The most obvious example of why God has a terrible reputation in the world is because there are so many wars and even though wars are started by typically populus human states, it is nevertheless cited as the reason why God either cannot exist or cannot be a God of love. So let us start with this example and see if we can reason that perhaps God is not to blame and that he does actually still care and wants to see people live generally happy and fulfilling lives. I will use both scriptural references to strengthen my argument, but also various mythological texts, usually from the same author (Joseph Campbell), which will hopefully give some pre-dated context to the scriptural “truths” that have been cited. So if I do let you comment on this website, please bear in mind that my opinion has been based quite carefully on the truth that I’ve discovered and I will of course reference any passages I’ve used to arrive at this conclusion. But let us bear in mind that the question is “do we really love God?” and I hope that by arguing his case it will highlight that we have not heard and understood God clearly and therefore cannot be loving him in an appropriate way.

It seems to me that the troubles started very early on in the human story and when God was first represented, generally as a fertility type deity in the form of some animal, like a boar, or a celestial object, like the moon, the primary motivation for the worship of such a deity was the success and progression of the human culture it represented. And even when such deities were replaced by a God of human-like form, Yahweh being the obvious example, I have found from my studies that such worship did not lack a political and controlling element, although I am somewhat cynical about such matters – nevertheless, if you want to read the same texts I have read, this opinion is based on the four book series by Joseph Campbell, “The Masks of God.” However, the Word of God as quoted in the bible has some rather more suggestive truths than the more selective early cultures who wrote it were perhaps open to, and these truths are almost certainly to be seen as inspired by the spirit of God and I genuinely do believe this too.

But the point I am trying to make is that our opinion of the nature of God is based almost entirely on the religions that have been derived to either explain the existence of some form of higher power, or to have some controlling element in the human society it was worshipped by. And these religions universally miss the point. God is other than religion by his very nature and in the process of representing him to the peoples of any region, religion does not do this accurately. And as a result, generally similar human beings have been made each other’s enemies by virtue of the fact that they live in different parts of the planet and have heard stories about God which have been distorted from the primordial mythological themes from which they were based. And further to this, there doesn’t seem to be any antidote to bring the people of the globe back into harmony, since people’s intelligence and wit and wisdom have, having rejected the archetypal Gods that humanity have invented, invented their own religions of medicine, or government, or other forms of practical mediating power, which each and of themselves further contradict and in many cases actively attempt to disprove the existence of God in the first place! How can anyone be expected to have a balanced and salutary view of God now, regardless of the fact that in many cases because of their differing views on this matter, nations and kingdoms have been at war with each other since the dawn of the human race!

So it seems to me that it might be ignorance of God leads to states of war: “My people are destroyed by their lack of knowledge; but blessed is the one who upholds the law.” And therefore it is with some hesitation that I move onto this idea of divine law, where I will have to be even more particular about what I do and do not say, for obvious reasons! So what is “the law,” according to the bible, or any other work of theological precedence – is it not just as the religion which is devised from the law that is spoken by the God of the culture? In a real sense this seems to be true but what I want to arrive at is the conclusion that there is a “law” that has been given by God and to transgress it makes us guilty and to atone for the guilt we need an atoning sacrifice; but then again I have spent years studying the Christian theology so that is only natural. Perhaps a more balanced approach would be to assume that such a law does exist and work backwards to conclude that in order for us all to live meaningful lives, there are certain statutes which we must live by; but not to be too particular about what these individual laws are, in case we fall into the trap which many religions have done in citing and attempting to enact written laws as commands from God.

Either way, I think we’ve arrived at something of a crux in the argument. Without divine guidance, people run wild but with a moral code, there is order. So have people rejected the moral code, or have they rejected God? And if they’ve (I mean we, of course) have rejected God, is it because he gave a moral code? Or is it some amalgamation of the doctrine being applied unfairly or overly dogmatically, that has made people reject the God who gave the moral law, if this is even the issue in the first place? Any which way I look at this, I can only ever convince myself that it is humans, and not God, who are the cause of every conflict on the earth. Perhaps our understanding of God is so obscured by our hope that he is essentially like we are, that we have failed to appreciate his nature to this dramatic extent? And if you agree that this is true, and that it is not God who is to blame for the problems which mankind face, then consequently, it is your devotion to whatever you believe that has, as least in part, contributed to mankind’s predicament: how can you be so assured that your “love” for your God is love at all, and not simply a delusion?

