I Love God*

It’s time to explore a simple question: what is the nature of God?

Should be easy enough.

Why are we doing this? Mostly because I was up at 4am having an imaginary conversation with my ceiling about what God was and I need to write to think — so let’s get into it.

Let’s begin with another, narrower question before we tackle God’s whole nature: why did God – if he exists as Christian theology generally imagines him – create a world of suffering?

Why, if God is the loving architect of all we know, did he require pain? What purpose does it serve? And if there is no purpose, what other conclusion could we draw – presupposing the existence of God – other than that God is cruel?

It could be argued, and often has been, that suffering is necessary because it leads to growth. That we need to fall to rise, that we need to know darkness to know light, and that this too is part of God’s plan. He is sorrowful about our suffering, but rejoices in all we overcome, especially when we grow nearer to him through that suffering. It is often framed this way:

If you are a parent, at some point you must loosen your grip on your children, remove the protective measures, and allow them to experience the world for themselves. It hurts, because you know they will struggle, you know the world is a dangerous, upsetting place, but if you never let them go, they’ll never learn to fend for themselves, they’ll never thicken their skin sufficiently to withstand the hardships that accompany life. So you let them go, and watch from a removed perspective as they stumble and get back up again, learning to navigate an often upsetting world. God, as a familial, paternal figure, acts in a similar way. He does not desire suffering, but knows its importance.

This is not a fresh metaphor, and the typical response is not groundbreaking either, but we’ll list it out quickly here. It goes something like this:

“Sure, parents want their children to face some hardships, because they know it will help them learn and grow, and in consequence prepare them better to succeed and find happiness in a world that has a high potential for sorrow. But if they were offered a second option, one in which suffering was not necessary for their children’s growth, success, or happiness – wouldn’t they take it? Of course they would! They would leap at the chance to spare the ones they love any and all pain. They would rejoice that they live in a world in which suffering is unnecessary and vulgar, not common and accepted. God, unlike an earthly father, has the enviable position – being omnipotent as he is – to construct the world as he pleases. And so why not construct a universe free from the necessity of suffering? If he can and yet chooses not to, God must be evil. If he can’t, he must not be God.”

This is a debate that could go on in circles forever. Do people require suffering in order to learn and grow? I don’t know. From my perspective – annoyingly embedded in the current world in which suffering is necessary – I can’t imagine any other way. On the other hand, I’m not God, so that’s not my job.

But, for the sake of conversation, let’s say that we buy the message given out by the parent/child metaphor. Let’s assume that human suffering is necessary for growth, and because of this, by God creating a world with suffering, he was actually helping us grow. Otherwise, God wouldn’t dream of adding suffering to the world for no reason… right?

Let’s walk down another common train of thought.

Does God love his creation and every living thing within it?

I believe most Christians would say, enthusiastically, yes.

Does that love extend to Non-human animals?

See the previous question – yes!

Since God is the loving creator of all living things, and we have established that he only allows human suffering because we need it to learn and grow, he must have created a world in which animal suffering did not exist. Otherwise, although some might consider it less sinister than if he was tormenting humans, God is cruel.

So, why is the animal kingdom built upon suffering? Natural selection, prey and predator, the endless expanse of forest and mountain and river in which, every moment, creatures who can boast God’s love for them are torn to shreds, mauled, left for dead, and ravaged by disease and violence they have no capacity to understand. Is it that this suffering is required for the learning and growth of the animals? No! Animals cannot, in the way humans can, narrativize their lives. They cannot look back on pain with a wistful eye and a “it all worked out how it was supposed to” attitude. They just suffer.

When I was little (I don’t remember the exact age) I watched a Planet Earth type show. At one point in the show, a gazelle was drinking from a shallow stream. Of course, leaping from just outside the frame and exploding onto the scene, was a lion. It clamped its jaws on the hind leg of the gazelle and tore away at its flesh. Miraculously, the gazelle broke free of the beast’s grip and tore off across the arid plain. As it ran, the hind leg on the right side was spasming. A massive chunk of muscle and skin was dangling from the gazelle’s body, flapping up and down with each violent shake of the leg. It looked like the gazelle was trying to fling the leg far from its body, to dispel the pain, but the leg clung stubbornly to the bloodied gazelle’s frame. That animal would not survive. It would stumble under the burning sun and bleed slowly to death. It would feel pain, it would feel confusion, but it would not feel perspective, it would not feel a higher purpose. It would just suffer.

