Artist: Cima da Conegliano, c. 1459 – 1517
Title: God the Father
Date: c. 1510-17
Possible location: Courtauld Gallery, London
[It is hard to find an actual painting, but these sources at least display prints:
Wikipedia; Fine Art America; and Courtauld Prints]
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Kristor Lawson, over at the Orthosphere, has written an article he's titled: Sin is Enacted Atheism. It is an interesting discussion, but I have a few rebuttals which I've posted below.
Kristor Lawson: Thinking about God can be extremely hard when I feel really bad about how sinful I’ve been. When I’ve done something wrong, or want to, I want to avoid thinking about God. Because if I do, I shall see what a disgusting worm I am. And no one wants to face that.
It’s easy to see why shame would make me want to avoid God when I have sinned.
Kidist Paulos Asrat: Here is where Kristor Lawson starts out wrong with his classification of himself as a "disgusting worm" when avoiding thinking about God when he has sinned. He is unecessarily vicious towards himself.
KL: The hardest thing of all to admit in our hearts about God is that because his beauty is infinite, even our worst sins are to him infinitely tiny.
KPA: Our sins may be tiny in the scope of our universe, but God sees our sins as clearly as he sees the largest and greatest endeavors by other humans. This is the paradox of God: He will hear our softest whispers as clearly as the loudest of calls. In fact, our whispers, done in humility and beseachment, may be heard first, and clearest, in God's universe.
And I truly believe that God sees us in love, not in deprecation. Otherwise he becomes the forceful, vengeful, humiliating god of the Muslims, and other non-Christian religions.
KL: Whether we know it or not, and whether or not we admit the fact to ourselves, his overwhelming power washes over our sins the way that a great wave washes over the filth a fly has left in the sand of the beach. So, no matter how bad we have been, we can turn to him and he will wash over us, cleanse and refresh us completely.
KPA: Christ came to SAVE us ALL, if we accept his message. He died on the cross for us, because he loved us, and not because he thought we were vile sinners like the filthy fly that Kristor describes below. His death on the cross shows that he loves even the filthy sinner, for whom he died in order to redeem.
KL: And so we avoid turning our minds in its direction, or toward God and the agony of his glory.
KPA: I'm not sure what Lawson is trying to say here. That we are in agony in seeing, following, his glory? I think that's what he's saying. Why not simply joyful? Lawson sounds like those masochistic Christians who wear hair shirts in order to feel the presence of God. But they are more sincere. They wear their shirts in true penance (of whatever sins they have committed), and are not saying they are in agony as though to reach God with their verbal anguish.
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KPA: Lawson's article gets better about half way through. Perhaps it is because he focuses his thesis on God, rather than what a terrible human being he is, or is likely to be.
KL: ...if I really believed in God, and understood him, how could I bring myself to sin – indeed, how could the notion even occur to me? Doesn’t the presence of God in our hearts drive out sin? So, if I am sinning, doesn’t that mean that I have not very much God in my heart?
If my understanding of God is correct, if I really understand what “God” means – not as a philosophical proposition, so much as a concrete proposal for how I should constitute myself from one moment to the next, what I should consider, think, say and do – then won’t the beauty and power of that knowledge drive out all competing considerations? God is *infinitely* beautiful. Nothing else even registers, compared to him. If I really turned and accepted even that bare notion, how could I sin?
KPA: I quibble with his dismissal of God as a philosophical proposition. God is not merely a writer of rules, he encompasses our understanding and wisdom of life. His treatise is infinite, and infinitely detailed. Starting from when he first presented himself to the Jewish people, we have analyzed, speculated, discussed, preached and in the end, hopefully believed his message.
If we don't give ourselves this human capacity to "argue" even with God, then our God becomes like the dogmatic and dictatorial god of the Muslims, who are mandated to hear and obey. God has given us free will, words that have taken generations of writers and philosophers to define, and still we're not that close to defining them. God's closest prophets are those who initially disagreed with him, and through their errors and suffering, finally believed in him. God, in his kindness and love, wants us to love him foremost, not fear him. But, as we love him, and allow him to love us, we begin to see his greatness, and we build an awe for him, which is a better word than fear. We begin to realize that we are in the presence of God.
KL: And since the love of God is generated irresistibly by the vision of God, by the apprehension of his beauty, my sin indicates that I have not yet properly apprehended him. I have somehow erred in my apprehension.
KPA: This is well put, I think. The Old Testament talks of the beauty of God, and God's love of beauty. To apprehend God in his beauty is also to apprehend his creation in beauty. And Lawson concludes that if we refuse to actually see him, or see his beauty, then we are not seeing him (or wish not to see him). In either case, we are living a life of sin.
KL: We cannot correct the error of our apprehension that enables our sin...except by turning to face him, opening our eyes and our hearts and letting him in. But because we err, we cannot see where to find him unless we are already facing him – in which case, we are not erring in the first place! So, we are stuck fast in the Sin against the Holy Spirit, the one unforgivable sin that prevents our acceptance of redemption, and therefore effects its rejection.
KPA: And God sent us his son Jesus in order that those who do not see him (either through stuborness or through ignorance) be able to finally see him, in order not to be condemned eternally as sinners. Seeing God, as well as understanding God, makes us true believers.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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