Humanity in Disobedience to a Central Command of Life - Love Almighty God

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Apr 25, 2011 at 17:23

And there they are; the perennial questions, the ones that are sought out by persons looking for hope in places seemingly unreachable; and yet can be hard to fathom with any kind of answer of basic human understanding. Wanting to be able to distill a lifetime of those very questions, finding plausibilities in all the various places of resource and only coming to my own realization in the last ten years or so, I will share what I can, trying to avoid the glib observations and bring some sort of perspective from my decades of just wanting to know.

Even as Buddha sought these things out from the miseries he saw in his world, even his path could not accomplish in my life what I was searching for; a peace of thought that cannot be shaken to its very core, not even in the midst of the things we are seeing today through the Islamic lens in preparation for a conclusion too few seem prepared for. And just to clarify, the question is centered on Who is this God that has been hard to understand; and if to be understood, why do things happen in this world that seems from a mankind's world view to be either distant and impassionate about this creation, or is subjected to a human sense of illogical reasoning that cannot arrive to some sort of conclusion to rest the mind in the knowledge of His presence? A wordy question, to be sure, and even from my own perspective, it does introduce complexities to your basic questions of a more sophisticated simplicity. Hopefully, we can get past that.

Let us address the first aspect of a basic misimpression and misrepresentation, understanding that all holy writings are not the same, that none except one can truly be called the 'Word' except there be an understanding that a follower of Jesus Christ such as myself uses that term in the strictest Biblical sense in honor of Him who gave us His WORD. When I use that reference, it is in that strict sense; the other writings receiving their own respect from those who give them reverence. The distinction for me is necessary since in having studied the Holy Bible for my life's direction, only the WORD of Jesus Christ has been able to give me my answers; all others have failed. To the first question: Why is it that omnipotent God allows for so much injustice in this human sphere? Permit me to preface this with my earliest beginning of understanding that there were just the very sort of the injustices you speak of by telling of my first learning experiences, of starting out by wanting to find out about the history of World War Two while not yet a teenager. I had stories from my parents, uncles, grandparents, et al, that told of the horrific times they lived through, but lacking details that my inquisitive mind searched out. I was reading the 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,' the Speer annals, the writings of Winston Churchill and others to get the inaugural exposure to the horrors of that time.

Then there was the book called The Black March, detailing the life of an SS Waffen officer as the Third Reich conducted its atrocities throughout Europe. I suspect I need not go into the details of that for you, though let it be known that I was made aware of Treblinka, Auschwitz, Dachau and the others before I was twelve. My uncle who followed across the Rhine after Patton tells of his brief stop to at least one of those locations. Let it be sufficient to say that I can appreciate the difficulty of the question about God in that instance. But that is just one epoch of the injustices that can be recited for every era of human history, the uncountable words of tragedy and misery and horror that fills volumes and volumes, only to mystify and provide no answers as to why? How do we get to a place where such things are approached, where we must look at the ugliness and vulgarity of the inhumanities perpetrated upon humanity and try to reason why; and to wonder that if Almighty God is indeed a loving entity, how is it He would allow such things? From the time I was twelve until I turned twenty three, I had no way to answer that question.

Even at twenty three, the questions remained, but by then I had started on a quest that would eventually allow me to come to a realization that indeed, no man alone can reasonably answer that question. Further, there was now a beginning of knowledge that would bring me to a place of being able to look upon such things and realize that although I cannot bring reconciliation such things to my meager human mentality, I did have resource that took my weaknesses of humanity and replaced them with a spirituality of understanding that would now last for an eternity. Now, while we can recount centuries of inhumanities plaguing the human existence, we can also identify a time line and human stream throughout the ages that provides an encapsulated means of looking at how the human condition is its own worst enemy and how an Almighty God who has said He loves like no other, yet requires love as an act of obedience to Him. And therein lays the first clue.

But also, there is a means to discern how that clue will be traced to an answer: and you already know that I have found the trace in the Hebrew Holy Bible. Almighty God is perfect; He cannot be anything else and still be worthy of human obeisance. That needs recognition first and foremost, or nothing else matters. Recognizing His perfection in a way that needs transcendence is the most difficult aspect of the relationship between Almighty God and humanity. In His perfection, we find His ability to love. But we must remember that Almighty God does not love as men and women do; for if humans did, there would be none of the inhumanities we are discussing now.

Therein lays the crux of the problem and the principle distinction to be made. Next, there must be a realization of things too many do not wish to recognize. Not only is there the circumstance of Almighty God being omniscient, His is so much more: omnipotent, passionate, patient and full of kindness; and most importantly, if given the choice by individuals, very, very personal and loving. And it is here I will insert; none of the world's religions allow for the kind of personal relationship that is necessary to engage in a search for understanding Almighty God and these issues of how He deals with humanity. That kind of relationship exceeds the ability of religion to intercede: indeed religion serves more to interfere than to bring the kind of peace each human searches for but cannot find in the logical reasoning of the human realm.

So what does a man/woman need to gain that relationship of understanding, of being able to 'resolve these cognitive dissonances' in a world so full of the anger, brutalities, greed, lusts and passions of the darker natures of the human condition? Among so many things, is there a central truth that must be acknowledged to gain the necessary understanding of such things? Before we approach the depths of that, let us approach another aspect of this to which you have already alluded, that of human free will: is there truly such a thing; and if so, how does it work in light of the insidious implications that free will is more harmful in the expression of all that anarchy the world has seen and does not appear to work well in societies that try to work under the rule of law? Free will is not only misunderstood, it is obscenely misapplied.

