Know thyself

And God, the creator and sustainer of life, urged the Prince to perform his duty as a warrior. But the Prince cried out, 'How can you, the protector of the living, tell me to go forth and kill?' And when the Prince looked up the life giver changed form and appearance. God spoke then, 'Behold now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' -From the Bhagavad-Gita

It is hard to read the Bible passages where God commands the Israelites to go out and kill, to commit acts of genocide. How do we reconcile the God who claims to be love, with the God who at best condones and at worst causes wholesale destruction to happen?

Even if we have an answer to that, there is the problem of suffering. How does a loving God allow suffering and injustice to exist? Job and Jonah, in the Old Testament, ask similar questions and the only response they receive is: Who are you to question me? Do you know what my plans are for you? Can you even imagine all that I am doing?

It is intriguing to remember that humanity is made in the image of this particularly mysterious and unpredictable God. The above passage from the Bhagavad Gita seem to re-enforce this contradiction. How can we can be at the same time a lover, a Father, a Mother, a protector, and also be a liar, a thief, a destroyer, a killer?

The Old Testament ecclesiastical writer also notes this apparent contradiction in ourselves in the verses which say: there is a time to plant and a time to uproot, there is a time to kill and a time to heal.

Where is the comfort here? Ecclesiastes is full of mourning and despair. And when we think about the atrocities that occur daily between people, we ask where is justice?

If God is an unfathomable, chaotic god, then nothing matters, everything is meaningless. If we are made in the image of chaos then morality, good and evil, right and wrong, law and order has no foundation.

Except we are always given a choice. We have the freedom to choose who we are and how we act. We are not predestined to be good or evil, to create or destroy, to heal or to kill. We might go through periods where we do good or evil, where we plant or pull up, where we build or tear down. But ultimately those ups and downs, those cycles do not limit us, unless we resign ourselves to our fate, unless we give up. But even giving up is a choice. We can choose to fight or to surrender. Nothing we do is without choice.

The Prince in the Bhagavad Gita is struggling with his choice to be a warrior. On the eve of a great battle, where he must go and kill, he is chickening out. Perhaps he enjoyed the life of luxury of being a Prince, perhaps he liked the prestige of giving orders and leading men. But when faced with the reality of war, he cries out: This is wrong! We can't know why he is having a sudden awakening of conscience. And why God orders him to go and kill is a mystery. Why doesn't the life giving God, who first approaches him, validate the Prince's moral objections? Why does this God later reveal himself to also be the taker of life?

The mystery is that God is urging him to make a choice which makes no sense to the Prince. God, if we assume God has supreme control over events, put the Prince on this path. The Prince is free to depart the battle, God is not forcing him to take part, nevertheless God is urging him not to turn back from his duty, no matter how repulsive. (The reverse is also true; God does tell a killer to go out and heal. I think specifically of God calling Saul of Tarsus to stop persecuting and executing Christians. Saul later changed his name to Paul, and became the famous 1st century Christian saint.)

The question then is a matter of faith. Can I, the Prince, have faith that God is leading me in the best possible direction? Am I sure that my actions are the healthiest and most proper? How can I tell when it is the time to kill and when is the time to heal? Do I have faith that the path I am on is the most beneficial path?

These are questions that can't be answered hypothetically or in a vacuum. The can only be engaged in the moment, and through conversations with others, with ourselves, and with God.

Ultimately, we can never know what is good or evil. Even Jesus, in two different accounts, corrected a follower who called him good, saying: No one is good except God alone.

We can only choose a path and walk it boldly. Faith says that God is in control and that even when we make mistakes they are not final.

I titled this entry know thyself, because ultimately knowing thyself is not about discovering a concrete identity. It is about being infinitely complex, ultimately unknowable, and continually flexible. Know thyself in this context means to know thy actions. And to accept the consequences of those actions irregardless of the outcome.

And no matter what that outcome is, we believe God has the last word and that word is and always has been good.