Judgement

 

     For the last week I've been battling Dante. I had to read the Divine Comedy for Humanities class. It wasn't horrid to read, and in the context of the time period it is interesting to consider. I also had to write a paper on it, that was hard. Specifically how Dante used Aristotle's theories to structure the different levels of hell - Those in 'regular hell' were those who committed sins against reason - fraud, deceit, and treachery. Those in the worst hell were those who committed sins against reason and against the community - Brutus, Judas Iscariot, and Cassius. Interesting ideas, none of which I subscribe to. 

     It did get me thinking though, about The Judgement, and what hell really is. 

     A week or two ago in Sunday School we were discussing the children of Israel. They did many things that we modern religious people look back on and laugh, "God just parted the Red Sea but they couldn't wait for Moses, they had to make a golden calf?" or  "They were getting manna from heaven, why criticize it?" It's not so easy to laugh when you apply those thoughts to modern day situations though. 

     We were talking about the miracle of the quails. Here's the shortened Jen version - The children of Israel were sick of eating just manna all the time. They wanted meat to eat. They complained to Moses and Moses passed along the complaint to God. God said, 'If they want flesh, I'll give em' flesh' and rained quail down on the children of Israel.  The people ate this quail, they ate a lot of it. Then the story gets interesting (I know, like food falling from the sky wasn't interesting enough). 

"And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague." Numbers 11:33

     Some of the people who ate the quail were killed by this plague. A plague that happened because of God's wrath. 

     I've been to innumerable Sunday School classes but it is only now that I'm scratching my head over this type of occurrence that happens very frequently in the Old Testament.  There is a lot of writing about God's wrath in there. In some ways it isn't syncing up with my personal view of God, my Heavenly Father. 

     I feel that God is loving, he is literally our spirit father and cares for us in a similar way to how I care for my children. I believe that God allows us to suffer the consequences of our choices so that we can learn good from evil. I can't see that same God inflicting something horrible, like a plague, upon the children that he loves purely out of wrath. There must be purpose there, it isn't wrath purely for wrath's sake. 

     So in Sunday School I raised my hand to comment about the plague suffered by the people when they ate all that quail. "Maybe the plague wasn't necessarily God's vengeance or anger, maybe it was God allowing them to suffer the consequences of their actions. They ate too much quail meat when their bodies were only used to eating manna so they got sick and a few died."

    The Sunday School teacher responded, "Well what do you think the plague was then?"

     My response, "Maybe they died of sudden onset heart disease."

     Everyone chuckled and we moved on. All joking aside, there is a connection there for me, on several levels. We are no different from the children of Israel. We complain when we are surrounded with bounty, so God gives us what we ask for so we can see for ourselves that it isn't good. Perhaps our modern day plague resulting from getting what we've asked for is obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc. 

     The deeper issue, the one I'm really struggling with is the idea that God wouldn't only allow consequences to run their course, and thus school us in eternal laws, but would heap on an additional amount of pain and suffering. 

     This relates to my ideas about what hell is. I think we as sinners create our own personal hell. Have you ever watched one of those addiction recovery TV programs? Watching an addict recover from drug addiction looks like hell to me. God didn't have to throw in any wrath, the pure consequences of the drug addiction were powerful enough on their own. Is that what hell will be like? Not just drug addicts, but those of us who didn't resolve our issues in this life will be trying to work them out in the next? 

     Religious people can be very self-righteous when talking about judgement and what hell will be like. Some even revel in the belief that they will  be enjoying heaven while their fellow men suffer in hell. Christ teaches us to love one another, to care for our brother. I would think if we reach that kind of love then watching that brother we love suffer in hell would be no heaven for a true Christian. Along those same lines, I believe that the love we as humans are capable of feeling is only a small portion of how much God loves us. If God loves us so much more, how can he stand to inflict more pain upon us than is absolutely needed for our learning and progression. (Pain is a great teacher.)

      Anyone have a thought about this that might help me?

Comments

[readerMom]

1.

I've been reading through the OT while I nurse at night and I have been struggling with this type of thing too. Though I feel more that I am only getting a small part of the story. This is a problem with all the scriptures, but it seems more acute here. Most of the OT was written as a political document, that is why there are so many names and such. So I think we are missing a lot of the details that could help us understand.
But also, the Israelites were remarkably slow to turn to their God. Some kids need boot camps and even prison before they figure things out, some never do despite awful consequences. Perhaps love failed as a motivator for these people, so the next step was fear and a detailed set of rules.
I have found that if I look at the OT in broad brush strokes, rather than at the specific details, I can feel more of a sense of God's love and care. That helps me as I study it.

