Qu'ran Reading 8:69

Eat then of the lawful and good (things) which you have acquired in war, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Understanding God, in His own words

Zacharia 8:14-17

Thus says the Lord of hosts: As I determined to harm you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, says the Lord of hosts, and I did not relent, so again in these days I have determined to favor Jerusalem and the house of Juda; do not fear!

These are the things you should do: Speak the truth to one another; let there be honesty and peace in the judgments at your gates, and let none of you plot evil against another in his heart, nor love a false oath. For all these things I hate, says the Lord.

Commentary:

First, especially for you young people (greetings again), let me explain to you that we know exactly the year when God spoke these words to the prophet Zacharia. This happened in 518 BC. We know this because Zacharia documented during what year of the reign of an actual king that we all know about through archaeology that he received this part of a particular group of messages directly from God. So you can think about how 2527 years ago God spoke these (and other) actual words to Zacharia!

I continue to point these facts out wherever I can so that you can continue to tell the difference between cultural myths and sets of beliefs that do not have cross reference to actual geology and history that we can verify, compared to the Bible and the Qur'an where actual words and deeds are spoken and conducted and written down by real people who really lived and who were witness to actual secular historical events in real places, in addition to being witnesses to the faith history (relationship with God). So Zacharia would have heard these words directly from God just over five hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ and, as we see from the arithmetic, 2527 years ago from today in this year of 2009 AD.

I selected this passage to make commentary regarding because I happened to open up to it as I was waiting for Sunday School to begin at the non-Catholic church I attend (in order to be cross pollinating between my Catholic faith and other faiths). Even if I am the only person to do so (and I hope that I am not the only one), I am determined to at least set the example of demonstrating that one can (and should) hold one's own faith, but respect and even delight in other denominations as they worship the same God. So I'm the resident guest Catholic LOL.

I thought this would be a helpful passage to look at for several reasons. It provides, using His own words, insight into God's will and his "viewpoint," for lack of a better word. People always say they want to better understand God. Do they? If so, they need only read (flinching where necessary) what God actually says. Here's some commentary and help in understanding God in this particular passage. The context is that God is dictating to Zacharia what he should tell the Israelites, the Jewish people, during their time of trouble. (They got in trouble with God quite a bit, being like all humans, easily tempted astray, and then reaping the consequences of their bad decisions and loss of faith in God).

1. First, God confirms and reminds his people that, yes, historically their fathers (ancestors) had provoked God, and as a consequence he was wrathful with them.

Now, is wrath the same as anger? Not really, though the words are used interchangeably in some places. However, God helps the reader to recall the definition of wrath when he reminds them that he is much provoked before becoming wrathful. Wrath is justifiable anger. Human anger may be justifiable, or it may be for no good reason at all. We all know people who are appropriately anger (what is traditionally called "righteous anger") and others who are filled with anger at themselves, at others, and the world, for no good reason. God is never angry without a perfect reason. Not just a "good reason," but a perfect reason. That's why it is often called wrath, because people bring the angry consequences of their actions down upon themselves from God.

Now, why do I say that God always has not only "good reason" but "perfect reason" to be wrathful? You need two pieces of knowledge to understand why. The first is that you must know, as we've discussed before, that God is all knowing. He knows not only all that was, all that is going on "now," and also all that will be in the future, but he also knows all the, to use the fantasy term, "alternate futures" that would happen if things go "differently." So God knows what people will do if he is wrathful on a particular occasion compared to what will happen in the future if he is not wrathful. So the second piece of knowledge you need is to have faith and trust God. God never decides to do something that makes the future worse. This is a very hard thing for short-lived human beings to understand. God knows that, which is why he is never mysterious about why he is wrathful on any given occasion. He doesn't want people to wonder why God's mad at them. God wants them to know why and better yet, he wants them to stop doing what is making him so mad. That is because God knows that a worse outcome, a far worse series of consequences, will result from human beings' bad behavior and sinfulness. You must have understanding and faith that when God is wrathful, he is nipping in the bud something far worse that will happen if humans continue unchecked in that course of action.

2. So here you can see God explain that in the past he has been wrathful when provoked, but on this occasion he "has determined to favor" (not be wrathful), despite the provocations! Now, when God "decides" or "determines" something, it's not like he had to sit around and think about it. He's just putting it in human terms so that you all can understand him better. He is letting you know that he had two options (to take wrathful action or not) and which he will be doing. As I've explained, God knows all, absolutely everything that ever was, and he knows in advance all that will be and all that could have been. God knows all of the future, including, of course, what he will do in response to human actions. He basically just "waits" for humans who, through their free will and their existence in the universe where there is sequential real time that ticks away, to reach a point where God is predetermined to take action, or not. God lives beyond time but interfaces with humans in a time based context. Thus God is explaining that even though the bad behavior of his faithful people merits wrathful response, he is not going to respond on this occasion with wrath!

3. Now, having said that, God immediately lets the people, through Zacharia, know that it does not mean that what people are doing is "OK" or is "forgiven." God decides not to be wrathful, but that does not mean that God is giving permission for the behavior to continue; far from it! He then lists the things that are really making him wrathful.

4. God says to "Speak the truth to one another." That means the people, his faithful and supposedly believing pious people, are NOT speaking the truth to one another. In other words, the people are filled with day to day lies and, at the very least, omission of truth.

5. God says to "Let there be honesty and peace in the judgments at your gates." What does God mean? First, understand that the word "judgment" in Biblical times does not mean courtroom type of legal judging, but it is a word that means any sort of action or decision making. So the fact that God says that there must now be honesty and peace in the judgments means that there is now a lack of honesty and a lack of peace in the actions and decision makings by the people. That is quite a mess. Why does God say "at your gates?" He means these are civil and commercial and personal failings, since gates represent the day to day secular coming and going of people and their matters. God is making clear that the lying and the lack of honesty and peace is not taking place in the temple or the synagogues, but in the public and private squares, among and between people in their day to day activities. (I'm not saying bad things were not happening there too, but I'm just explaining the four problems that God is listing here that of themselves would merit his wrath had he determined to do so).

6. God says "And let none of you plot evil against another in his heart." Notice that God is condemning only fulfilled evil actions; he is condemning the very seeds of thinking of evil actions and mean spirited thoughts and emotional impulses! God sees into all human beings continually, and he is stating that there are many who have evil notions, ideas, emotions and thoughts directed at fellow human beings. I have continually highlighted to you in previous blog postings that scripture teaches that thoughts and wishes that are evil and unjust are individual sins, whether one then follows up on the thought or wish with a deed against another person or not!

7. God says "Nor love a false oath." What does that mean? God is saying that apparently people are not just making false oaths (which means either telling lies or making promises based on false pretenses), but worse, people are admiring those who are making false oaths! So you have people who are making false oaths surrounded by even more people who admire them for doing so. This is why God is saying not to "love a false oath," since he means, to put it in modern terminology, that people are admiring and emulating the ones who are actually committing those sins.

8. God says, "For all these things I hate." The scripture repeatedly, and Jesus demonstrated in the flesh, that God hates sin. God does not say he hates those people; he hates "all these things," which are the sins. The problem is that when certain people (and sadly there are many like that in each generation) become covered with sin and invest their lives in it, the hatred of sin that God has will inevitably fall with wrath upon the person, who had had ample chance to repent and convert their life but has not. God is stating here that these are things that he hates. It is stark warning that he hates things that too many people, then and now, think are "white lies" or "small sins" or "the cost of doing business." They think God hates just the "big sins" of murder, idolatry and so forth. This is a stark reminder, as God makes here an "intervention," that he hates what too many people take for granted then and today.

