Are you a mistake, or a gift? You decide…
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The question of God has one unavoidable implication. It asks the question, “Are we made with a purpose, or not?” You are either an accident, or you have been given as a gift from a Maker. Any alternative to these two options is only the same thing repeated, that God is not God but instead something that looks like God through a process of elimination. If you ascribe to this, you quite literally believe that we are made of nothing more valuable than what we make of ourselves. If this is not the case, then we are bound to the obligations of a gifted life, and we owe someone, not something, our attention. Or more accurately, our undying thanks.
These are the options we have to choose, and there is truly nothing in between, and nothing more disparate than whether you think we are worthless, or you think we are treasure to be thankful for. And it’s apparent in how a person lives, but only to the point that their choices are based on one of these two mindsets. Does God have to be an option? Does a gift obligate us to recompense? Well of course not. But the appearance of indifference to receiving a gift like this one is questionable at a minimum. And if this gift is worth any inquiry at all, we are then decidedly irresponsible to ignore this, to the point of simply choosing, without cause, to ignore evidence for preference. This is the exact character of all resistance to God today. The approach of some to this question is to start with “why God?” instead of “why not anything, whatever that happens to look like?” And this is where the discussion splits, unequivocally. You must eliminate God entirely, give him absolutely no consideration at all, or you must consider what your eyes see. It also helps to consider what your heart feels when you’ve been wronged. If nothing, entirely nothing at all, is ever “wrong,” then why do we ever feel this way? Most importantly, why would we ever care if anyone feels this way? Is it because we assign meaning to that which has none?
We are, if anything, creatures of meaning, and justice. This is the source of every argument, every feeling of the need to be justified. If there is actually no meaning to anything, then this feeling just has to be entirely wrong itself. This is a huge contradiction if it’s to be believed there is ever a place for any argument, or any reason to call anything right or wrong. So what is the main resistance to believing in intention over futility? It is, quite ironically, the right to choose one’s own way. In other words, the main argument against intentional creation is our own right to express intention as we see fit. However, we self-evidently consider that the worst thing to do to anyone (anyone that has reached maturity at least) would be to order them around without compensation or without authority. This is otherwise known as enslavement. Yet, that is exactly what is required in a world view that has to create meaning from nothing.
Authority has to either be granted or asserted from a set of arbitrary rights and wrongs in such a universe. Why, then, are these obvious contradictions so, seemingly, perfectly acceptable to so many? Because consent has been arbitrarily granted the state of ultimate authority. But this is a mere convenience. Getting your way at the expense of others has always been the most tempting, desirable way to live, whether we’d like to admit it or not. But, it’s also the most hypocritical and abhorrent to the very same people that would decry it. There is at least the tiniest iota of reason to suspect such an approach. Glossing over fault with the wide brush stroke of consent means that two wrongs do make a right, somehow. Like the argument which assumes two consenting adults can’t hurt anyone, from the core of the consent argument, this is just patently false. But, resistance to this fact is also its central tenet. God must be eliminated in preference to that very process of elimination, usurping the authority that intention would suggest. Giving a gift, or exercising benevolent intention (which is what we’re talking about) bestows no obligation intrinsically, but by its action alone it very strongly points to a system of not only right and wrong, but of obligation. And, this system can only point to an ultimate authority, not an arbitrary system of elimination. So again, the only choices are to believe in a self-contradictory system, or in a self-consistent system.
You are either a mistake, or you are a gift. If you think you’re a mistake, that’s how you will treat others, and life. If a gift, you will attribute value and worth to everything and everyone, with thankfulness, and service. You can’t have it both ways, but then only engender one of them. You can either pretend to think everyone is a gift, or you can accept that they actually are. It’s the clearest, but somehow most difficult distinction for some to make. Very odd that everyone agrees on how to treat people, especially how they want to be treated, on its face. But, acknowledging that you don’t know everything is just not that easy for us brilliant, self-sufficient homo sapiens. Perhaps the real choice, ultimately, is whether to exercise humility in the face of a universe that holds it as the highest virtue of all.
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