[jendoop]

2.

readermom, Thanks for your thoughtful and sensitive response. This really is something that has been troubling me, not just something I tangled up for a blog post. I like your idea of remembering that we don't have the whole picture. Such a huge period of time is condensed into so few pages. Thinking about the OT as a book about God written and translated by imperfect men helps me.

[Julie M]

3.

I too reason that God allows men to suffer the consequences of their own actions in order that we might grow and learn. I also imagine hell as being that place where we feel the full weight of our actions unless we have already repented of such and made amends as best we can. It is an interesting thought that sometimes maybe God gives us what we ask for and lo and behold maybe we were naive in the asking and possibly what we asked for wasn't and isn't what is best for us. I love that song that goes (I thank God for unanswered prayers). I think a loving Father truly wants the best things for us, but it takes complete humility and a willing heart to bend our own wants and desires and ask Him for what He thinks is best. This is a lesson I would like to teach my children, but am unsure how to go about it. Any thoughts?

[jendoop]

4.

Jules, I think you're already teaching your children those concepts by being a good parent. When we teach our children about consequences through punishment and rewards they are learning how the larger world works. It is especially helpful if we explain it to them in that way, that there are consequences for actions. That same explanation enables us as parents to love while at the same time disciplining. Hopefully if, as parents, we do this well it mirrors the way God teaches us as adults and we make the transition from childhood to adulthood more easily.

[Michelle]

5.

Interesting thoughts about natural consequences. I guess my follow-up thought would be if you see chronic illnesses such as you mention as evidences of God's *wrath*? Imagine if someone had heart disease in your SS class. The message to me might be translated as you suggesting that their heart disease is God's "wrath" for their "wickedness."

I think there are two questions here. What does His wrath really entail? Is it just any negative consequence, or is it more severe than that? I tend to think it's the latter. If it is, then I don't see this parallel as holding water. I think there was something more than just thrown-off bodily systems that brought these (seemingly immediate) consequences. I think there was something more going on -- in their hearts, I think -- that was grievous. But I could be wrong.

On a more meta level, when I engage these hard questions, I think something else to consider is that what is 'bad' to us as mortals, imo, often differs from God's eternal view. God does NOTHING save it be for our benefit. We see the worst thing that could possibly happen as getting a plague and dying. We are, after all, biologically programmed to live, so that makes sense. But I think it's important not to let that part of ourselves necessarily define what is 'good' or 'bad' or 'loving' or 'not loving' when it comes to God's actions. We, imo, too often use mortal/cultural/personal sensitivities to measure God by. But what if it were something like God actually rescuing them from condemning themselves further through continued disobedience by ending their lives? Or something like that? Surely it also was an act of love as a warning to those left behind, no? Things for Him, I believe, are so multi-faceted. I think we try so hard to understand Him with our linear, limited brains. We can't. Even what we 'know' about God is sooo limited.

Along those lines, while I think of course there are limitations of the scriptures (imperfect, incomplete, some things lost in translation), I tend to prefer to put the incompleteness more (or at least as much) on our own shoulders as readers. I am coming to believe that these uncomfortable things are often opportunities to learn more through the Spirit. Of course, sometimes we need to just let things go, too, but imo, it's far too easy to cast off something uncomfortable as the fault of someone else (the translators or the prophets or the writers or whatever) rather than to consider that maybe it's our own lenses that block us from seeing what is really there.

For me, the paradoxes often lead me to ponder more and seek more and learn more about God in ways I never could have solved through thinking alone. (And sometimes that process has taken decades of letting something brew in the back of my mind and being willing to suspend where my mind might go with things that seem confusing at face value.)

So I think that your asking questions like this and weighing what you see against the God you know is important. I'd just not be too quick to assume that the discomfort comes from something that isn't there in the text, but perhaps with something that might not be yet there in your perspective. Weakness will be made strength and all of that -- God told Moroni not to worry about his weakness in writing, because He would help people see past that and find truth. I hadn't thought about that in this context until just now, but I think it applies.

Anyway, I'm rambling...but appreciate opportunities to mull over thoughts on this. Of course, I'm just a clueless mortal, so take it with that disclaimer.