I hope that this has been enlightening and helping you to understand that God does wish to be understood, to tell humans what they must do for their own well being (as God sees the future and knows the consequences of bad behavior that humans will pull down upon their own heads as the results of their own free choice of actions), and that God gives very fair and clear warning when wrath and smiting by God is likely to occur, and that it is only his mercy, not merit, that spares people to give them another chance at repentance and correction.

Sports talk, Rose, Vick, rehab and recognition

Here are my thoughts since these subjects are in the news.

I think Pete Rose should be considered for and voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here is my reasoning. Yes, gambling and the implications, if not the reality, for throwing a game is rightly considered the greatest enemy to the integrity of the sport. (I would argue that illegal drug use and performance enhancers have overtaken gaming/game throwing to share the greatest threat category, however). So I was certainly in agreement when Pete Rose was banned for life, even though as a fan, I felt the agony along with him of such a finality.

Having said that, however, I have always felt he should be inducted according to his real accomplishments in the sport, minus the punishment he received. Punishing for a wrong doing must logically be separated by a fair minded people from now erasing, shunning or denying what was good and valid in his achievements. If his performance and statistics were achieved because he had clubbed guys on the opposing team on the head before the game, LOL, thus lowering their stats to increase his, of course that would be different. I'm being a little silly in that example just to make a point. Gambling and game throwing, while a severe threat to the sport overall, do not automatically mean either his accomplishments were ill gotten gains either via performance enhancement OR performance degradation of opponents, unless a conspiracy was uncovered where everyone was throwing games in unison. Without such evidence it is obvious that Pete Rose was correctly punished for his proven singular role, but he should still be recognized for his valid and legitimate accomplishments.

This is particularly obvious because after Pete Rose, we now have decades of "asterisk" baseball, where a muddle of baseball achievements will always be questioned because of the years of performance enhancement, such as steroid, usage. This era, by negative example, demonstrate even more the singularity of Pete Rose's misdeed and bad choice. While he committed an error that is considered a grave threat to the sport, the sport itself is now filled with statistics that result from widespread collusion in the use of performance enhancing drugs. This makes what Pete Rose did put in its proper perspective: punishment by banning from the game, yes, but ignoring his legitimate achievements, no. Consider him eligible and be honest in appraising his record and put him in his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, is my advice.

This makes me think of Michael Vick, as I have thought about him during this week and these past months. Again, as a people, not just sports fans, you must ask yourself one question: Do you believe in punishment followed by a chance at rehabilitation and redemption, or not? Don't be hypocrites. Either you believe in the theory that one punishes according to the crime (and he was given a prison sentence, which he served, fines, loss of his income and job, etc, all as punishment and consequences, such as loss of endorsement opportunities) or you don't. You either believe a fit sentence is adjudicated, served, and then considered completed, or you do not. If you do not that means you don't think anyone can ever be punished enough, and that is a breakdown of both civil and moral code. Secondly, either you believe in rehabilitation and redemption, or you do not. Do not be a hypocrite and say that you are enlightened etc yet you will never trust someone again once he or she had erred. Either you believe in opportunity for redemption, or you do not. If you do not then you seem to fall into a category of considering others (not yourself of course) of being "once stained always stained." Like the hypocrisy of some about punishment, hypocrisy of not believing in redemption is also a breakdown of both civil and moral code.

So I believe that if a team wants to give a chance to Michael Vick, he should be made eligible and allowed to get on with life, consistent with what people SAY they believe about both punishment and rehabilitation/redemption.

Best of luck to both men, and all other people who find themselves in such a situation, and also those in the responsible positions to decide not to be hypocrites.

Understanding God: tragedies like Australia

There is a debate because a Pentecostal minister says that he dreamed some time ago that the liberality of abortion in Victoria would bring about a disaster like fire, as God withdraws his support from the people there. Others are upset and angry at such theories and remind people of the continual mercy and consolation that God provides. Both sides accurately cite scripture. So what should people think?

First of all, there is no new revelation, so those who dream that God is directly telling them something (especially of a prophetic nature) must use a great deal of discernment in understanding their dreams and intuitions. Remember that Jesus Christ himself did not know when the Second Coming would occur, for example, so God certainly will not give advance warning to anyone of anything apocalyptic or revelatory in nature: all that is going to be said on those subjects is already said in the scriptures.

Having said that the Holy Spirit works tirelessly among all people-believers and unbelievers-to attract them toward God and at the very least to do the best of moral and good things. Thus it is possible for people to have accurate premonitions. ESP is a fact and I recently wrote about it. So yes, both believers and unbelievers can have premonitions and accurate dreams of foreboding. The trouble is that people tend to dream using authority figures that they believe in, so a religious person will tend to dream of a premonition coming from a religious "authority figure," such as God, that the person believes in. A nonbeliever might have an equally valid premonition, but his or her dream may feature a person from the family, or someone from TV, or a historic figure... the assignment of revelatory seeming roles in dreams tends to be very individual and cultural. For example, Americans, obviously, rarely dream of the Queen of England, however she is a regular figure in dreams of British males, at least she was when I read of a study conducted about twenty years ago. So the Holy Spirit pushes all people to be good neighbors and to do the best that they can, and hopefully to become faithful believers in God, while at the same time, humans possess extra sensory perception, which gives various people remarkable insight in certain occasions.

Now, to the salient point. I've written before about God's wrath, sometimes called smiting, and warned that it is real and God will and does smite, but there are two things you must realize to put this in context. One is that God rarely smites directly and the scriptures indicate this quite clearly. It is only at times of egregious sin and corruption that God smites. One does have to have a little bit of pause and guilty conscience if one is honest, as these are times of great corruption, sin, immorality and turning away from and even mocking of God and desecration. So I would not, if I were you, sit back and think, "Why would God smite us? After all, we are so kind and wonderful." These are not kind and wonderful times, far from it. But no, God does not run around setting fires and doing "tit for tat" smiting.

However, the point the Pentecostal is making, that many deliberately or unconsciously miss, is that God is perfectly capable and frequently does withdraw support and blessing. So God does not smite, but he allows people to stew in their own juices of the consequences of their sin, evil, wickedness, or sins of neglect and omission. This is what is called in the Bible the "hardening of the heart." God can and does harden his heart when people have gone too far, and he also allows the hardening of human hearts to take place, particularly when they have tried and presumed repeatedly on his mercy without genuine reform and repentance.

When God withdraws support and allows the hardening of the heart to take place, very bad things can and do happen. This is because the Holy Spirit will not push as hard for goodness in the spirits of all men and women, and instead God will allow their true natures (which without God is not very nice) to have free rein. You have to understand that God, through the Holy Spirit, and through the guardian angels, does a great deal to make life bearable by constantly appealing to people to withstand the temptation of evil and neglect and to opt for the good whenever a choice is before them. Many people think that God is silent and aloof, but this is not true. Jesus reminded the disciples who would bar the children from coming to him that the guardian angels of all children constantly face God, and thus God is particularly protective of how children are treated. All children and their souls are born good, and are only pulled away from goodness through the actions of adults, their environment, and in some cases mental conditions. So God is very aware and through the Holy Spirit and the guardian angels strives to not only keep people on the righteous path of goodness, but also to help them with the difficulties of life. If God withdrew the support of the guardian angels, for example, life would be unimaginably unbearable, as it would be like a type of oxygen that you don't even know about but you need is suddenly sucked out of the atmosphere. Guardian angels and the Holy Spirit provide a very real constant "oxygen" of spiritual and bodily goodness, and they are individually attentive, whether the person believes or not.

