Love and Free Will

Yesterday I was really bored, so I wandered into this Christian chatroom (Crosswalk.com it be exact). I tend to chat there most of the time I chat other than in IM because I get sick of all the porn bots and stuff like on MSN and things like that. It isn’t usually bad unless I walk into a room and all people can say is, “Isn’t God good?”… “Yes he is!”… “Amen!”… “So isn’t God good?”

Well yesterday I ended up walking into a room that was kind of like that. Then when someone said “Isn’t God good,” everyone said “Yes” except me (I didn’t say anything). Then someone was like, “What about you? Don’t you think God is good?” Since I had no reason to lie, I said “No.”

And thus it became six on one very quickly.

Everyone was trying to get me saved, and one chick kept trying to be a prophetess or something cause she kept saying stuff like You’re doing this because of this, or you’ve become something because of something that happened in your childhood, and stuff like that. The funny thing was, before everyone set their sights on me, she came in and was telling everyone how she was on the verge of backsliding, but then something snapped and she was supposedly in some position to give me advice (even though nothing she said made sense).

But they all wanted to know what I thought, and so I told them. And since I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit today, I suppose that’s what I’ll write about. But first let me tell you two stories that will maybe make sense in a bit.

There was a man who lived in a country with very strict laws. One of those laws was that if ANY person killed someone else, they would forfeit their own life in exchange for the one they took.

Now this man got married and had a child (yes I know, his wife actually had the kid, but anywhose…). Every day he was telling that kid how much he loved it and with time others would see that so much that other people would tell the kid, “You know, your dad really loves you.”

The kid grew a little and for its fifth birthday the father decided to buy his child a handgun. He knew his kid loved to play video games that had “guns” that you shot things with, so he figured that he would buy the kid a REAL gun and show his love by getting something he knew his youngster would be overjoyed to have.

Well the kid DID love the present, until he took his gun to school and began to shoot and kill people.

The child was subdued while changing magazines on the gun and was taken away. Justice was very quick, and even though it was just a child, the law said that if ANYONE killed another person that they’d be executed.

The second story is that of a man who was very wealthy, very powerful, and very well known. He was a very good man who lead a very good life and seemed to have EVERYTHING going for him.

Then one day he met a woman on an airplane and he immediately fell head-over-heels in love with her.

Before leaving the airport he got up the courage to tell her how he felt. He began, “I love you more than I could ever show you. I want to spend my life taking care of you and looking after you. Is there any way you can ever love me back?”

The woman was at a bit of a loss for words and she stuttered a bit without really giving an answer.

“Of course,” continued the man, “If you can’t love me, I’ll be forced to send you to one of my forced labor camps where you will work and live in the worst conditions imaginable, be frequently beaten and tortured, and you will never escape or be let out. You see, I want you to love me of your own free will. If you do, then you will chose to save yourself from that. If you can’t love me though, it’ll be off to the camp with you and it will be all your fault because you choose whether or not to love me.”

The reason I gave those two little stories was to use them as analogies pertaining to God and his “love.”

If the first story were actually true (if you can even fathom a parent giving a child they love a loaded gun), who would be responsible for the actions of the child with the gun?

Surely the youngster shared in some of the responsibility since it was the kid who had the gun and pulled the trigger (and also bore the punishment for the act).

But wouldn’t the father be as much, if not more, to blame? Shouldn’t the father have had more sense than to give the child something he knew the kid would misuse? Something that would not only destroy the lives of others, but also the kid’s life?

To apply this story to God (and yes, I know I don’t believe in him. I’m just saying that IF the God of the Bible is real then this is what I think about him), he would be the father. He is the one who supposedly loves us SO much.

God is also supposed to be all-knowing, which means he would supposedly have even more insight into the future actions of his “kids” than the father in the story.

So what is the gun?

The gun is free will.

God took people that he professed to love, but gave us a free will even though he knew full well that the very free will that he thought we would cherish is what is what has damned humanity to become what it is. According to the Bible, it was man’s free will that allowed Adam and Eve to give into temptation and sin. It is supposedly man’s free will that allows a person the choice to follow God or not, and thus be damned for eternity or not.

And all that because God felt compelled to give man a free will, even though he could foresee everything that would come because of his “gift” to man.

The second story is a bit of a view of the situation we are all in with God (once again, not that I really believe it, but according to what the Bible says, this is my view of it). God wants us all to love him (which if you read the Bible, love isn’t a feeling-love is something that can be tested and proved, most often by someone’s obedience and loyalty to God in the most adverse situations).

Although the Bible doesn’t come out and say it, each of us supposedly has to choose one of two options; love God (which means love him, live for him, serve him, etc) and go to heaven when you die, or don’t love God (which means not doing the things in the previous list) and spend eternity damned because you didn’t love him.

Supposedly though God wants us to love him of our own free will, which I think is very hard to do when you are being threatened with damnation if you don’t do what he wants. If God truly wanted people to love him of their own free will there should be no penalty for NOT loving him.

Criminals have known for ages that most people will do or say anything if they are being threatened. Most people understand that when people do things under duress (especially when their well-being is threatened) that they aren’t really responsible for what they were doing because they were in danger.

And yet we are still supposed to love God of our own free will?

I wonder how many would love him if he had no hell to threaten people with for their non-compliance. Or if everyone just ended up in hell whether they loved him or not. I doubt it would be very many.

So that’s a teensy take on my view of God, love, free will and such.

Maybe he isn’t as “good” as he want’s us to think. Maybe his version of “love” is a bit more selfish than we’d like.

Maybe no one really knows