© 2009 Luis Coll
© 2009 Urantia Association of Spain
¶ Was God wrong to create this pretty blue planet here hanging out of nothing?
Since ancient times, many people have asked this question, both believers and unbelievers.
When we see this world with all its imperfections, its wars, famines, calamities and so on, we ask ourselves:
¶ Was God wrong to make this world like this?
First of all, we must bear in mind that if God had wanted to make this world perfect, he would have done it from the beginning without so much hassle and complications.
In antiquity, the doctrine was formulated that God had made a mistake and regretted having created man, and since man had become evil and sinful, he had to destroy him with a universal flood. As if God from his sphere of Infinity and Perfection were a human being who had to repent of his actions!
A rather strange and distorted doctrine of the true loving character of God.
Then a very strange and contradictory doctrine began to be formulated. Since Adam and Eve had failed in their plan to elevate humanity, from then on we were all born sinners. From that failure of Adam and Eve arose that famous doctrine of original sin, meaning that from then on every poor innocent child, man or woman who was born in this world, already carried that terrible stigma of guilt and sin of the failure of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve. A very strange and contradictory doctrine of the infinite love of the Father in heaven.
And thus many misconceptions and doctrines were born about God and his divine purpose for man, and his universal plan to improve this world. Some people, even sincere believers, have ever wondered:
¶ Was God really wrong??
We are going to analyze the situation and give it a touch of humor so as not to get so serious and solemn.
Some people have said that if God exists, why doesn’t he manifest with his thunderous voice from heaven and tell everyone "hey, look at me, here I am, look how powerful and handsome I am!!
But God!! Asking us to believe in you blindly and with pure, hard and raw FAITH without seeing you is very complicated. You should have thought that some people would become atheists.
And then, to make yourself known and reveal yourself, you sent your envoys and messengers without any credentials, without any official title from heaven, and hardly anyone paid attention to them. Although some were intellectuals, many were children of nature, unorthodox and conventional, and they went to great lengths to make you known.
Such weird guys like Samuel, a determined and energetic man going around with his group of rebels destroying the holy altars of Baal. And then that quirky and picturesque man like Elijah was, dressed in goatskins and eating locusts and wild fruits there in the desert. That guy had little chance of success!
“they walked from here to there covered in sheep and goat skins, poor, distressed and mistreated of whom the world was not worthy, wandering through the deserts, through the caves and through the caverns of the earth”(Hebrews 11 :37,38)
Fortunately, not all of them were like that and some enjoyed a better reputation.
Some, as in the story of Jonás, when they saw the great work that was coming their way, they came out fuming and told you: God, you stay there! But God!! You could have given them some sign from heaven so that people would listen to them. But they had to take courage in the matter and preach “an invisible God”. Good thing you had some reward for them in the afterlife.
“But they longed for a better one, that is, heavenly, for which God is not ashamed to call himself their God, because he has prepared a City for them”. (Hebrews 11:16)
Then came Moses, a wise and prudent man, who had been educated in the culture and wisdom of Egypt, and had been patiently in the desert for 40 years instructing this diverse and polyglot group of Bedouins and half-savage people (later to be called the people of Israel), and had to give them some pretty strict and severe laws to maintain order. Of Moses it was said: “And that man Moses was very meek, more than all the men who were on earth” (Num.12:3) In the end they almost made out with him.
In this illustrious gallery of envoys and messengers, men and women of the past, there are Enoch, Elias, Elisha, Samuel, Moses, Ruth, Esther, Naomi, Isaiah, Malachi and others who were not recorded in the history books. Some were better understood and others were rejected. They all tried to the best of their knowledge and ability to reveal “the invisible God”, “the eternal God”.
After centuries of confusion and misinterpretations, seeing that they did not pay attention to his messengers, the loving Father in heaven said: I am going to send you my beloved Son to make you a more extensive revelation of how I really am.
Here some will also say: but God! How did it occur to you to make your Son live in that town of bad death and bad reputation as Nazareth was? You should have allowed your Son to be born in a palace surrounded by riches and honors. 'Surely they would have paid more attention to him! But that of sending your Son without any official title from the theological cemetery - sorry, from the Sanhedrin- How did you think they would listen to him?