So when God hardens his heart, and then allows others to harden their hearts, what happens? Well, look at the tsunami. God did not send the tsunami, but why is it that people did not install a simple warning system in that part of the world until after a quarter of a million people were washed away and died? People are greedy and selfish and did not care about implementing a warning system in that part of world, even though they knew full well the risk.

Why do I read that Victoria has liberal abortion laws, but for five years have not implemented an emergency fire warning system? Again, God does not send the fire, but he gets very tired of selfish and wicked human priorities, so he says, well, go ahead, set your priorities. And then there comes the fires and the warning system is sitting gathering dust on the shelf for five years, because of quarrels about who will pay for it. Money, money, money.

And people are shocked that many of the fires are suspected arson, and not lightning strikes (which can be monitored and I read that they are). Well, how long has a nihilistic and despairing, violent and yobbish mindset been a problem among humans? For decades now. No one has decency and mercy among each other, if one is to watch the "entertainment" that is offered, filled with violent nihilism, and how long will God protect humans from the consequences of each other's inhumanity? As I commented before, when I was in that region of the world, Melbourne and Healesville, where the fires are, Princess Diana was being raked over the coals as "average people" gleefully trumpeted her sexual and intimate matters in "Squidgygate." People were well on their way to being vulgar, coarse and cruel in the middle 1980's, and youth was being lost to nihilism, violence, addiction and thrill seeking.

God does not have to "smite," God simply needs to withdraw his protection and let you all do to each other the lowest inclination that humans will come up with, which is, as we see, pretty low. Are the arsonists horrified at what they did? Apparently not since some have raced out there and started even more fires.

That is what God meant in the Bible when he says he will "raise up an enemy" to smite the disobedient Israelites, for example. He withdraws his special blessing and protection and leaves a group exposed to the very evil that they have either promoted or neglected to address since they are busy being material idolaters and selfish depressives. God is like the parent of the addicted teenager who after repeated attempts to get them to obtain help, finally stands back and lets them fall, as they are so determined to do.

It is the same if one looks at Hurricane Katrina. No, God did not "send" the hurricane to punish people for their sinfulness. However, God withdrew his protection, and so people who worried about the levees breaking, evacuations not being sufficient, and so forth are ignored, and then the trouble comes, big time. To use a modern phrase, at some point God stands back and watches the human caused or exacerbated "train wreck." The cyclone in Burma is another example. There you have a secretive bunch of reincarnation believing Buddhists in charge of the country and they won't even allow aid to help the devestated impoverished victims. Natural disasters are a part of life, but without human intelligence and goodness to anticipate, plan, finance and be good neighbors, it does not matter what one's "faith" is or not: God will stop, at some point, the continual presumptions on his mercy and the lack of mercy that humans show toward each other.

That is what I see over and over. It is like humans are insisting on doing a dry run of the Apocalypse, through their own arrogance and neglect. Thus people are correct to feel that something is very wrong, and to think about the End of Days. Yet they are incorrect that these are those times because, believe me, there will be no mistaking it when it does happen. It's not something that the human puppeteers behind the scenes will manage or mitigate; when it happens it will be full out and unmistakable. Instead you have a time when humans should be so far advanced in decency, compassion, wisdom, stewardship and faith but are actually losing ground and going backwards, not forwards, in all of these areas. Thus humans are bringing on through their own actions and their own selfishness and neglect mini-tribulations and a dry run of the Apocalypse. Like the parent of the addicted teenager God wants nothing more than to be the consoler, yet what response does he get when he tries?

I hope that you have found this helpful.

President Bush and his pardons

I totally do not understand him. I have no idea why he has the ability to pardon and he uses it in such strange cases (often involving drugs or really minor offenses) and totally ignores cases that are pleading for his help.

I have no idea why he has not pardoned or at least commuted the sentences of the border guards who were unjustly imprisoned for wounding some illegal drug dealer. I get why the jury might have been feeling they had to be sticklers with these cases but if ever there were cases that scream for a pardon it is these. Is President Bush using bad judgment or his "advisers?" We can only continue to wonder.

I also would not have minded seeing President Bush pardon a number of veterans who are convicted of non-violent crimes. While being a vet doesn't buy the right to break the law, again, that is what pardons and mercy are supposed to be about. Who shouldn't we look to first but those who served our country and then made serious but non-violent mistakes when thinking about mercy and pardon?

This pattern of his is one of the things I plain do not understand about him. You know what it's like? He has pardon and mercy capability but plays only "small ball" with it. If you are a baseball fan you know what I mean.

Jeepers, do the right thing in the remaining days.

Understanding God: Who gets into heaven (4)

Part Four

One of the most important things that you must understand is that Jesus never taught an individual salvation. In other words, the community of the faithful is just as important as the idea of a particular person “going to heaven.” This is one of the greatest misunderstandings among some modern Christians, particularly those in non-denominational churches or with fundamentalist or Evangelical outlooks. So this is another reason that it is problematic to have an attitude of “who” individually is going to go to heaven and be “saved” and who individually is “not.”

An individual view of salvation has never been part of the Old Covenant and Jesus did not endorse such a change in stance, and neither did the Apostles or disciples. The entire Catholic Church is built in continuation of the emphasis on the “body of the faithful” for this reason, not because everyone loves “control” and a “bureaucracy.” So in this post I am going to demonstrate the Biblical basis for the community of the faithful rather than focus on individual salvation. I am not saying that souls will be judged by God as a collective, however, a strictly “individual” view of “salvation” is not what God expects. Further, an individual basis of salvation is a temptation to some sins of omission.

Exodus 19: 2-6
While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain, Moses went up the mountain to God. Then the Lord called to him and said, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob; tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites.”

1) The Lord has Moses address every single Israelite gathered together in total.
2) The Lord calls them “the house of Jacob,” which is a terminology of a single family unit.
3) The Lord says that if they obey they shall all together be his “special possession” even though God has all the earth and its people to his own.
4) The Lord says that all the Israelites will be “a” as in one “kingdom of priests,” indicating that it is a communal and collective priesthood of people, whether or not an individual is of the priestly tribe or not, and whether one performs a priestly function or not.
5) The Lord says that they will be a “holy nation,” again a collective communal covenant, not individual.

Throughout the Old Testament you can read for yourself that even though Laws address individual behavior, the Laws are given to all the people, and God always refers to the faithful collectively. One other important event that I’ve blogged about often is also underscoring the importance of the community over the individual’s “goodness” or “salvation:”

Isaiah 6:1-7
In the year king Ozia died [742 BC], I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” they cried one to the other. “All the earth is filled with his glory!” At the sound of that cry the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin is purged.”

1) Isaiah was a high priest serving in the temple, so he was far from being having “unclean lips.”
2) Yet in his astonishment at seeing God in his glory Isaiah forestalls God from even speaking to him!
3) Why? Because Isaiah by virtue of living within a community, a people of “unclean lips” he has guilt of association, even though he is a holy priest about to be called to be God’s greatest prophet since Moses.
4) Did God or the angel reply, “Oh, tut, tut, do not worry Isaiah, for you are individually saved and justified and you do not need to be modest in front of us?” No, they did not. Immediately the angel brought an ember from God’s altar to purify the lips of Isaiah.
5) Further, the angel agrees that to be a righteous PRIEST living among unclean lipped people gives him a “wickedness” and “sin” that had to be “purged.”

