an objective)" ... Let me know what you think of that.

The whole concept of sacrifice and tithing (giving money to the church) makes little sense when you consider this: God owns everything. It permits our use of things but, since God is omnipresent and omnipotent, it is impossible for God to give up possession of an item.

Wait, God's omnipotent and omnipresent?! Oh right, this refers to the "traditional paradigm". The Bible actually never says these, and the net effect of scriptural analysis on the topic yields the general conclusion that "God" (long story, but it's more of a title than a name) are not actually all-powerful in the sense that everything goes his way, nor are they (read: "Elohim" as stated in Genesis) actually present everywhere at all times, and indeed (though not referred to in Josh's discussion) all-knowing. The "Open View" doesn't have these difficulties. (This too is a long story. Post a comment if you have doubts or challenges to this.)

Well, God didn’t die because it can’t die.

Are you sure? Where did you hear/read that? In Scripture? Show me... Also, "it"? I guess you're referring to the Trinity/Godhead? These are "traditional paradigm" concepts, so I suppose if this assertion is made in that context, then its sensible to use such terminology.

Yes, he went to hell (or as the Mormon’s call it “America”).

Nice ;)

But Jesus died knowing he would be reborn. I mean, he’s God for Christ’s sake.

Well... maybe. This remains open to some debate (on a biblical basis), and may be more accurate to state "he's [a] God", this being distinguished from "he's God".

That brings me to my biggest problem this morning: the concept of love.

Big topic indeed. I spent months trying to grasp this before I even knew there was an iceberg beneath the 50-pages or so I had written on the topic, trying to understand its myriad facets and interaction with other aspects of life.

If the traditional model of God is accurate then the following is true: God created laws and communicated them with us throughout time expecting us to follow them.

It may be more accurate to say "God created [a system of law]". Under this "system" it's apparent that "God" "knew" people would make mistakes, which is why He/They established the rituals of burnt offerings and such, which would atone for the failure of the people to keep their behavior in line with the other laws. Go figure... Now as far as punishment goes, there's very little biblical substance to support the idea that any time a person would break the law (i.e. commit sin, i.e. lie, steal, kill, etc) that "God" would punish them. The only serious support for this is in the very early stages of humanity, where Cain killed Abel, and the subsequent progression of humanity into a self-destructive mode, and even then the punishments were milder than a human structure of justice would apply. (There's also a rather unique instance in the New Testament of people lying directly to "God"'s face, and they subsequently died.) Other than that, God didn't really express any significant animosity toward the Jews (you'll notice that's the only legitimate context for this discussion) until the significant majority of the Israeli society turned against Him/Them.

God sent us his son to be the eternal sacrifice (see above for the problem with that). And we are supposed to love him for this act of grace.

Well, in general, yes. Please see my above commentary on the supposed problem with this. As for us being "supposed to love him for this act of grace", I'll address that in sum a bit later.

As the song says “there is no greater love” than what? Setting up some perverse system of unfair rules and then punishing those who don’t follow them?

The rules were unfair? Because (supposedly) no human can follow them satisfactorily? Even the scripture itself says that (if I recall) the only ones who were "perfect" under the law were limited to very few, including Elijah and Daniel. So are you then arguing that it then took "God" 2000 years (the time of Moses to the time of Jesus) to find a better solution? You would think that He/They would get tired of humanity failing so horribly, and eventually just wipe us all out. Either that, or "God" must not be as smart as we thought...

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Right, so Josh asserts that the "law" (the Torah, 10 commandments and such) were "unfair" and "perverse". If his other assertions, namely that "God" knew we would fail the "law" and guaranteed our punishment due to such failure, are true, then Josh may be correct in calling them such.

On the supposition that "God" knows "everything" (hence omniscience), and thus knows the future, thus implying that the future must be "set in stone", so to speak, and is thus predestined, we are effectively stripped of our free agency. Yes, this is a serious problem for the "traditional paradigm" as it also completely nullifies the need of Christians to proselytize, and thus also Jesus' command to that effect. According to such philosophy, if everything is predestined then it doesn't matter whether an evangelist spreads the Gospel, since everyone who is predestined to be saved will be saved whether he does so or not. Many other scriptures further nullify the concept of predestination. (There's my one paragraph to debunk predestination and foreknowledge.)

So, assuming then that "God" does not know the future, it cannot be asserted that "God" "knew" that we would fail the law. This does not leave out the possibility that He/They were aware of the probability that we would. Still, He/They provided the means for atonement of such failures via the ritual offerings, which were the implementation of "God"'s grace (and admittedly were only practiced in Judaism for quite some time).

The only context for which this system of law could be considered "perverse" and "unfair" is in the "traditional paradigm" which holds (among other questionable things) "God"'s omniscience, particularly in regard to foreknowledge. Else, it becomes very difficult to argue such nature of the law.

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Further, I have nowhere (of significance) heard that Jesus was our sacrifice, insofar as we had ownership of Him. Whether we have ownership of Him or not, the "traditional paradigm" has a few problems it needs to negotiate in this regard...

Jesus did not pay for our sin. Instead, Christ established a covenant of forgiveness. (See Matthew 26:28 and context.) Had Christ paid for our sin, there would be no use for forgiveness. A debt paid is not forgiven -- it is paid, plain and simple. A forgiven debt represents a loss to the debtee (i.e. the one forgiving), and effectively a gain to the debtor. A paid debt represents no loss to the debtee. Hence, it may be asserted that "God" (Christ?) did in fact incur loss in the act of forgiveness. (This is the part that most "traditional paradigm" teachers have the hard time with.)

