Carl
Jung, child of a long line of protestant pastors, in 'Psychology and
Western Religion' answers questions which I'm sure are what my
educated thoughtful Christian friends would put to me. His answers
are very sane, logical and reasonable for he takes seriously that the
Bible stories are speaking symbolic truths which are true at a deeper
level than if we, as most still do, take these stories as primarily
physical happenings. I often wish that more persons in my circles
could find a way to consider the view point which such new
assumptions offer. Many traditional questions are answered on this
path and we are not called on to surrender other important kinds of
knowledge that humans have gained, for example the general theory
of scientific evolution and other sound scientific principles? Much
of my life experience as preacher, science teacher, human
development counselor and Hospice chaplain has been a search for
how solid science and the religious stories I was taught can be
harmonized for a more whole world view. Careful consideration of these ideas and what follows express
where I have found a significantly more authentic harmony.
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| Adam and Eve Harnessing The Living Serpent(A modern dream) |
A
great hurdle for 'believers', and ones who feel they must reject the
idea of God, is to let loose of God being imaged as an all powerful being that is absolutely
good and perfect, and thus bearing no responsibility as a source of some of the
suffering and sin in the world? Anything that brings suffering ,
chaos and harm to humans it is generally insisted is humanity's
fault alone. If we would just get our act together all would be
well we are told. God has nothing to change within itself unless we
become blasphemers. And equally challenging from our orthodox views
is to embrace the concept, quite common in the Biblical
narrative, of God needing the human; not simply because God is lonely
but because God does not fully know itself, the same problem we
humans, made in 'God's image' have in not fully knowing our deeper selves.
Only
human consciousness, which must have- to God's incomparable
unfathomable credit- been the original dream and barely
conscious hope of God which has come true, can give God what
God needs within itself to move the universe to a fuller more compassionate
consciousness. And thus toward a truly better world that we claim to desire.
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| Moses Pleads With God To Be Compassionate |
Every
human, perhaps some more than others, can do his/her share in giving God
this necessary gift. This involves the personal sacrificial(for it involves a psychological/spiritual suffering which most of us never planned to acquire) gift of
our evolved consciousness. A consciousness, which at least at some essential moments, is more moral and compassionate than God's alone. Nothing else in
nature can supply this for it is the human alone where such
consciousness has evolved and we can assume potentially can continue to evolve.
This is the gift which the human ego consciousness has
captured through thoughtful living and suffering. And this
is the human's needed gift to God who obviously
remains forever ineffable and far 'more' than the human ego can
ever comprehend. As God receives this gift the resulting
increased consciousness of God ( For no consciousness can develop
without comparing itself to a consciousnesses outside itself. So God needs the human. It is
only our human bias and psychological need for God to be perfect,
similarly as a developing child must think of its parents as
perfect, that keeps us from realizing this is as true of God as of us.) can finally transform the world toward a much expanded
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| Gospel speaks of Jesus and Serpent having something in common |
peace, love and truth.
This
approach finally begins to answer the question that humans have asked
for millennia even on the best day, “Something seems wrong in the
world.” And instead of blaming the human for it all(which is overwhelmingly not true or fair) a new
understanding can reach us: God's and Human's presently still evolving consciousness mutually share in the problem and
solution. The problem, natural to both God and human, is about our not
having yet arrived (No unbearable shame in this for all is still evolving. There was not a time in
the past when everything or anyone was only good, ever.) at a strong enough
ethical consciousness so that love more truly has its way in God, nature and humans.
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| Abraham counseled God to show compassion to Sodom. |
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| A Slaughtering Tsunami Rightly Called An 'Act of God'? |
We,
I think, should consider that it likely raises the dignity and
responsibility of humans exponentially to know they are needed
by God for his/her consciousness raising capacity (Surely granted, is only there by God's dreamlike foreknowledge, and only now made
more conscious in both God and human.) than to only be loved by God.
And similarly it is a greater compliment to be able to say to a
friend or lover, " You have made me more conscious, aware of the fuller meanings of life. " than even to say, " l love you."
For the greatest most mature loves in this world are
necessarily the product of increased consciousness, whether
that be God's or a Human Being's.