This is the system which the loving Christian God has created. You cannot say, “that is the natural cycle of life,” because this cycle – to the christian believer – did not just spontaneously form. No, God knows every hair on your head, God knows every grain of sand; no detail is too small for him. God was an expert craftsman, shaping the world in just the way he willed. Every aspect of the universe, from the largest galaxy to the smallest atom owes their existence to God.

God decided upon the predator prey system of the animal kingdom. Why?

Now, this violent system is only one aspect of meaningless suffering – there’s also animal disease, natural disaster, etc – but we don’t need to dip into them because God has already fallen short. There were ways, accessible with five minutes of half-hearted brainstorming, to greatly reduce the need for animal suffering. The obvious example: when God was sketching out his creation, why did he not make every animal an herbivore? With one fell swoop he could have eliminated untold suffering for creatures that – as we’ve established – he loves. There is no reason for this suffering, apart from the reason that God forced it to exist. Animals do not understand or grow from suffering. The deer that is walking through the woods and is crushed by a falling tree, left to die in confused agony, finds no comfort and no meaning – they simply die. It is purposeless suffering. If I saw a person strangling a dog I would intervene because the suffering of animals is wrong and I am morally bound to try to stop it. God has not. Instead of preventing the suffering of animals, he has created an ecosystem dependent on it.

I am faced now with a contradiction that becomes difficult to reconcile within the confines of Christian theology. In the world there is suffering. That suffering exists because God – who created everything and holds infinite power paired with infinite love for all living things – chose nevertheless to construct a system of existence in which excessive and meaningless suffering not only flourish, but are central to the whole ecosystem. That we might argue, with debatable effectiveness, that human suffering can be justified through the healing salve of growth/learning does nothing to explain non-human suffering.

If that is the case, and suffering only exists because a supposedly loving God chose to allow it, and even create system for it to thrive, I begin to ask this question:

Is God good because simply by acting, goodness is ascribed to those actions? Or is God good because he chooses good acts?

If you prefer option one, God never actually makes a moral choice. Each action of God, by the very nature of being carried out by God, is intrinsically good. This is the easiest option; if you want to stop thinking about all the above questions and accept that it doesn’t matter how you feel morally about the actions of God, because they must be good, you can stop worrying.

This may be the easier way to live. In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, a priest happily walks this path.

“He probably refrained on principle from looking too closely at those problems which are in some sort the reserve of towering and iconoclastic intellects.”

He believed in a God who is good because he could not be anything else.

If you take option two, that God actually chooses between good and bad actions and is worthy of worship because of his power, yes, but mostly because of his consistent and unfailing ability to always choose good actions, we now have to consider that goodness is something independent of God. Goodness is a force, a thing all to its own; an invisible, but essential element in the makeup of existence. And if God is making a choice to do good, there must also be the choice, never taken, to do bad. These two ephemeral concepts – good and bad – are outside the power of God. They cannot be destroyed or altered. They have the malleability to adapt themselves to every grand decision and every miniscule choice. They don’t exist in any one thing or personage – even God. Instead, they permeate everything. They flow through the whole of existence, from the firmament to the core. And yet, there are times when good and bad make themselves felt, when they are tangible and nearly visible.

For example, when you are in a history class and an old video of one of Hitler’s rally speeches plays, the room fills with the distinct presence of evil. There is a feeling, like a cold breeze or a shiver down your spine, that something dark has gathered around you. It’s not seen – but it is felt deeply. On the other hand, when you are seated around the dinner table and that magic build up of jokes reaches a crescendo that leaves you hunched over, tears streaming down your face from laughter until your stomach hurts, there is, surrounding the whole table, a feeling of indescribable good. The presence of these things – good and bad – is as real as any other aspect of the universe.