Nowhere is it more clear that even being righteous but living within an unclean community/society filled with sin taints if for no other reason sins of omission in addressing the sin even the faithful.

Jesus himself makes this abundantly clear when he relates this story of the poor man Lazarus:

Luke 16:19-31
“There was a certain rich man who used to clothe himself in purple and fine linen, and who feasted every day in splendid fashion. And there was a certain poor man, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. And it came to pass that the poor man died and was borne away by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; but the rich man also died and was buried in hell.
“And lifting his eyes, being in torments, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he creid out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.’

“But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime hast received good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now here he is comforted whereas thou art tormented. And besides all that, between us and you a great gulf is fixed, so that they who wish to pass over from this side to you cannot, and they cannot cross from your side to us.’

“And he said, ‘Then, father, I beseech thee to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they too come into this place of torments.’ And Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hearken to them.’ But he answered, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hearken to Moses and the Prophets, they will not believe even is someone rises from the dead.’”

1) Notice that the rich man is in hell because he neglected one specific anonymous man, Lazarus, who was a beggar lying dying in front of the rich man’s gate.
2) So the rich man is not in hell because he didn’t believe in God and he probably was even a prominent man among the faith, giving alms to charity of the prescribed times and amounts.
3) The rich man finds himself in hell because rather than being fully in the communal faith of tending to one’s neighbor in the fullest sense of the term, he had a correct and “by the book” faith.
4) Astonished by this he begs Abraham for the chance to warn his five brothers, who are undoubtedly living their prominent and privileged lives as pious and observant men, for he realizes now that being pious and observant and believing but ignoring communal need, especially at one’s front door, results in a trip to hell.
5) Notice that his attitude did not change even in hell because what does he ask? That the poor man Lazarus be the errand boy to either bring him water or to warn his brothers. The rich man does not use his chance to beg for mercy from Abraham, asking for his intervention.
Jesus is making several points when telling the disciples this story and I’ve provided commentary on the various points in previous posts. What you must realize here is that again, the rich man is not in hell because he was a “sinner” who “did not accept God as his personal savior” and even more to the point since his brothers have no clue they risk hell, just like the rich man, they all were undoubtedly believers and observant believers at that. It is not enough to be a believer and it never was enough to be a believer; one must be in the body of the faithful and ready to serve God’s will in all parts of the community in which one lives.

Here are other clues that show you how Jesus maintains the view of the faithful as a “nation of priests” and “the house of Jacob,” as God did during the Old Covenant. You do this by reading two instances where Jesus and the disciples discuss entire cities.

Matthew 11:20-24
Then he began to reproach the towns in which most of his miracles were worked, because they had not repented. “Woe to thee, Corozain! Woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been worked the miracles that have been worked in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capharnaum, shall thou be exalted to heaven? Thou shalt be thrust down to hell! For if the miracles had been worked in Sodom that have been worked in thee, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for thee.”

1) Jesus worked many miracles in these towns and he is wrathful not because they didn’t thank him but because they did not use the miracles as a sign to repent.
2) Jesus expects, just as God did in the Old Testament, entire towns to repent and convert, not individuals.
3) Jesus explains and expounds that towns that are sinful but had no advantage of a visit by him and miracles (though he preached to people from Tyre and Sidon, Mark 3:8, so he knew them well and was not discussing them theoretically) will be treated better in their day of judgment than the towns who had received miracles by Jesus.
4) Jesus goes as far as to explain that heaven is an exaltation (a lifting up in position), not something to be “expected”… it is an honor, not the default route for “adequate” observant behavior. Thus Jesus says sinner towns that had no advantage of a visit by Jesus over sinner towns that received miracles from Jesus and perhaps are nominally observant but did not view the miracles as a sign for total repentance and conversion.
5) Jesus compares this situation to when God destroyed the city of Sodom for its sin. Jesus is saying that if he or one of the prophets or angels had performed in Sodom the same miracles that Jesus performed this day in the towns he lists, that the entire city of Sodom would have repented. Sodom was FAR more sinful than these small observant Jewish burgs so you now can see how dismally these towns failed to understand that the gift of the miracles was a call to total conversion, even if they were not raging centers of sin like Sodom was.

Luke 9:51-56
Now it came to pass, when the days had come for him to be taken up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before him. And they went and entered a Samaritan town to make ready for him, and they did not receive him, because his face was set for Jerusalem. But when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?’

But he turned and rebuked them, saying, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” And they went to another village.

[Note: they refused Jesus entry to their town because the Samaritans believed that their temple on Mount Garizim was the only legitimate place and they were hostile toward anyone going to the temple of Jerusalem to worship].

1) Notice that entire towns and villages received guests, or they did not. The communities act as a whole, so it’s not like Jesus could have entered anyways because one or two good hosts would welcome him while the rest do not. This shows that community mores can sometimes “trump” the presence of individual good people, another reason why God and Jesus both emphasis the body of the faithful rather than the individual. Unfaithful communities can prevent faithful individuals from performing God’s will, and that is a problem if the faithful are in acceptance of this situation.
2) Consistent with the emphasis on community that I am explaining to you, the disciples James and John offer to call upon God to bring fire upon the entire town.
3) Consistent with the emphasis on community, Jesus replies that he is there to save, not destroy. He is still referring to the entire town; otherwise he would have said, we should not destroy the good with the bad. There is no separation of faithful individuals from the community in which they live and, most importantly, prosper (as the rich man who did not even notice Lazarus to help him). Faithful who prosper in unfaithful communities are in a problematic position when they must account to God.
4) Jesus gives the opportunity to host him to another unnamed village. Again, an entire village gains from the loss of the other town in the opportunity to host Jesus.

This continuity of viewpoint of the importance of the entire community is why in the Epistles the Apostles may address letters to individuals but they are always mindful of speaking to the entire body of the faithful. This is also why even heaven where there is no flaw is nonetheless referenced and actually viewed in Revelation as a city, the New Jerusalem. There is a continual emphasis at every level that salvation is not an individual matter, but one inexorably intertwined in the entire community.

So this is another thing you must keep in mind when thinking about “who goes to heaven?” God during the Old Covenant and Jesus in bringing the New Covenant never emphasized individual salvation: individual behavior, yes, individual judgment, yes…. But salvation and being God’s people is also linked to one’s role in the community of the faithful, and that does not mean only one’s fellow church attendees. God and Jesus Christ both demonstrate continuity throughout scripture of the importance of collective repentance, works and salvation within one’s local geographic, not ideologue, community. I cannot too strongly emphasize that the observant rich man went to hell even though he believed and also performed his perfunctory obligations, but missed in saving the poor man Lazarus, who was his community right outside his gate. Being a believer and perfunctory in one’s observance of God is not a guarantee of salvation as defined as being “exalted” to heaven if one has gotten to where one is by benefiting from or ignoring the prevailing sinfulness and inadequacy of one’s geographic community.

[Conclusion of Part Four].

