Perspectives

I’ve thought about the nature of God quite a bit over the years. I regularly read on the subject particularly as it pertains to my interest in Western civilization. The mechanics/structure of religion is always of interest because it reflects, perhaps even clearer than the dogma, the essential character of the human “God.” As Marshall McLuhan suggested, “The medium is the message.”

Nowhere does the “medium” so transcend the “message” than in the history of the Catholic Church. It is the longest-running successful corporation in history. I’m reading a delightful new book by John Julius Norwich titled, “Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy.” He writes about the Catholic Church not from the perspective of its religious beliefs but what it took for this institution (corporation) to succeed in the rough and tumble world of secular man. Tough going it has been. Yet 2,000-plus years later, it survives.

“Chris, you cannot exclude the message. That is why the Church prevailed.” I am not so inclined to believe that, but for the sake of this discussion, let us say, “Perhaps.”

To “get on message,” there are two considerations that continue to perplex me specifically about the Christian God. Small things for sure, but if any reader has an explanation, please give me your revelation.

What kind of “God” is it that, right out of the blocks, insists in the Ten Commandments that the No. 1 commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other god before me.” Now, of course, “other gods” would include the literal definition of “god,” but accordingly, we also mustn’t make power or possessions our god, either. This has always struck me as insanely funny.

You are the most powerful entity there is. You know absolutely everything that will ever be, and your foremost concern is worrying about whether your little dirtball creation, man, and his heavenly spare rib, woman, idolize something other than you? This is a tough sell to me. My amazement is best summed up by Exodus 34:14 (New International Version) “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” What kind of entity, peerless by the way, is so insecurely jealous? I welcome your observations.

Extrapolating what we understand about God, I make the following assertion, “There cannot be a godly unintended consequence.”

Unless we change the definition of God, unless omniscient — to know everything — is omitted from the definition, we must conclude that God’s actions have no unintended consequences. It is inherently impossible. You know, can God create a mountain He cannot lift?

This “reality” begs a question. It became fashionable, once upon a time, to compare God to a clockmaker who set time (and space) in motion, created the universe, toiled in the soil creating man, da, da, da. Thought it was good, blah, blah, blah. You know the story.

OK, fast forward. 20th century Asia. The bomb bay doors open and napalm bombs cascade (“Apocalypse Now”-like) onto sleeping Vietnamese villages and the burning, screaming innocent children run from their thatch huts with skin melting like butter from their arms.

Knowing this from the get-go, why wouldn’t you, God, ol’ Holy Geppetto, tweak your puppet (man)? Just a subtle improvement or two. Surely you could have. Oh, free will?

Explain how those sleeping “non-Christian” children exercised their free will? Uh, uh, uh… enough with the message.