The Lord is here; his kingdom has come. (Part 12)

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 12: God’s kingdom redeems humanity; it does not terminate our humanity

However, I try to base my approach on sober realism. I cannot be blind to the suffering in the world, so I cannot be glibly optimistic that “all is well”. Yet I have not forgotten that in my own assessment of my life, I truly do believe that, as the Lord is with me, then all is well. However, by that I don’t believe that all is right with the world, or even that all will go smoothly for me. What I mean is that, as the presence of the Lord is of ultimate, supreme importance, and I am completely confident that that cannot be taken away from me by any power in the world, then whatever happens to me, in my external circumstances and the physical fate of my material body, then all is well because I cannot lose what really matters.

We also have to face reality in understanding the world, and our theological stance on creation and the redeeming work of God is also crucial. Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? Primarily, it is because of the selfish greed and hatred of human nature. So, when God acted in Jesus to redeem the world, he did not majestically, omnipotently sweep in to over-rule human actions – as though he had made a mistake in creation, in making us as we are, but was no longer prepared to put up with the abuses, so he was now “taking over” to “put everything right”. This would entail either  removing human freedom of action, so that we were no longer allowed to do, and presumably somehow forcibly restrained from, those actions that cause others harm, or we would have to have our fundamental human nature altered to somehow make us better. Perhaps we could be given a different mentality or moral compass so that we simply find it intolerable to do anything that harms others. Either way, we would no longer be human – not in the way that we understand being human. If it is possible for humanity to have a kinder nature, it implies that God made a colossal mistake in not creating us in that way in the first place. So, we either lose the nature of God, as completely wise and good, or we lose the nature of humanity, the very essence of which is that we have the ability and freedom to do either good or evil. I think it’s a fair argument that human beings who literally found it intolerable to do anything unkind would not, in fact, be free beings. (Note, I am not suddenly ditching evolution, but perhaps God could have found some way to create a material universe in which evolution would produce creatures who simply cannot do anything selfish).