Understanding God: Who gets into heaven? (2)

Part Two

Too many modern people go religion or “spirituality” “shopping.” These people have the mentality that a human being, especially an intelligent and “enlightened” one as themselves (if they are “humble” they call themselves “seekers”) can either 1) determine “which belief” is the “most accurate one” and/or 2) “which belief” will get them to heaven or a better position in whatever worldview they believe in. Here is the problem with this theory. One is not starting out on an “even footing” among all faiths, as if they are all perfectly good looking jeans but you are selecting the size that “fits you.” All of the different “beliefs” are NOT on an “equal footing” because God has had different types of relationships with communities throughout history, and it is communities that codify their belief systems. In other words, God has a consistent relationship with individuals, a personal relationship (after all, everyone has a soul created by God and a guardian angel, whether they believe in God or not, or have never even heard of God). But communities gather and codify collective “beliefs” and of course God is not providing them with their belief; that is what has come out of the past where humans grappled to assemble a world view out of the three components I listed in the first post on this subject. But then everything changed because God made himself known to ONE group of people, his chosen. No longer are the “beliefs” of others gathered from guesses about supernatural powers combined with human based creations myths, centered on speculation about the natural landscape in which communities abide. God made himself known to ONE group of people and further, embarked on a side by side witnessed relationship that is documented with facts for hundreds of years.

So it is an error to believe that one can “shop around” among “beliefs” because the only belief systems that are valid so far as your “accuracy” criterion are those based on the events of God’s relationship with humans as documented in the Bible. Notice I am not saying that one cannot get to heaven otherwise (the second criterion) and so let’s put that aside for the moment and just discuss the “accuracy” objective. No belief system that is not based on the faith history of the factual events documented between God and his chosen can be considered “correct” by any stretch of the imagination. They are all human produced stories and beliefs, worthy or not. The ancient polytheistic faiths emerged from humans having a shared gift of wanting to know God, but limited abilities to do so until God made himself explicitly and specifically known to them in return. Therefore if one is “shopping” for “accuracy” one cannot consider a belief that is not Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The Abrahamic faiths are all rooted in the actual documented dialogue and covenant between God’s chosen and God.

When we use the term “chosen” or “elect” we certainly don’t mean smarter, more holy or more moral than all the rest of people. One doesn’t have to go too far in reading the Bible to understand that. The Israelites were dancing around worshipping a golden calf as Moses was just a few miles away receiving the Ten Commandments from God in person. The term “chosen” means these are the people that God selected, as in “chose,” to reveal himself to and to establish an ongoing relationship that is God given and thus accurate, not based on human invention or speculation. God’s first choice was to covenant with all of humans, and that was through Adam and Eve. Their inability to obey and not in a minor area but in the worse of all areas, wanting to be like God and command good and evil, was humanity’s first chance and first fail. Therefore while they are the faith ancestors and their faithful descendents maintained knowledge of God and piety, the second chance that God gave was to select the people, the tribe, the individuals with whom he would lay down a many-generational relationship that would provide guidance for all humans, starting with the events written in the Torah.

Thus God had relationships with the series of patriarchs and prophets that were the continuity of year after year of his consistent face among them, concern and presence. Remember that writing per se did not exist in those days, so it’s not like the patriarchs and prophets were able to keep diaries of their relationship with God. But two things happened: 1) they, as all primitive people, memorized and kept oral history, passing each carefully to their next generations and 2) God provided Moses with the knowledge of all that had gone before and how to record these events in what would become the foundation of the Torah-the Pentateuch-the “Five Books of Moses.” Here is one modern way to think of Moses. When one uses a computer and a word processor, it is a program that has pre-established formats where one can create documents. When one sits to write it’s not like you have to invent for yourself the idea of an alphabet, numbers, paper, language, sentences, etc. We all have reached a common understanding of how written communications work, and a word processor makes it consistent in terms of results. Moses provided the first “template” of how to document in writing the events in faith history, of the ongoing and very real relationship and interaction between the chosen people and God. Thus among the many things that Moses did, and how great he was in God’s eyes, one of them you need to understand is that Moses himself was guided by God to take their relationship out of the oral history and put it in writing as witness for future generations.

Once this revelation was made, that God not only wants but co-authors, in a manner of speaking, the written documentation of God’s relationship with the chosen, it does not really matter whose actual quill is put to the parchment. Scribes abounded from the earliest times of writing and yes, they took “dictation.” What mattered is that Moses created the “template” by which only events that are of God (involving God’s relationship with the chosen) are included and that they must be “witnessed” events. By witnessed we mean that the events are attested to following the God given directives of how to observe and assert the truth of the matter. Jesus has a very lengthy comment about the difference between human witnessing (asserting the truth of the matter following the witness rules) and God witnessing, which is that God’s intervention is obvious and thus God himself is witnessing to the accuracy of his prophet. Jesus was irked but did not lose his temper when questioned by the scribes and Pharisees about how he could “witness to himself” because Jesus understood that they were speaking from disbelief, yes, but also the caution of having dutifully followed the “template” that Moses had first provided for documenting their relationship with God. I’ll include that passage later, but do not want to lose the train of thought in this location.

So Moses is the author of the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament of the Bible and what is the Pentateuch of the Torah. By “author” we mean that he developed the “format” that all others will emulate when “adding books to the Bible” (although of course it was not a sequential writing process) and Moses provided the information God gave to him about events that transpired before there was written history, from the moment of creation to their present time of the Exodus. Many different physical hands, of course, copy the books of the Bible generation after generation and indeed it is likely that Moses was far to busy to actually put quill to parchment of every word himself. But the template was established that only the truthful and the witnessed (either by humans or by God) could be recorded, and that it would be written with great diligence of names, places and dates in faith history being recorded. The Old Testament has therefore always been a combination of secular and faith history events. That is why one cannot “faith shop” among different “beliefs” because there is no equivalent to the Old Testament of the Bible, as God did not elect to reveal himself to any other community.

To give you better understanding of the continuity of this dialogue, here is a much summarized timetable for sections of the Old Testament. The events described in the beginning of faith history, from creation to Adam to Eve and their offspring all, obviously occurred before writing was developed, and thus occurred more than three thousand years before the Christian Era, thus at least five thousand years ago. The period of the Patriarchs (what is described in Genesis 12-50) is also before written history and occurred two thousand years to around thirteen hundred years before the Christian era. Thus during the time of Moses and the Exodus, around thirteen to twelve hundred years before the Christian era, Moses received from God understanding of what had transpired during the previous two thousand or so years of God’s relationship with his elect and first had this history transcribed. When Moses died Aaron and his descendants added the last moments of Moses to the writings and then from that point carried on in the template of documenting the faith history as it occurred. Thus the next book after the first five books of Moses is called Josue (Joshua), named after a successor of Moses and picks up where the books leave off in recording the conquest, division and occupation of Chanaan by the Israelites under his leadership. Most likely the book is a combination of actual writing by Joshua and the later putting of quill to scroll of events based on oral memory.

Now, it’s not like people kept the Bible in one place and “added” the books to it in sequence after the Pentateuch. Here is where the word processing template analogy is handy. What the Israelites now had was a faith template. They knew that it was not only allowable to record faith history but an imperative given to them by God. Thus the priests and prophets had what one could call a spiritual template based on the Torah, the first five books, whereby they copied and emulated the recording of both secular and faith events. Thus the next book after Joshua, The Book of Judges, is a compilation of the events regarding twelve military leaders of Israel in the time between the death of Joshua and the establishment of the monarchy in Israel. Thus scribes “followed the template” and recorded the secular and divine events of this period, again, probably a combination of some being written “on the scene” and the rest committed to oral memory until it could be compiled and synthesized into the book. Judges covers a period of about two hundred years. The next books of the Bible then record the establishment of the consecrated monarchy in Israel, another period of several hundred years. This is how each book was written to correspond to actual secular and faith events during a period of time, and then following the “template” of Moses, at some point put into writing in a scroll or parchment. The most recent pre Christian era book of the Old Testament was written only one or two hundred years before Christ.