A worthy question to follow this: what exactly did we owe "God", and what did He/They lose in forgiving us? As concisely as possible: the fulfillment of the previous covenant, which spillt the blood of animals to enact a renewed covenant under which a person can retain righteousness and (scripturally) holiness. (See the significance of blood in Genesis where Cain kills Abel, whose blood cries out from the ground.... "There's power in the blood" anyone?)

Even so, the scripture does not assert any human ownership of Christ, nor that we sacrificed Him. Actually, the scripture makes every indication that He sacrificed Himself on our behalf. (See Hebrews 9:26) A note to commentary above: Who said "God can't die"? Wasn't it Nietzsche? Oh wait... Anyway, the question is only relevant in the "traditional paradigm", since it asserts that "God" is a single being. I hold that "God" is a title, and that both Christ is (a) God and that the Father is (a) God; again, this is distinct from being a "god", in that a "god" is a thing that we worship and idolize, while a "God" is also a "god" but is actively present in our lives.

As an aside: The statement, "there is no God", from an atheist is thus true: for such a person, they do not perceive/observe any being (spiritual or otherwise) to be actively present in their lives who is also worthy of being idolized. For them to assert that a Christian's "God" is non-existent is as useless and foolish as a Christian to assert that (micro-)evolution does not occur. Just because I haven't observed (micro-)evolution myself doesn't mean it doesn't occur; similarly, just because someone else hasn't observed "God" the way I have doesn't mean He/They don't exist.

"God" says to the Jews: "You will be my people and I will be your God." When the Jews started worshiping other "gods" then "God" was no longer their "God". Get it?

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Finally, to the actual point: "Why love God?"

If Josh's assertions were true (under the "traditional paradigm"), then they would present some significant challenges to teachers and believers of the "traditional paradigm". While I do not agree with this paradigm, I'm sure most believers in it would find a way to answer Josh's arguments to their satisfaction.

To answer the initial question, however, quite succinctly (having challenged both Josh's assertions and the "traditional paradigm"): "because that's the point*."

"God" did not create us solely so that we could love Him/Them; this would reflect egotism on "God"'s part. "God" created us because it is His/Their nature to be creative (we see this also in humanity) and it was His/Their desire to create a being which had free agency, a soul, spirit, intellect.. and to be like Them. (Anyone wonder why we're trying to create artificial intelligence?) It is also in Their nature to be loving, and this is also seen in humanity (though we also suffer the effects of ages of rebellion against such nature).

It is apparent through scripture that when a creation begins to defy its own nature and purpose, it moves contrary to its "destiny*" then it will eventually be committed (by itself, perhaps) to destruction. This is what we see in Revelation when "God" sends "Satan" to destruction; "Satan" was likely not created as the father of all evil, actually. More likely it/he was created as a herding dog of sorts, among others, which would nip at our heels when we do not move according to the will of the shepherd, metaphorically. When he/it began to operate outside the bounds of his nature and purpose, he pursued a destiny of destruction. Similarly, when we choose to operate outside our intended nature and purpose, we begin pursuit of a destiny of (self) destruction.

If we do not love, we are operating outside of our nature and purpose. If we do not love "God", we are denying our nature and purpose, as well as our origin. Do you wonder why the most important commandments relate to loving God and loving people? Jesus effectively tells us to operate as we were intended to, as it is our nature and purpose.

The effect of not loving God: we deny our origin. The effect of not loving people: we begin the process of self destruction and harm to those around us. Go figure.

When a pet dog operates outside its nature and purpose, suppose it bites the child of its owner, the owner commits the dog to destruction for the safety of the child(ren). If the owner has many dogs, the dog may be given the opportunity to change its behavior, but if it does not, it will be committed to destruction for the good of the entire pack of dogs, as well as the owner's family.

Humans are not dogs, I know. It was a metaphor, in hopes that one could understand how a master perceives the misbehavior of his flock. (I sincerely hope no one questions this, it will reflect on their aptitude for such discussion.)

Anyway... that's a long one. I hope ya'll get the point. Peace upon you.

Religion

[excerpts from a response to a question on the nature of religion]

i've observed an interesting pattern [in people] though...people get dissatisfied with their lives, and they seek ways of changing their circumstances...they often look outward, to money, physical stimulus (sex, drugs), politics, hobbies...trying to find a way to satisfy themselves...and they may, for a short time, find that satisfaction...but it's short-lived, so they inevitably go looking again.

eventually, some people find other sources of satisfaction which are much more permanent... and for the sake of discussion, we'll call it inspiration...not like the artistic kind, but the kind that fundamentally alters a person's paradigm. some people find it in Hinduism, others in Wicca, others in native american tribal beliefs...(other religions too)... ultimately they all come down to something spiritual or philosophical, but it has to penetrate their souls... so... yeah... that's what changes people, though sometimes not for the better.... as a friend of mine says "ideas have consequences"

so for me, I pursue that which I find to be true and trustworthy, which has the best outcome from pratical application. before I believe something, I study it very carefully, and examine it's eventuality... and I believe I've found Truth, and its Author, you might say. ... though I don't presume to have a corner on it, since I know full well that I don't comprehend its entirity ;)