Continuing on with Housewife’s questions. (Part 1 is here.)
Housewife finishes her list with these two questions:
Is part of your mission in life to convert people to your religion?
Do you really think that G-d is angry with people who don’t pray the same way you do?
I’m going to start with the second question first, because my answer to the first one builds on my answer to the second.
Do I think that God is angry with people who don’t pray the same way I do?
In order to answer this question, I have to qualify it a bit. God’s anger with people has nothing to do with praying the same way I do, as if, first of all, it’s primarily a method of prayer that matters; and secondly, that doing things my way has some significance. I do believe God is angry with people, but never because they don’t pray my way. He may be angry over certain methods of prayer, but that would be only secondary to the real issue—whether they are worshipping him, the God who is.
And that’s the biggie, the bottom line, the universal truth that no one escapes: God is there; we know it; we don’t worship him. We all know God is there because we look out and see the universe and the world we live in. Deep down, we know that it all didn’t come from nothing, but from something or someone.
That’s not to say that people know everything there is to know about the something or someone from which it all came by looking out and seeing what there is, but we do know some important things: the Creator is unlike the universe and more than the universe; existing not only in the universe, but also outside or beyond the universe. In other words, the one who created the universe exists in a category of one: the only uncaused, the only independent, the only self-existent. We, on the other hand, are caused by the uncaused, dependent on the independent, existent only as long as the self-existent sustains us.
And because we know that God is there and we know these things about him, we also know that this is the sort of God to whom we owe worship. But none of us do that, and there’s the rub. We either deny God exists at all, or we choose to think of him as something different—less, actually—than we know he really is. We bring him down into categories we know and understand from experience—categories we know, deep down, don’t apply to him. We think of him or imagine him as something more like we are and way less than he is, because we are more comfortable with something more like we are, something not quite so “other”. That’s bringing God down to our level or (probably more accurately) raising us up to his. The Bible calls this trading the truth about God for a lie, and yes, it draws out God’s righteous indignation, or his anger, as you call it.
Is part of your mission in life to convert people to your religion?
I believe that the only way out from under God’s righteous indignation is through the good news that God sent his own Son as Saviour for everyone who believes in him. It’s good news, and I believe it’s good news that everyone needs, since everyone falls rightfully under God’s indignation.
I guess my answer to your question would be yes and no. I wish everyone would believe the good news; I think everyone needs to hear the good news; I think helping to spread the good news it my duty. If I believe this good news the only way out from under God’s righteous indignation, and I care about other people, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t share it? But at the same time, I’m not going bop someone upside the head with a two-by-four to get them to sign on the dotted line. Getting someone to sign on the dotted line whether they want to or not isn’t my responsibility.