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THE NATURE OF GOD
THE GOODNESS
OF GOD |
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CEDOMIL VUGRINCIC, M.D., Ph.D. |
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In the physical universe we may see the divine beauty, in
the intellectual world we may discern eternal truth, but the goodness of God
is found only in the spiritual world of personal religious experience. In its
true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of God. God could be
great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal, in philosophy, but
in religion God must also be moral; He must be good. Man might fear a great
God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This goodness of God is a part
of the personality of God, and its full revelation appears only in the
personal religious experience of the believing sons of God. Religion implies that the super-world of spirit nature is
cognizant of, and responsive to, the fundamental needs of the human world.
Evolutionary religion may become ethical, but only revealed religion becomes
truly and spiritually moral. The olden concept that God is a Deity dominated
by kingly morality was up-stepped by Jesus to that affectionately touching
level of intimate family morality of the parent-child relationship, than
which there is none more tender and beautiful in mortal experience. The "richness of the
goodness of God leads erring man to repentance." "Every good gift
and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights." "God
is good; he is the eternal refuge of the souls of men." "The Lord
God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering and abundant in goodness
and truth." "Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the
man who trusts him." "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
He is the God of salvation." "He heals the brokenhearted and binds
up the wounds of the soul. He is man's all-powerful benefactor." The concept of God as a king-judge, although it fostered a
high moral standard and created a law-respecting people as a group, left the
individual believer in a sad position of insecurity respecting his status in
time and in eternity. The later Hebrew prophets proclaimed God to be a Father
to Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father of each human being. The entire
mortal concept of God is transcendently illuminated by the life of Jesus.
Selflessness is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a father, but
as a father. He is the Righteousness implies that God is the source of the moral
law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love
gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists
between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but love
is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of
God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father,
presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the
elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon
both the unity and the free-willness of God. The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells
his children on earth, is not a divided personality--one of justice and one
of mercy--neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father's favor or
forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive
justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge. God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It is true that
wisdom does often restrain His love, while justice conditions His rejected
mercy. His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal hatred
for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine unity is
perfect. In the God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a statement
is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and persons
can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves the
sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially eternal), while
towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual
reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice of God take cognizance
of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God destroys
the sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change if the
sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same mortal
mind may also fully identify itself with the indwelling spirit Adjuster. Such
a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and
therefore personally unreal) and would experience eventual extinction of
being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot exist
forever in a progressively real and increasingly spiritual universe. Facing the world of
personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual
world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he is both. Love
identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness of God rests at the
bottom of the divine free-Will-ness--the universal tendency to love, show
mercy, manifest patience, and minister forgiveness. Reference: The Urantia
Book, Paper 2, Section 6 (edit/modif.)
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