True free will, that which is spoken of in 'religious' terms, is not the type of human attitude in decision making events of every sort, of a mental process that says I will do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. That kind of willfulness that we see rampant in the world and all of the world's history has consequences: therefore it is not 'free;' all must pay, one way or another. There is only one 'free will' allotted to each individual. We'll come back to that later. Now, many words have been spent and I am keenly aware that I have not yet gotten to the gist of your post, of the source of your apprehensions, anger and difficulties in trying to figure out this crazy mad world we live in. In general, Almighty God is God. We have already mentioned His perfection, a state of His personal being that absolutely CANNOT be examined from the human perspective.

In imperfection, humanity does not have the spiritual, physical, mental or other necessary faculties to search out Who Almighty God is, where He is, let alone try to understand why He does the things He does or permits the things we find so difficult to understand. Let us approach the Civil War we noted. Why does anyone think that confrontation occurred? Slavery, reinstatement of a fractured national status, alliances realigned are all to be considered. Yet from a spiritual perspective, one that is necessary for all the implications of a religious nature attached, a greater and more subliminal circumstance presents itself; that of a nation brought to a point of spiritual conflict. Then the spiritual reasoning behind the First World War, the Kaiser's war, the Great War, beckons for a central cause.

What was the most subliminal reason for how that war turned out? Allenby walked into Jerusalem. For the Second World War, singularly, the complexities of that conflict brought to the forefront a series of conflict issues that still confront us today. It is hard to say all the things that were incident to the conflagration caused by the mentality of a very few individuals, but Hitler was only one part of it. Yet he is responsible for an outcome that few would have ever imagined in the late day: the reformation of Israel in accordance with the Holy Bible. The mind of Almighty God is unsearchable; unsearchable for His thinking, His reasoning, His examples of His love, and most importantly for the grace and truth He has extended to those of faith, His love. So how does one reconcile the inhumanity we see with the claim of unrestrained love associated with Almighty God? Think of how much you have loved and it is never returned.

How much love can anybody say is being directed towards Almighty God? Love is exemplified in obedience to the commandments of Almighty God, as we hear of in the Sh'ma and the words of Jesus Christ. It is in the most extreme fashion of it, unrequited love. He has been in the circumstances of revealing His love toward humanity, and so little of it returns to Him, even in His primary role of intercessor. Intercessor says I? Where says you is the evidence of that? Creation by His WORD was initially perfect, requiring nothing from Him for its continuance as long as Man obeyed. Then what happened. Man had been left in charge, only to have man relinquish his dominion to the prince of the power of the air. In that realm of extreme hatred, and with a humanity that had lost its capacity to be obedient to Almighty God in returning His love, what does anyone think about a creation now imperfect in form going to do while the time necessary for an impenitent humanity to find Almighty God by imperfect means ticks on by with no one searching for Almighty God. Only a few did find Him then, more later, even more in these last times. In the meantime, those that did not seek Almighty God did whatever they thought or wanted, and killed or were killed in direct contradiction to the thoughts and feelings of Almighty God. But from the very beginning, there was, and is, the plan, exactly as found in the Hebrew Holy Bible.

Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, was there when the plan was devised, and was there when it was executed, on the cross in Jerusalem during the Passover. Every element of the plan that has been executed is in preparation for the next part being readied as we speak. Believe in the plan and in faith believe in the Person of the plan, Jesus Christ, then its elements will begin to take shape as it is explained through the Hebrew Holy Bible. His resurrection put the seal of Almighty God on all who believe in Him. In the final analysis, as long as mankind remains imperfect, no matter how may times one might think it is necessary for humanity to get it right, the fact of the matter is the evidence is overwhelming that without Almighty God in charge, humanity will never get it right; and will destroy itself proving that very fact. Look at history; look around; the evidence is plain to see. The fact is that if Almighty God HAS interceded, that had He not interceded each and every time humanity brought itself to the edge of extinction, this world would already have been offered to the Adversary in his satisfaction of revenge to have been able to see it destroyed.

We should be thanking Almighty God for every breathe we take, for every heartbeat of every life from the beginning to whenever in the future. Jesus Christ paid for that very thing with the offering of His own life as He took on His own humanity to suffer with us, to bleed with use, eventually dying just like one of us; only to be resurrected after paying our sin debt and giving us our shot at eternal life. And THERE is the principle reason for all of the injustice and inhumanity perpetrated upon humanity: sin. And almighty God's intervention: Jesus Christ, that all of humanity needs to love Almighty God through the sacrifice of His only Son; and from there the world and all of its insanities take on a different understanding and the questions raised in your post can be answered in a way normal humanity cannot understand, but believers now have access to the answer that can only be spiritually discerned in faith. This is how a true believer resolves cognitive dissonances.

Now, as I have tried to extend, I have a Biblical understanding of your personal introspection; and I hope I have been able to express some empathy for the trials and tribulation of you and your family. Further, there is understanding how America, once great in providing haven for those who sought out what they thought to be a place in which the government would be different from others, not only is fallen from grace for those who made the journey, but has fallen from grace from the single source of power that gave America that grace, the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We may say that we can never forgive Him: but in spite of those rejections of His love, He loved us still and spent Jesus Christ's humanity and blood on the cross to prove it. I know that it is true for me since I was twenty-three: it is true for anyone who will accept Him as a personal means to have Almighty God reach out and make His intercession known through His love.

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