WHO IS GOD?

If God exists, who is He? Did He create evil as well as good? Polytheism and Spiritism both maintain that the gods created evil, and, therefore, to some extent, they are evil.

Anthropologist Karen Brown, who had taken a full-body dive into Voodoo, admits:

·       Although the Iwa [spirits] who possess Alourdes [a voodoo priestess] are often called sen-yo (saints), they are not saintly types in the traditional Christian sense. For example, in stories about the soldier spirit Ogou/Saint James, he not only liberates his people but also betrays them. Ezili Danto/Mater Salvatoris, the mother, cradles and cares for her children but also sometimes lashes out at them in rage. The Vodou spirits are not models of the well-lived life; rather, they mirror the full range of possibilities inherent in the particular slice of life over which they preside. Failure to understand this has led observers to portray the Voodou spirits as demonic or even to conclude that Vodou is a religion without morality—a serious misconception. (Mama Lola: A Voodoo Priestess in Brooklyn, 6)

Is this a misconception? To entrust ourselves into the hands of “saints” who “lash out…in rage” is to accept deficient moral standards. Besides, if our “saints” act in destructive ways, why shouldn’t we! What possible reason could we have to try to outdo them! Therefore, Polytheists are deprived of the necessary resolve to resist our own evil impulses. In fact, resisting them might be taken as an affront to our “saints.”

What then did Brown find in Voodoo that had enabled her to tolerate such inconsistencies? She explained:

·       No Haitian—certainly not Alourdes—has ever asked me if I ‘believe’ in Vodou or if I have set aside the religious commitments and understandings that come from my childhood and culture. Alourdes’s approach is, instead, pragmatic: “You just got to try. See if it works for you.” The choice of relinquishing my worldview or adopting another in its entirety has therefore never been at issue.

Voodoo did not require Brown to compromise her beliefs or lifestyle. Instead, Voodoo and other forms of Spiritism are user friendly. They are all about the immediate pragmatic benefits and not at all about inspiring the follower to live according to a higher moral standard, even the standard of our conscience. Instead, “You just got to try. See if it works for you.” It leaves us with the comforting reassurance that we remain in charge., the hallmark of a man-created religion. However, it also leaves us with impoverished societies.

In contrast, the Scriptures consistently inform us that God is love (1 John 4:9-11) and that there is no evil in Him whatsoever:

·       This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7 ESV)

God, therefore, is our role model. We are required to live lovingly in the same way that He is love (Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15).

Well then, how do we explain the presence of evil? Genesis 1 claims that all that God had created was “very good” (1:31). Even the animals were herbivores – no death. There was such perfect harmony and peace that Adam and Eve walked naked without any shame. How then did evil arise? The Scriptures assure us that evil does not arise from God, as polytheism asserts:

·       Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. (1 John 2:15-16)

Because evil in not from God, we have a solid rationale to resist it, unlike the polytheist. But isn’t God the Creator of all things? Yes, but the human race freely rebelled against the instructions of God. As a result, decay, death, and destruction entered in, as God had promised. To rebel against this God is to rebel against love and the well-being of society.

Yes, following God is restrictive. However, I love His restrictions and have learned that these restrictions maximize my freedom and welfare, like a fish who intuit that they are restricted to the water where their freedom is maximized.

Meanwhile, the Polytheist or Spiritist is free to choose which gods are appealing. However, the evidence we perceive from these cultures demonstrates that their “freedom” translates into destruction. In contrast, those societies that have followed the God of the Bible have prospered. However, now that the West has been rejecting this God, they are unable to keep pace with many other nations.

Besides, this world points to a single all-knowing and all-powerful Creator, rather than an ongoing competition between lesser gods. We find no evidence that the laws of science are undergoing regular upgrades to improve or even to undermine their performance. Instead, we have discovered that these laws are fine-tuned, elegant, harmonious, and immutable – the work of a single Mind.