I overheard a question this week; well, I suppose it was more of a statement, really. In any case, it went something like this:
“I don’t believe in God. If there was a God, why would He let us live like this?”
As usual, things that I see and hear tend to meld together with other things I’ve seen and heard. I say that because I also read a quote this week; I can’t remember it exactly (or find it with a cursory internet search), but it spoke to the effect of our being our brother’s brother, and that what effects one of us directly effects the rest of us indirectly.
One seemed to be the answer to the other to me. I think the reason that God would allow us to live like this is because we choose to live like this. The artist understands perhaps better than anyone else the creative impulse of our freedom to choose, freedom to move in the direction we choose, freedom to do and say what we want. I suppose that any parent (I’m not one, so I can’t relate, but I’m guessing) can understand all too well the pain of raising a child in the best wisdom and values they can, knowing that the child has the freedom ultimately to make poor decisions as an adult, and to see them make those feared poor decisions years later. I think it is like that with God: He designed us with the bittersweet creative knowledge that we were endowed with the same freedom that He is; that we can choose to see Him or remain blind to Him, to accept Him or to trick ourselves into believing that He is a product of our imaginations, to follow Him or say “no, thanks.”
Unrequited love is the most painful. We are all vulnerable to it, because when you love someone, there’s never a guarantee that they will love you back. Worse, one’s decision to hate instead of love has a “butterfly” effect. Our decisions do not, cannot, exist in a vacuum; they have repercussions, good or bad, for both ourselves and others. So we can’t control others’ actions any more than we can make them love us. And, often, if we do love someone, it leads us to not control their actions. I think both apply to that ultimate question.
He won’t force us to love Him back.
That’s why He can allow us to live like this.
I’m wondering how it is that we can continue to do so?