Before the beginning of everything we think of
as “the universe,” there was God, a creative, intelligent, conscious,
communicating, dynamic, caring entity whose magnitude goes beyond our limits of
perception and imagination. God created the universe, using time, space,
matter, energy … and something more. When God created our planet and populated
it with life, God chose to insert something of His own self into the mix: into human
beings, God breathed His own “breath of life,” His own “image.”
This mysterious endowment brought with it a
unique ennoblement and a unique responsibility unlike that given to any other
animal or organic or inanimate matter: human beings were made capable of
freedom, consciousness of being conscious, with conscience, wisdom, creativity,
love, communication, civilization, virtue. But this endowment also made them
vulnerable to rebellion, pride, foolishness, destructiveness, hatred, division,
and self-centeredness. They were given choice and choice has an “up” side and a
“down” side; there is “Column A” and “Column B,” there is that which is good
and there is the other choice.
So, being neither robots nor prisoners, these
free human beings early on failed to fulfill the full promise of their primal
innocence and natural nobility, and with the development of the first
civilizations it was clear that human beings had a self-destructive bent. One feature
of their self-destructiveness was their tendency to lose contact with God, to
live life without reference to God, to throw away their spiritual compass and
get lost. That didn’t mean they became irreligious; in fact, they seemed
incurably religious, incapable of numbing or obliterating their spiritual
faculties, at least not for very long. Rather, their estrangement from their
Creator meant that they innovated as best they could, developing religions as
varied as their cultures and their landscapes. In fact, by 2000 B.C., each
social entity on earth had developed its own religion to explain its mysteries,
solve its problems, bolster its power, vilify its enemies, and so on. The
assumption on planet earth was that there were many gods, each having power
over certain territories or certain natural phenomena (the sun, the moon,
fertility). Some of their forms of worship were beautiful and honorable, but
many became base and degrading, including horrific human sacrifice, sexual
exploitation, and the like. (continued…..)
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