Therefore, it is important to understand that what Christians call the Old Testament is a compilation of books written to document actual secular and faith events, where God is consistently present throughout in an active participatory manner, for over thirteen hundred thousand years of actual writing, of scribing. There is no other “belief system” or “faith” that documents the active participation by God in a perfectly consistent fashion (it’s the same God with the same expectations year after year and generation after generation) paired with the actual secular historical events. The Bible is not an “option;” it is the documented secular and faith history of the people who are the elect of God, whether one chooses to “believe” or not.

Now, to understand the Qur’an, think of my analogy of the template, and also of how God had to “catch Moses up” with all that had happened that was true in the thousands of years of faith history before the Exodus. God had to “catch up” the people who would become the Muslims that they too were of the heritage of the elect that their physical and spiritual forefathers trace back to Adam and Eve and through Abraham to Ishmael and where they are today. The Prophet (PBUH) was like Moses in that regard of getting the divine revelation that was catching them up to realizing they have the same heritage. God gives them their own “template” and that is the Qur’an. Instead of being a template for future writings, since there is no addition to the Qur’an nor will there be, this template is to rediscover their sacred sites, such as those established by Abraham, and the template of worshipful behavior. That is why the shared faith history of Jews/Christians and Muslims is highly summarized in the Qur’an. The Qur’an in that regard is a “catch up” of what had gone before and is shared, but provided so that the spiritual template of the Qur’an for those who believe to have context and understanding of God. Thus the Qur’an touches on spiritual history from Adam and Eve to Jesus Christ, establishing for Muslims the lineage of the prophets.

Why did God do it this way? Because this is the only way that God can reveal himself to humans but also preserve their free will and freedom of choice. If God wanted to love preprogrammed obedient robots he would have invented those in the first place instead of allowing humans to arise from the clay. It’s not love if it has to be forced, and God forces no one to love him. It is, however, a really good idea to love God. Why? Because one cannot truly love fellow human beings, either as intimates or friends, or the community of “neighbors” if one does not love God because God is the source of all authentic love. However, this is why you need to have faith that throughout history those who did not know about God but who loved life, their family and their neighbors, and who had genuine charity would somehow be taken care of by God when it is their time to pass. God is wherever there is genuine love and people do not have to “wait” to love one another in his name. That is why one must have faith that those who “fell asleep” who were righteous but who did not know God or know of him are treated with the perfection of discernment of doing what is right for them in eternity that only God possesses.

Everything changes, however, as humans demand to control good and evil, and to use their “free choice” to make their “own decisions” about what is “right and wrong.” No longer are humans like the early childlike humans, who struggle to survive and who have to do the best that they can in their lives, and then fall into sleep in God when they die, if they have been good and righteous. This is why God made two “interventions,” to use a modern term often used to describe the beginning of rehab. One is the intervention of his elect, his chosen people, where God makes himself known and is “living” side by side with them so that they can know God, fear God (fear in the sense I’ve explained in the gifts of the Holy Spirit) and provide the gift of witness, the scripture, that is the truth and expectations of God and his people, humans. The second intervention is Jesus Christ, the Savior. This is so that the doorway to God and the pathway (one that each person must choose to walk, because with the knowledge of good and evil no one is just going to roll their way into heaven like the “kind Neanderthal”) to God can be opened to all, and not just to his elect.

Conclusion of Part Two.

Matthew 21:23-27

And when he had come into the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority dost thou do these things? And who gave thee this authority?” Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you answer me this, I in turn will tell you by what authority I do these things. Whence was the baptism of John? From heaven, or from men?”

But they began arguing among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people, for all regard John as a prophet.” And they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.” Then he in turn said to them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Understanding God: Who gets into heaven?

Understanding God: Who goes to heaven?

The question of who goes to heaven (who is saved) and who is not (and thus is denied the presence of God, which is the most fundamental definition of hell) cannot be understood or answered without understanding God’s attribute of mercy. Remember that God not only loves, he IS love, and that his mercy flows from his unlimited love. In this section I will utilize logic and reasoning and in parallel cite from scripture.

The first way that God demonstrates his mercy is that every human culture, as a community and individually, seeks to know him. That is something that is unique to human beings, compared to the animals, which have intelligence, depth of feeling, and even sophisticated social structures, but do not seek God. That is because animals are still in the Eden state of mind where their environment, supplied by the Creator, provides all that is needed for them to survive and create the life of their offspring in turn. But humans are different. No matter where you go in the world, and no matter what the culture, or what stage of human progress, humans are wired to seek God. Humans are even making advances in identifying what parts of the brain are stimulated by the search for God. Looking for God and seeking to know him is not an evolutionary survival advantage, otherwise all animals of a certain level of intelligence would seek God too. Rather, seeking God at the most fundamental level (and thus I mean to know him before being concerned about his laws and implications for human behavior) is not particularly helpful to finding food, water, shelter, finding a mate and passing along the strongest and best adapted genes to the next generation. Good living by following God’s rules does that through the sheer common sense and morality of good and healthy behavior, but there is something very deep that is shared by all humans before the benefit of following God’s rules can be considered. That is a biological and spiritual imperative to get to know God.

Some modern detractors claim that early humans seek God because they feared the harsh world they lived in. That does not make sense, however, because the desire to understand God cuts across both prosperous and poor cultures, those who live in lands of plenty and relatively easy living, and those who live in the most harsh conditions. What is the first thing that any explorer finds when he or she locates a new people? They find a belief structure and a search for God, regardless of the ease or harshness of that culture and of the environment within which they must live. If anything strength of belief in God increases with the prosperity of a culture.

Therefore any student of human history, whether systematic or anecdotal, has to concede that there is a consistent search for God and a development of a belief system in virtually every culture in every part of the world at any and at all times in history regardless of the ease or difficulties of that culture. By comparing this observation to the fact that humans alone possess this trait and animals do not one can also deduce using logic that it is not a Darwin natural selection or evolutionary survival advantage at its most primitive (pre development of social mores and laws). Thus one has to by logic acknowledge that it is a gift from God to all humans, that they shall seek him.

So how did humans go about finding God? Anthropologists and other scholars can explain the details of the search for God among early humans, as best as can be surmised from the clues that remain before writing was invented and humans could leave records of their thoughts. Humans sought God by 1) scrutinizing the powers and abilities of the weather, animals and plants around them 2) developing a concept of an afterlife (they would bury bodies with items that they might use as if they were alive) and 3) developing and passing to future generations an oral history of their own creation stories. These three developments that are unique to each culture combined in various proportions and strengths to result in concepts such as polytheistic beliefs, where humans deduce that there must be an order of supernatural beings that are organized (including having the same faults and weaknesses) just as humans do. Polytheistic cultures combine the qualities of weather, animals or plants that they are most attuned to in their environment with theories about how beings who could wield these powers would look like, what they might be called, how they spend their time, and how they created humans or at the very least how they intervene, for good or ill, in human affairs. Eventually each culture thinks of ways to try to appeal to the benevolent aspects of their polytheistic pantheon, and how to placate, appease and avoid the malevolent. Remember they modeled their theories about divinities and supernatural powers based on combining what they observe of their own human nature and then “super sizing” it with the powers that they most fear or admire from the natural world.

