The Science of God - how a lover of physics found the truth in Christianity

Chapter 12 - a loving God?

I will take a moment this morning and deviate slightly from the main topic, as is often necessary in a format such as this. My commenters ask some very good questions, and I cannot justify them with simple replies. However, I will attempt to tie my answer into the theme and title of this book. Good commenters do test one's skill at the keyboard.

The question at hand is how can a loving God cast his people into hell and also send his only son to die a horrible death on the cross?

Even as I read it again, I know the question itself may require its very own book. But I'll see what I can squeeze into a chapter.

Let us back up for a moment so that we can gain proper entry into the answer. A well-known comedian--I cannot remember which one--stated that if I held the same beliefs at the age of 50 as I did at 20, then the last 30 years have been wasted. Some of you reading this are quite young, so the statement may seem nonsense. The older readers are, no doubt, nodding in agreement. I certainly am. Now, before you click out of this book, I am not suggesting that my younger readers are not "wise" enough to understand the significance of my writings. Far from it. My goal is to compare that 30 years to the lifespan of an eternal being.

Even for my younger readers, I think that you can certainly agree that your opinions and beliefs have changed over the past few years. So you will see my point.

So if our worldview changes dramatically over a 30 year period, and almost all we believed in our youth is proven either wrong or severely warped, then how much more so would our beliefs and attitudes change over a hundred years? A thousand? A million?

I would suggest that everything I am thinking right now will turn out to be quite different after a million years. Including my attitude of justice, fairness, punishment, and death. I say this, again, not to invalidate the opinions of a youth, but to demonstrate that an eternal God would certainly have a different view of everything that we hold dear. And I do mean everything.

Let us attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of this eternal God. Impossible, to be sure, but again, we have to draw finite pictures in order to maintain a small grasp of the infinite.

As the god of your universe, you create living creatures, or, for the evolutionary minded, you touch the spark that begins the process of life. Once these creatures, one of which you created to closely match your own image (spiritually speaking), begin to prosper and multiply, you see the problems that begin to arise.

Creating an intelligent would, no doubt, result in chaos. There would be quarreling, fighting, bloodshed. It would be Lord of the Flies on a global scale. And if we understand our history, it was. You must put rules into place. And, as any parent can tell you, rules without consequences for the breaking of those rules are fairly useless.

The rules are simple: Don't kill each other, don't steal from each other, don't even want what each other has.

Naturally, your creations, much like your children, can't manage to abide by the rules. And there are consequences. You can provide temporary punishments in the hope that your creations will return to respecting your wishes, much like grounding your children. But if your creations completely reject you and your rules, you are forced, finally and tearfully, to turn them out of your house. You cannot have children who hate and despise you living forever among the children that love you. The same chaos and bloodshed would continue. There would never be peace in your home.

The final punishment is eternal separation from the creator. It is only fair. This child hates you and wants nothing to do with you. He will not be happy in your presence and has stated as much. So you send him out. The place of hell is nothing more than separation from the Creator. And because this lost child is surrounded by millions of other lost children, it is truly a horrible place. Prison is horrible because you are surrounded by people equally as brutal as yourself. It is not the prison builder who made it a hell on Earth. It is the occupants. And hell is full of brutal occupants.

Now, let us depart from that unwelcome image. Because you are a loving creator, you will do anything to save these lost children of yours, as would any parent. So you offer to take on the punishment for their crimes. You offer yourself as a living sacrifice. We won't dwell into the issue of the trinity here. But it is suffice to say that an eternal being can certainly have multiple facets. We are told of three. One God, three persons. What we need to understand is that we do not have three creators. We have one. Therefore, the Son is God and Spirit. God is Spirit and Son. Spirit is Son and God. When He sent his Son to die, he sent himself.

If it helps to illustrate, imagine you are the mother or father of a house full of children. You love your oldest dearly. You love the others as well, but the oldest has always made you proud, never once failed you, and has never strayed from your rules. One of your other children has rebelled against you. He curses at you, he beats up his siblings, he ends up in jail or prison. You offer your first born as a sacrifice in exchange for the rebellious child. Trust me when I say your pain will be as great, if not greater, than your suffering child.

That is a poor illustration because, as mortal flesh, we cannot fully be our child and ourselves at the same time. For a spiritual creator, this is exactly the condition. They are one. So the pain felt by the creator is most certainly equal to, if not greater than, the son. And because they are one, they are also in agreement of these terms.

I do hope I gave that explanation justice. Again, our finite minds have difficulty with the concept of the trinity.

Continuing on, you have made this sacrifice to save these creations of yours who are rebelling in great numbers. You did this to make it as easy as possible for your creations to escape eternal separation from you. Now, instead of some 700 rules (there were far more than the "big 10"), you have given them one:

Accept this sacrifice of mine as a gift.

That's it. Any other demand heaped on top of that statement comes from the other children who feel they must add some complexity to the rules. All your rebellious child must do is accept your gift, and then move on with his or her life. Surely this child will be grateful and want to clean up his act, but perhaps not. In which case, the free gift still remains, and he only need accept it again.

As the creator, you set rules in place to keep your creations from slaughtering and doing all other manner of evil to one another. You put consequences into action in order to ensure that the rules are not broken. That should have been enough. Your creations deserve nothing more. But it still tortured you to see them cast out when they continually broke the rules. So you offered yourself to take the punishment for their crimes. And all they have to do is acknowledge that sacrifice.

For anyone to say this is unfair, they are absolutely right. It is unfair to the Creator to have to make such a sacrifice. He owes nothing to His creations. I think, if you sit for a while and play this out in your mind, putting yourself in the shoes of the creator, you would see there are no alternatives.

As I said, this a huge topic to cover in a single chapter. Books have been written on the subject, and by authors with much greater talent than me. I assume, if you've read this far, you are honestly seeking answers. If you would like me to recommend any these books, please let me know in the comments.  

I have not done this yet, but here I will provide a simple prayer for any of you who have made a decision. Feel free to insert your own words. There's no formula, just your heart. Pray something like this:

Father in heaven, I have sinned against you. I have rebelled and broken your commandments. I deserve your punishment. But I accept your sacrifice. I know that Jesus died for my sins, and I confess Him as my Lord and Savior. From this day I will turn away from my sins and live my life according to your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

That's it. If you have any questions, I'm here. Have a blessed day.