There is no section of reality that does not contain these two things. They flow throughout it all, but they pool, growing in density and reaching our level of perception, through interaction. They make themselves known in the space between. I imagine it like heat waves above the hood of a black car in the height of summer. This rippling in the fabric of reality is the build up of goodness or badness, and it forms a tether between things. Whether it’s between laughing friends at a dinner table or between a student and their first sight of Hitler – good and bad become tangible in the interaction, they become present. They are there with us, between us, and in us. That’s why, I believe, there are certain people that, when they walk in the room, seem to have about them a distinct, nearly visible glow, and as you get close to them – because you can’t help but try to – you feel your own light begin to shine brighter.

Where does God fall within this? Well, I think the second option – that good and bad are things independent of God – is closer to what I believe, but with an important change I’ll reveal momentarily.

First, here’s what I include in goodness and badness:

Under the umbrella of “bad” I include the following: Evil, jealousy, cruelty, selfishness, suffering, anger, hatred, corruption, and isolation. (and many other similar nouns).

Under the umbrella of “good” I include the following: Joy, selflessness, love, laughter, connection, empathy, generosity, happiness, and belonging (and many other similar nouns).

Now! Here’s where I make my claim. I believe that God is not a personage. I don’t believe in a familial, let alone paternal creator. I do not believe in a creator at all. I don’t believe I was made in the image of a cosmic being. I don’t believe in the craftsmanship of a being that carefully constructed everything I know – and don’t know – about reality. I don’t believe that there is a God or Gods who chooses goodness or dictates goodness by their actions. I don’t believe in a grand plan or a kingdom of God.

I believe God is good.

This non-personage God could be described as holiness, as sacredness, or even as the sublime. God, to me, is not a person or a father or a being at all. God is another manifestation of that eternal, independent, objective good.

Under the umbrella for “good,” I add holiness, sacredness, the sublime, and yes, God.

Returning to the priest from Les Miserables, though he unquestionably and loyally accepts and venerates God the Father, he, to put it simply, doesn’t worry himself too much about it. Instead, he focuses on love.

“‘Love one another.’ To him everything was contained in those words, his whole doctrine, and he asked no more.”

“He was a simple soul who loved, and that was all.”

To reference one more piece of literature, in George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch a character – Dorothea – describes to another character what she believes. She says, “I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me.” Her belief is as follows:

“That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the Divine power against evil – widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.”

With these characters I agree.

I find God in the space between – when goodness accumulates, ripples like heat waves in the summer, and makes itself briefly visible. This can happen when deep in the woods, trudging up steep hills and battling blistered feet, when suddenly the trees clear and you step out on a ledge overlooking an overwhelming expanse of mountaintops and endless forest — in that connection between yourself and nature is a palpable and sacred good. It can happen with a song, when the cords or the lyrics sing directly to your soul and your heart bursts from emotion – a holy good has pooled around your feet as the music plays, tangible and real. It can happen reading poetry or literature, when you commune with a soul, either alive or long dead, who puts words to unutterable feelings you didn’t know you had — in that moment there is a sacred light between the pages and your eyes

Most powerfully, it happens between people. It happens when we reach out to each other, it happens when we try to understand each other, it happens when we love each other. With every tear we shed in the arms of a loved one, we push back the dark and pour in the light. With every hug, with every confession, with every cheer, with every joke, with every act of service – the light grows stronger, it gathers around us and we are blessed with its holy presence. It makes itself known in the space between, in the connection, in the tether. As we cling to each other we draw goodness to us. We call God to us.

There’s another place goodness, and therefore holiness, can be found – and it might be my favorite. Sometimes, when it’s late at night and you forget that the trash is going to be picked up early the next morning, you put on the closest pair of shoes, your heels hanging out the back and the laces undone, and you lug the trashcan to the curb. You pause for a second and look up at a star-filled sky. You are struck by the sublime feeling that occurs when you try and fail to grasp the enormity of the universe and your inconsequential place in it, and yet you still marvel, you still are overwhelmed by an equally enormous sense of grateful awe that you are witness to that expansive sky and that you – however improbably – exist beneath it.