God not always good, Theology Q&A 15 of 23

Question asked/answered: How do you explain that God doesn't seem always good?

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[Hrugnir]

@dagoose109 And once we have arrived at the fullness, what? The end of consciousness?

That's the thing, I do long for unity with God and going become more like Him, but I don't like not being an I anymore. I do believe in dying from myself and my selfish passions. But that is not the same as saying God wishes to annihilate personhood, which Eastern monism (Buddhism and Hinduism) implies, at least.

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Yes I am definitely Monistic. Love in separation creates an incredible feeling of longing for dissolving back into the Beloved Wholeness or Holiness of God.  Even if it takes some egos millions of years to awaken and remember, eventually all waves of separation return to their source. Once back in Absolute Oneness beyond time and space, those millions of years will simply be a blink---a Holy Instant so to speak. It is an amazing journey for us all.

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Exactly. When we discuss God it is important to clarify whether we are speaking of the Absolute Macrocosm or the Relative Microcosm of the little sandbox on the shore. We are free agents in this relative physical plane with an infinite number of possibilities and potentials to choose from because we "appear' to be separate from the Absolute. However, in Absolute Reality every single possibility and potential outcome is already accounted for. We just can't see it from here.

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Because God to me is Everything, yet no specific thing the only accurate description I could apply to the Divine Presence is through negation; God is not this, God is not that. I could never even begin to imagine what God actually IS because the human mind just cannot wrap itself around that. It is like trying to imagine Infinity or Eternity---eventually the mind just has to give up. It is very much like Zen to me.

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Great point! When we are engaged in discussing the Intangible, we inevitably use tangible terms and concepts. If I state that God is completely transcendent of any human conceptualization, and can only be perceived through one's heart/soul I have indeed stated a belief and concept. However, I cannot validate, prove, or cling to that because the Reality is always greater than the idea of that reality. I question all beliefs including my own, and I really have none to defend.

[Hrugnir]

@dagoose109 I should add, though, that in ONE sense nothing is outside the ULTIMATE will of God. I do believe the world has never been outside of God's control or outside his reach. He could call all of existence outside himself into non-existence if he wanted to.

It's just that within the little sandbox that is the Universe, God did create free agents using real free will to make real decisions, including whether or not to live in love towards God and each other.

[Hrugnir]

@dagoose109 Basically this is what I'm saying: My view of God states that He is so great, intelligent and so loving that he lowered himself to our level so we could come closer to His level, and found a way of getting His message across to us. The creator of human beings surely knows how to communicate higher truths to those very same human beings.

Of course, every argument has presumptions, and mine is that love requires duality. Monism (which you seem to believe in) thus excludes love for me.

[Hrugnir]

@dagoose109 The thing I don't get with the argument "We can't know X about God" or "God is too big for that to be possible", is that such an argument IS a statement about God. If you believe that God is too transcendent to interact personally with human beings, where did you get that knowledge from? If you believe God is too transcendent to literally be incarnate or literally make a message understandable to human beings, what message did you interpret to state that fact about God?

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Regarding the issue of good and evil, if humans were suddenly removed from earth would there still be evil? Is evil simply a human judgment of the world? Is nature good and evil or simply just being nature? Could evil even exist independently outside the control of an Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient God? "Nothing is evil lest thinking make it so"....Shakespeare

[dagoose109]

@Hrugnir---Of course Free Will cannot be forced, but in an Absolute sense there really is no such thing as Free Will to begin with. In this dimension of space-time relativity we only "appear" to have Free Will and Choice in a Field of Infinite Possibility, but in the bigger Universal Picture everything past present and future has already happened in the Eternal Now. As God is the First Cause of all that is, everything is perfectly pre-determined. Only God's Will exists.