Anyway, I think we can say one thing with certainty: without revelation, people perish, and we see many such sad examples of this across the globe even today, in this “enlightened” age, with many more to come. As Jesus said: “And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.” Matthew 24: 6,7.

Is there a cure? Some natural or esoteric remedy for the healing of the nations? There is according to the bible, but to believe it takes some effort of the imagination and I would always warn you against getting caught up in some giddy cultish certainty that God is just about to act for such a cause. In the end, I think God will bring justice and healing to the nations but I’m convinced that the Great Tribulation is first on the menu, so I wouldn’t hold your breath for that one if I were you; or perhaps I’m being too pessimistic? Only natural, perhaps, when the whole world is being led astray by the enemy of our souls in the lies and compromises of governments across the world who endlessly make grand speeches about how they want to effect the changes they and we wish to see but routinely do nothing but serve their own interests in the world, fight each other and leverage their influence with the population of the country they govern when the time for re-election comes.

Then where will this new understanding come from, if not from the governing classes? Do you expect a saviour? What would he look like? What would he do? Do we even know what we’re looking for in such a person and is this not exactly the problem that mankind have faced since the dawn of our civilisation – we simply do not know what we’re looking for? Jesus, now widely celebrated as the “Saviour of the World” was killed by the people he came to save – if he was God (and I do actually believe that he is divine), what sort of a world would we be living in now if his political enemies allowed him to live and lead for the natural term of his live, however long that might have been? But nevertheless, it was “God’s will to crush him and cause him grief” but even so, I’m always left with a nasty taste in my mouth about how he was treated by his fellow man, who then presumably went on to whinge about what a terrible place the world is! More to the point, how did the Lamb of God get turned into the terrifying spectacle at the end of the bible, if not from a corporate lack of knowledge on behalf of the human race:

“Then everyone – the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person – all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide is from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?”

Are we really to believe that the God of the bible is given to uncontrollable, unjustified, outbursts of anger? And if not, who else can we blame for invoking his wrath, if not ourselves? But I understand that this discourse, as with much of what I’ve written in the last however many years, is leaning heavily towards the idea of a Christian God but that’s perhaps not unjustified, given that I’ve lived in the UK for my whole life and have been exposed to the teachings of Jesus the Christ from an early age, but it still begs the question: what are we expecting to happen here? Do we actually want God to intervene and are we sure we know what that would look like? I’ll leave it with you to think about, if you ever read this, but from my understanding the justice of God is not mocked: you will reap exactly what you sow; and neither does he suffer fools gladly, by the way:

“Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.”

Please don’t tell me that if he is your God that you really love him, because I’ll struggle to believe it! Nevertheless, as with everything that God tries to communicate in the bible, there is hope:

“But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.”

More than likely, that’s the God you love; but to exclude the parts of the bible you don’t agree with is surely not the essence of Christian faith, is it? But whatever your faith, all likelihood points to the fact that its scriptures promise salvation, and this theme is consistent across all the world’s religions. Muslims believe that “Allah is well able to save”; Buddhists believe that the bodhisattva, on his quest to attain enlightenment, cannot completely leave the sphere of human existence because of his compassion for his fellow man; in all scripture there is a redemptive motif and hope of salvation. But to take hold of this truth you need to choose which teacher you will follow, which is far from an easy choice when your demographic location is taken into account, to name but one of the extant problems such a situation presents. And so we could conclude that as a means to social cohesion and ultimate peace and justice, religion is not a suitable mode to achieve this aim. Or we could live in hope that in our search for God through both the scriptural truth and our conscience and intuition, we can draw close to the source of these creative and redemptive energies and succeed in bringing these things to the lives we lead. But in order to access these powerful energies, we have to accept that there is a destructive nature to life which is just as primary, unfortunately. Believing in one or the other is not the truth at all, in fact, arguably, a lie, i.e. no sort of revelation at all.

So we’ve discussed that man and not God is to blame for the wars in the world and that if God does or has intervened, perhaps we haven’t noticed; and in both of these adductions, it would seem that the overriding issue is a lack of knowledge of who God is and what he stands for, although we could have perhaps drawn that conclusion from the context of how human affairs have unravelled over the millennia. But I’m still not convinced I know who does and does not love God, if I even know who God is myself, which seems like an apposite point to finish this post.