Even though the primitive cultures of humankind were inventing, for lack of a better word, their own divinities, this does not mean that God was totally unknown. Because God is love you can observe that primitive humans started caring for the weak among each other, and examination of burial sites indicate that even the maimed, elderly and diseased had to have been tended to by others in order to survive at all. Additionally, marriage as a pairing of one man and one woman with a strong parental bond to their children arose in all cultures. A bias toward life and the strengthening of the family bond is synchronous with knowing God. God is not telling people to be faithful pairs and to raise families and be good community members, but when primitive people in all parts of the world gravitate in that same direction they are in conformation with God’s will and his bias toward love and the fruitfulness of life. Thus cultures were able to have false mythologies and their own invented creation stories with pantheons of not very worthy supernatural beings and yet still be in conformity to God’s will because they among themselves sought what is the best and most loving.

One starts to have problems when militarized civilizations arose where aristocratic leaders begin to have caste systems, slavery and human sacrifice. It is at that point in human development when God made himself known to humans overtly rather than through their synchronous community and family based love and morality. God in his wisdom chose one people to make him self known, to jointly create with them an ongoing, documented verifiable secular and faith history. In other words, God did not just appear, identify himself, dictate to them the correct creation story and code of conduct and then disappear. God made a commitment to have an earthy presence side by side with these Chosen People, so that centuries of affirmation of his consistent presence and expectations are documented (“witnessed to”) by generations of humans. The record of that is called The Bible.

As I have explained before this is why the Bible is demonstrably different from all human mythologies and creation stories because it is a human history that God shares, side by side, with consistency, and dates, names and places carefully recorded for hundreds and indeed thousands of years. When Jewish scholars calculate the time back to the Garden of Eden and Christian Evangelicals have the same numeric “literal belief” they should not be mocked or dismissed. Jewish scholars have calculated with great accuracy the years, days and seasons of the entire God revealed and co-participating faith history. In other words, the Garden of Eden is the beginning of God making him self known to humans, to Adam and Eve. This is why the Qur’an calls Adam not only first man but first prophet. Obviously humans were already in existence because as every young Catholic child asks the nuns during Catechism, who did the sons of Adam and Eve marry, if they were the only ones alive?

Genesis 4: 1-2, 17-18
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel: and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujail begat Methusael: and Methusal begat Lamech.

There are women to marry and enough people for Cain to found a city that he names after his son Enoch. The Garden of Eden was the beginning of faith history, starting with the first who God breathed life into, Adam and Eve. Thus one can have total faith in the datelines that the Jewish scholars have calculated for the beginning of the world through Adam and Eve because that is the beginning of human faith history, when God made himself explicitly known to humans, making them discard their mythologies and assumptions about supernatural powers and divinities.

Wherever God appears in even the smallest part of his form on earth, then wondrous things happen. The Garden of Eden existed and was indeed as described, where the trees that were forbidden to Adam and Eve grew, and where all their needs were met, and where they had the company of God, even to being able to hear his footsteps when he walked in the garden:

Exodus 3: 8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

So the first mercy that God provided humans was that he made himself-as he really is and not how they imagined- known to them. The second mercy that God provided was the Garden of Eden, where in his presence they could live without care. The third mercy that God provided was to forgive the sin of Adam and Eve, even though through that sin of obeying the temptation of Satan they were expelled. God remained committed to being known to them and guiding humanity on the correct path back to him and to salvation. Notice that even when Cain killed his brother Abel, over spiritual jealousy that Abel had the most pleasing sacrifice to God, God demonstrated mercy by forbidding that Cain be harmed. This was, then, the fourth mercy of God which was to role model to humans that even with the most egregious of offenses against him, and against each other, there is always a path that humans can take to forgiveness: God never takes that away.

Abel was the father of ritual worship of God and had he not been slain all priests and other religious would have been able to trace their spiritual ancestry to him. Therefore we read in the Bible that while Cain was spared and his offspring not harmed, the third child of Adam and Eve became Abel’s replacement:

Genesis 4:25-26
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

The grandson of Adam and Eve, Enos, therefore marks the beginning of the children of God being entitled to “call upon the name of the Lord.” This is the beginning of the heritage of being adopted children of God who have a right to call upon the Lord by name, and the beginning of their obligation to worship and to serve God, as Abel and his lineage would have done.

You have to begin to see, therefore, that heaven is not only a “reward,” but it is about knowing God and being able to call upon his name. Thus, to go back now to using reasoning and logic, modern humans cannot answer the question of, for example, what happens to good Neanderthals who lived before Adam and Eve when they die? Do they “go to heaven?” It is crucial that you understand how important Genesis 4:26 is because it is there that the path to salvation is established as humans were given the right to “call upon the name of the Lord.” It is from that point forward that a conscious existence of eternal life with God in “heaven” is first understood and pursued, although that is not the focus of generations of humans because obeying God in life was their continual challenge.

The first thing that anyone must realize is that you have to trust God. Whatever is the final dispensation of the early humans who were “good” but did not know him, that is entirely in God’s hands. It is like this, to use a simple analogy. Suppose that you live in an apartment unit, and every apartment of course receives its own water, electricity and heating. You do not need, as an average renter, to go door to door to “check” that the same utilities that you have actually go to each of the other apartments. You take it for granted and trust that is the case unless told otherwise. Likewise you have to trust that God does not do anything “bad” to those who came before and who did not know him, but lived good lives. However, suppose you are no longer the average apartment renter, but you are now appointed the apartment manager. Now you care that every apartment has the same service and it is your responsibility to fix things when they break. This is what it is like when Enos, son of Seth, started the people who began to “call upon the name of the Lord.” Now people 1) knew God as he really exists, 2) know his name, 3) have the privilege to call upon his name, 4) know what they need to do to worship and to serve him and 5) understand that they have an earthly home and hope of a heavenly home. With that knowledge now comes responsibility, just as if one is no longer the “renter” but the “apartment manager.”

Whatever happens to people who never knew God, but were otherwise “good” has always been entirely in God’s hands and that is the first step in mature faith, which is to understand that and to trust that God always “does” what is “right.” However, once humans took, ate from the fruit that was forbidden of the knowledge of good and evil, they are no longer “just renters along for the ride to wherever.” They now have a big chore to achieve heaven; they can no longer fall into God’s hands at the end of their unaware lives as do those who died without ever knowing God. This is why, looking forward to the Christian Apostles and disciples, that they had such an urgency to proclaim the word of God as given to them by Jesus Christ. They ruminated about it once in a while about what God ‘does’ with those souls who never know him, but they, recognizing that they are apartment managers, as are all others who strive to believe, felt that urgency to not dwell on what they cannot control but to save as many souls as possible.

The Apostles demonstrated trust in God, knowing that they cannot possibly reach everyone in the world themselves in one generation, and so they did not obsess about what ‘happens’ to those they do not reach, but they felt that continual flame of urgency that the time of blissful unawareness of God is long gone. Jesus role modeled both for them. Jesus role modeled to not try to do God’s job for him, thinking that every person in the world must be converted or something ‘bad’ will happen and they won’t be ‘saved’ because Jesus himself only preached to the Jews. Jesus was selective in who he could minister to in the several years that he had. However, during those several years, Jesus demonstrated tireless evangelizing to individuals and crowds of thousands, to show that it is indeed an urgent matter to not take salvation for granted.

