The Divine Universe

The LORD is a man of war. Exodus 15:3 (KJV)

It is hard to think of a single war in which God was not fighting for both sides.  At least, that is the impression one gets.  Even today, as World War Three gathers momentum, both the Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Moslem fundamentalists believe sincerely that God is on their side.

The war is not over yet. Indeed, in Afghanistan it may only just be beginning. And the superior weight of ironmongery and level of technology possessed by the “crusaders” seems to be less decisive than it should be. In the Bible, and in real life too, victory does not always go to the most heavily armed. Vietnam is a recent example.

But what is this belligerent God up to? Why does he organise these games of mass destruction and murder? It seems out of character with much that I learn about God from other sources, especially the Gospels and New Testament writings. In fact, I think that the prophetess Miriam was mistaken. I don’t think God is a “man of war”. War is man-made, and I think the initiative for war is usually either territorial aggrandisement, racial hatred or religious bigotry. Nevertheless, even when the motives are territorial aggrandisement or racial hatred, religion or, in the case of communist nations, a pseudo-religious ideology, is almost always enlisted in support.

In the lifelong process of forming my own image of God, my focus is the God of Jesus of Nazareth. That being so it is obvious to me that God is not a man of war. In fact He is not even armed. When I study artistic or literary presentations of the crucifixion I see someone who is terrifyingly vulnerable and helpless. The ruling class of the day is very much in charge of events.

I believe that humankind is fathered by and born in the womb of God, but I do not think we can attribute our love of war to God. The decision to make war is always the deliberate choice of ruling men, and occasionally women. I also believe that God’s incarnation continues not only in Christians but in all of humankind. So He is forced to join us in our dreadful activities. He also shares the perils and hardships of the non-combatants, including women and children. He continually suffers and dies because there has never, as far as I know, been a time when war was not being waged somewhere.

God’s cosmic act of creation is an adventure. Warfare is part of that adventure, but that does not make God’s creation a belligerent act. God is incarnate in a cosmic offspring, the Word, who possesses divine freedom.  God has passed that freedom on to us. God cannot stop us from doing ungodly things and praying for Him to help us. “O God of battles, steel my soldiers hearts,” prayed Henry 5th in Shakespeare’s epic play, but God was in both camps – a reluctant conscript.

Every religion I know of, even Buddhism very occasionally, has inspired aggressive and murderous action. Our lives are short and we are in a hurry to see the world, especially human society, conform to our idea of the way it should be. This leads to armed crusades, jihads and other “holy” wars. War meets an urgent sense of need, based on a short-sighted view of life. But this is not to say that God is inactive. The incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit participate actively in the universe and in our own small world. Religious people speak of ‘spiritual warfare’: the conflict between good and evil. The word ‘jihad’ originally referred to the spiritual battle for personal holiness, an inner struggle in which there was no violence to anyone except oneself and against our own evil inclinations. The word ‘crusade’ originally referred to aggressive military operations against Moslems, but it can also mean non-violent movements such as Bishop Wilberforce’s fight against slavery. The adventure of life involves a continual struggle against destructive self-indulgence.

One might ask why God is not content to settle down quietly in heaven with his family and enjoy the Garden of Eden. I would love to be a flower or even a cabbage in God’s paradise – knowing nothing of good and evil, nurtured tenderly by the Gardener.  But humans have that fatal knowledge, and being a child of the family, even God’s family, can be taxing and even frightening at times. Sibling rivalries are a perpetual strain and hazard. We all want to be God’s favourite: chosen us for an exclusive revelation. We all cling to the belief that our religion is the best.

There has been much discussion in recent years about religious tolerance. Christendom has been the scene of conflict from its earliest days. In the first century CE Jewish traditionalists were horrified by the Hellenising influence of Paul and the gentile converts. By the end of the century we can see the effect of this influence in the fourth gospel, and read of the hostility that by then existed between Jewish and gentile Christians. John’s gospel has been the primary source of anti-Semitism in a predominantly gentile church ever since, leading to violent persecutions and genocide.

In the first four centuries one focus of conflict was the definition of the nature of Christ. Gentiles insisted that Jesus was divine. The idea of a god-man was totally foreign to Jewish tradition, but the Gentiles won the day at the Council of Nicea. It was a bloodless coup but Constantine’s soldiers were standing by. At the turn of the first millennium the churches of the East and West divided over a very esoteric and fine theological point about the Holy Spirit. With the dawn of the Renaissance, strong minded and determined individuals were disturbed by the corruption in the Church and pioneered aggressive reform movements. This gave rise to bloody conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. Today Allah, the God of Islam, appears as a belligerent and murderous God in the fundamentalist Moslem terrorist movement.

Jesus said that he came, not to bring peace but a sword. His gospel was dangerously controversial but, at the end, his response to his enemies was passive. I would go so far as to say that the God of Jesus Christ was not a man of war at all, but a pacifist. This has characterised His response to armed forces of evil down the ages. God does not even intervene to stop the carnage of man-made wars.