Cleaving to a Vengeful God

Dear God,

Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t you just keep the ones you have now? 

Jane

An excellent question, you might say, expressing a sentiment to which we can all relate.  Found on the Internet, it’s among the funny letters from children to God. It’s a hard question to answer unless placed in the context of how human beings were created through evolution and exist within the animal world. And as empathetic as we are to Jane, the question reveals a child’s simplistic view of God.

And it begs the question about our own view of God and where it comes from. You could say from our parents or grandparents, from church or synagogue or our superficially religious culture. For those whose heritage is Christianity or Judaism, it ultimately comes from the Bible.

In a Way That Suites Us

And the Bible is hard to understand, not only because it is of another age but because of the differences among its 72 books, its ancient languages and cultural contexts, and the tendency to interpret it in a way that suites us.

But contrary to those who think the Bible is a library of gobbledygook, modern scholarship has made it much easier to understand and accept as the word of God in the words of humans. It’s a combination of myth and history, a history of humans’ relationship to God. For people searching for God, it’s a treasury of useful knowledge and inspiration and its study is crucial.

And the evolution of the image of God in the Bible is obvious. The Hebrew Bible, being more primitive, is more reflective of humanity’s flaws, often presenting a God who is jealous and vindictive but sometimes a God who is just, merciful and loving.

Focus on Jesus’ God

In the Christian Bible, the loving Father is more often emphasized, though in fewer instances, the contrary image co-exists. I believe those who search for God in the Christian tradition should focus on Jesus’ God, the one who is just, merciful and loving.

No example of the image of God is more forceful than Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son. For those whose memory of the story is fuzzy, it’s about a son and his father. The son asks for his inheritance and goes off to blow it in every direction. After several years of self-indulgence, he eventually runs out of money and returns to his father’s house to seek forgiveness. Instead of a cold shoulder, he gets a welcome party from a loving father.

James Martin, the Jesuit author, points out that the story could more accurately be called “the prodigal – or excessively generous – father,” and may have been told by Jesus as a response to the criticism of some Pharisees who complained that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Says Martin, “Here’s an image of God not from your own mind, but from Jesus’ mind.”

A God Who Keeps Lists?

So much for the image of God so firmly planted in the minds of many: a God of vengeance, who keeps lists of all the bad things we do and makes sure we pay, here or in the hereafter. Oh, we may not admit it to ourselves, but many of us secretly cling to this god, ever fearful of his/her disapproving notice.

Who could really love such a God? No, this is a distortion of the God of Christians and Jews. So how do we know whether our image of God – which is always analogous – is accurate?

In his exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis describes people who have the Prodigal-Son image of God.

“Hard times may come,” he writes, “when the cross casts its shadow, yet nothing can destroy the supernatural joy that adapts and changes, but always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.

“That joy brings deep security, serene hope and a spiritual fulfilment that the world cannot understand or appreciate.”