So heaven does not change and God does not change; heaven and God are the same as they were before the universe, before earth, before animals, before humans, and before humans came to know him. However, humans “grow up” and they change. As humans claimed power for themselves, building cities and treating others with either dignity and graciousness or with cruelty and exploitation, they could no longer continue living in the prehistory mindset of making up “creation myths” and imagining what the afterlife is like because they themselves were becoming masters of other humans. God steps in at this point and lets them know that since they have chosen not the Garden of Eden but rather to have knowledge of good and evil, then they now “own the process” to use a modern business term. Heaven is the same place it always has been but now there is no such thing as just falling asleep into it as the primitives presumably did (as I said, no one knows how God dispenses those who came before he was known). When the Apostles worried that no one rich can be saved, they asked Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replied that what is impossible for man is not impossible for God. Humans do not know the entire picture or even a fraction of how God brings life to him, or not, in eternity. They have to trust in his goodness, not because it’s a fact they have no other choice but to trust God, but because in the Bible and in the Qur’an you see the shared side by side involvement of God in gifting humans with the KNOWN path to salvation. Humans do not need to worry about all the ways God may or may not have to bring those who die to him; they need to worry about themselves and their neighbors.

This is why the recent Pew and other surveys where many Americans think, “Oh, well, all religions are good and all lead to God” are both right and they are dangerous and wrong. Americans are correct to be humble that God, as Jesus explained, can do what seems impossible, which is save many of the unworthy. However, assuming that one can slip slide in a blur of “spirituality” or “open mindedness” into heaven is an error because those days are in the past, the times when humans had not yet chosen the knowledge and thus become the “apartment managers” and not just the rent paying simple tenant. One can trust in God’s mercy toward “many faiths” or “other faiths,” but you better get your own house in order.

[Conclusion of Part One of this topic].

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

To give counsel to the doubtful.

To instruct the ignorant.

To admonish sinners.

To comfort the afflicted.

To forgive offenses.

To bear patiently the troublesome.

To pray for the living and the dead.


Personal comment: Notice that these are both gifts of mercy to humans by God through the Holy Spirit AND actions that humans should follow with each other in emulation of God's perfect example.

Understanding God (9 of a series)

Before discussing the attribute of the infinite mercy of God, it is important to understand how God punishes. This is because humans do not seem to be able to grasp how merciful God is as long as they hold to the delusion that God punishes to be arbitrary and cruel, or to the delusion that God does not really exist as the all-knowing, and thus he does not punish at all. Whenever I discuss his mercy with humans, they always worry first to know about the punishment, hiding their own anticipation of guilt behind delusions of God's "unfairness" (too severe punishment or arbitrary) or his lack of "involvement."

A quote from the Qur'an is the most pithy in explaining the by far the most common way that God punishes. Here is the passage from the Qur'an:

Surah 22:1-2

O people! guard against (the punishment from) your Lord; surely the violence of the hour is a grievous thing.

On the day when you shall see it, every woman giving suck shall quit in confusion what she suckled, and every pregnant woman shall lay down her burden, and you shall see men intoxicated, and they shall not be intoxicated but the chastisement of Allah will be severe.

In this passage you observe two examples of God's punishment yet, how are people to interpret this, since they are examples of bad human behavior? In the first example women no longer nurse their babies and in fact, they lay down the entire burden of having children, abandoning it. And the men are not working, or protesting their women no longer caring about their children, but instead are lolling around drunk and "under the influence." So how is this punishment by God, to say nothing of being "violence" of punishment, its most severe?

It is simply this. When God seeks to punish he just steps out of the way, and grows silent, and lets humans "do what they want." The Holy Spirit stirs less and less (though never totally abandoning humans) and humans are left free to architect their own downfall. Nothing God could "think of doing" to "cause suffering" is worse than what humans come up with on their own, in their grave woundedness and hubris. And is this not exactly what we have seen in society today? Has not God let you all have "just what you wanted?" Birth control so that families are totally abandoned, abortion, pornography, sexual violence, sexual exploitation of children, violent entertainment, depressive goth and vampire "culture," use of occult tools, idolatry, alcohol and drug addiction? These are all things that have stemmed from humans deciding that they know best about being "liberated" and "sensual beings." And so millions of women have laid down and denied the joys and the responsibilities of having and caring for children, and two generations of men have been drunks and drug pushers and users. Whenever you open up a news story on any given day you can read what "joy" and "liberation" such a "free will" society has become, whether it is a child gunned down in her bed because drug gangs have a shoot out in the street, or crack or meth head parents letting their infants die of neglect, often horribly abused in addition to the lack of care. And so many women just want to be "sex in the city single" with no child and no bulges to their figure from pregnancy that there are times when I worked in Manhattan that I could go weeks without seeing a child. A generation has been skipped, and now when women (often too young) do have children, they grew up with parents who didn't have a clue how to properly and lovingly raise a child. And so you have babies born to mothers who beat them to death, or who let their boyfriends do it for them.

How can anyone not see this freak show society as punishment? I feel punished every day just watching all of you who think that you have achieved "liberation."

So when God punishes, he doesn't "zap" someone, or have a temper tantrum like humans do (for example, a Swedish rapper just drove over a California musician pedestrian, killing him, in a "crosswalk" "road rage" situation). When God has tried and tried and tried to get humans to use their free will in a healthy and loving way, and all else fails, and he must punish, he steps aside. God simply steps aside and lets all of you "do your own thing." And a woeful thing it is that you do. I love how modern atheists like to blame organized religion for everything. Gosh, yep, those bad religions, going out and making people be addicted to porn, booze, drugs, guns, forming violent street gangs, popping off children, convincing crack and meth head parents to beat them to death (maybe after first filming them being sexually abused)... yep, you sure got us there. I'm surprised that secularists and atheists "cracked the secret code" where the institutional religions are preaching all that behavior in the sermons, driving the otherwise enlightened people out to such depravity *sarcasm.* It's not a coincidence that atheists and other religion detractors have to keep quoting the same dreary "examples" (the Inquisition, Islamic extremism, etc) yet ignore that puzzlingly, the worst blights of society are the very things that the faithful, to say nothing of God, frown upon.

I can of course cite from the Bible, in addition to the Qur'an, this insight into God's prevalent form of punishment, which is to step aside and let humans do what they "really want to do," but no where is it as pithy and prescient as in this passage from the Qur'an.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

Homework assignment: So, goodness gracious, if God punishes by letting people do the wicked things they want to do, until they bring suffering onto their own heads, what does God do to bring mercy to humans? What could it possibly be? Maybe, send his Son to point the way? Maybe send the Holy Spirit to not only enlighten, but stir the guilty conscience? Maybe set some boundaries, and teach self containment, as any good parent would? You know, boundaries, those things that humans ignored and thus brought upon themselves the very things they oh so very much "wanted?" Should not be too difficult to figure out, but it's always good to discuss it together, as we will next time in this series.

Iran pardons 3,084 prison inmates

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0808031206175121.htm

On the auspicious occasion of Eid-e Mabaath (Prophet Mohammad's (PBUH) ascension to prophethood), Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei pardoned or commuted prison sentences of some 3,084 inmates.

The amnesty was granted on the request of Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.