Jesus, how did you think those religious potentates would accept you? And after disappointing your poor mother Mary so much, who had taken such good care of you. You should have always turned water into wine, performed many miracles and become the King of the Jews! You would have always had your mother with her arms around your neck filling you with kisses!
Look Jesus… man… man… It’s just that your methods of making your Father in heaven known were very unorthodox and conventional. You should have surrounded yourself with riches and honors and always been a crowd pleaser. Everyone would have come to kiss your hands!
And how did it occur to you to choose such a disparate and varied group of characters as your messengers? Starting with the impetuous Pedro, who screwed up every time he opened his mouth; that man with a scientific mind like Tomás, who always doubted everything you did; that hated tax collector like Mateo. Nathanael, a philosophical humorist. Simon Celotes, a fiery political patriot who wanted to drive out the Romans by the sword. What was he doing in your group of peaceful men? That character as strange and distrustful as Judas was, and the Alfeo brothers, small-time workers that no one even knew existed.
Look, Jesus: to go out into the world with such a diverse and disparate group of characters to reveal your Father in heaven was a doomed undertaking!
And you, who were such a sweet and peaceful man, how come you got pissed off, took a whip and threw the merchants out of the temple? You had to think that could ruin his lucrative business. Those merchants were in a very bad mood!
And how did it occur to you to choose as your disciple that woman with such a bad reputation as Mary Magdalene (who by the way came to love you very much)? And that to make friends with women, prostitutes and outcasts of society! You should have thought that those immaculate, holy and pious Pharisees that you couldn’t even touch with a 2-meter stick would get mad at you!
And then that strange doctrine, in which you implied that they had to eat your body and your blood. Jesus, that already sounded like cannibalism!! And then say you could tear down the temple and build it in 3 days! Even your apostles thought you had lost your mind, and the scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem got all worked up!
And when you did the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the masses wanted to make you king, you should have kept it up! People would have said: that guy is a crack! Now we won’t have to work anymore to earn a living!
And in the end, the last straw: "That was too much!! Letting your enemies stake you up there… You should have used your great power, brought fire down from the sky and scorched a few! Only John, Mary Magdalene and a few women who truly loved you were by your side in those difficult hours.
Your enemies were overjoyed. At last they had got rid of the nightmare of that man from Nazareth. What they didn’t know is that when you resurrected the real nightmare began for them. Your apostles and followers were out there hiding and scared to death and Peter, the impetuous and brave Peter who had denied you three times, at that moment was the most despondent, discouraged and sad man on earth. Look, Jesus. After analyzing this whole situation, when you died up there on the cross, your great undertaking to reveal your Father in heaven had gone to hell!
But Jesus, let’s see… wait a minute!! Let me think for a bit… Were you wrong? Had you failed? Was God wrong?
Was God wrong? Or is all this necessary to make us what we should be?
God makes no mistakes. God writes straight with crooked lines and He draws his greatest victories from apparent defeats.
Their paths and ways of acting are normally and almost always contrary to logic and the natural expectation of what we think.
Jesus—the Creator Son—submitted to the Father’s will to the end and inherited an entire universe. The apostle Paul wrote about Jesus:
“Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him a name that is above every name.” (Philippians 2:9)… «_…in whom all are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:3)
Someone once said: if I were God I would do things differently. I would make this world better, I would not allow there to be wars, famines, calamities and all that. But then someone much wiser came along and said: if I were God, I would leave this world as it is.
If God had said to everyone: gentlemen, you have to obey my laws and commandments by force!, then God would be the worst dictator in the universe.
The great challenge and the great universal invitation that God issued to the beings of his Creation was:
“Be you perfect just as I am perfect”.
The highest feelings of loyalty, love, peace and progress have often emerged from the worst contradictions in life.
If you meet success and failure and treat these two impostors equally, then you will be a man, my son! (Rudyard Kipling)
- Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most Highs. (UB 48:7.7)
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/