The Misguided Yearning For A Vengeful God: Part Two

In the first part of my exploration of this theme, I addressed the yearning for a vindictive God as an indication of regressive consciousness - a latent desire to return to a state of sin-consciousness and simple obedience. In this part, I will touch upon passivity.

Any yearning for the avenging God described in the Old Testament is an innate craving for religious and spiritual passivity - the coveting of a powerless, helpless and child-like state in which we essentially wish to do nothing more than sit idly by and let daddy punish all evil doers and put everything right for us. 

The very act of passively aching for the divine to appear and vindictively punish others on our behalf is in itself an obvious red flag, one I will deal with in a future post; in this post I will concentrate solely on the passivity inherent in concepts such as for us and our behalf.

Though God certainly does arrange many things specifically for us and our behalf, the existence of freedom and agency prevent Him for being able to arrange everything for us and on our behalf. Thus, He relies on us - and also anticipates and expects us - to arrange many things specifically for Him and on His behalf. This is the essence of co-creation - the understanding that Man needs to play an active role in this world and in eternity.

This anticipation and expectation is a testament to our freedom and agency - the same freedom and agency with which God created and continues to create the world. Wanting God to simply appear and smite those who oppose Creation is an abdication of freedom and agency - the willing renunciation of our spiritual and religious responsibilities and duties as active co-creators, both in this world and the world to come. 

Creativity is intrinsically tied to activity. Sitting around hoping God will appear and put everything right is neither creative nor active.

In fact, the very concept of putting things right as an ultimate goal for this world is folly because it, once again, works against the reality of freedom and agency, which intrinsically contains the potential for evil.

Nevertheless, this does not imply that we should sit around and allow everything to go wrong. Our task is to actively set right those things we can set right while at the same time understanding and accepting that we cannot nor should we try to set everything right.

If everyone assumed the responsibility of freedom and agency to actively and creatively set right those things he or she could set right, then the world could - theoretically at least - be set right. Yet such an amazing development would still not negate the potential for evil inherent in freedom and agency. Nor would it eliminate suffering, entropy, and death.     

To passively yearn for the annihilation of all evil in the hope it will also do away with all potential for evil is to passively yearn for the annihilation of freedom and agency. It is a passive yearning for non-being over being.

Conversely, to actively assume the role of a vindictive force that seeks to destroy all evil in the world in the name of justice is an abuse of freedom and agency. Resistance and opposition to evil leave open the possibility of freedom, but vindictiveness leads only to slavery. 

The existence of freedom and agency carries the potential for evil within it. Hence, an active response to evil does not entail an impossible desire to see this potential abolished from the world, but rather to resist the potential within ourselves, overcome it as best as we can, and respond to it creatively from the core of our own freedom and agency in much the same way Christ used His freedom and agency to resist, overcome, and creatively respond to evil.