I remember being appalled as a young boy when I read that Friedrich Nietzsche said God was dead. How could such a well respected philosopher be so wrong about something so important? Surely he would burn in hell for saying such a thing. In my later years I have come to see what he meant - that the idea of a supernatural god in the sky has been reduced to a relic of a pre-scientific time. Further, he believed that holding on to such a belief had become harmful to humanity.
He saw how haunted we are by strict religious upbringing, crippled and unable to rid ourselves of the idea that someone is judging our behavior and threatening eternal punishment if we don’t obey. Fearing to give up religious belief, we cling to it even if it doesn’t produce fulfillment. God may be dead Nietzsche said, “but given the way people are, there will be caves in which his shadow is worshipped for millennia”.
Well maybe not. There are signs that our species may finally be moving into a new age of enlightenment. Our children are examining doctrinal issues that my generation took for granted and they will no longer tolerate them. There is a reason church attendance is down in record numbers for all denominations. New thoughts about the nature of God are being birthed outside of church that could restore lives and save our planet.
We have no problem believing Jesus was God. The Bible says so. The Bible also says we too are “made in the image and likeness of God”. Let’s quit beating around the doctrinal bush and accept the fact that we are all manifestations of God. Jesus knew this but lived in an age of primitive people, so he couldn’t explain it except through parables. The church in the fourth century interpreted his words the best it knew how when it established the Bible. But the Holy Spirit speaks with even greater coherence today in the 21st - if we have ears to hear.
But we’re forbidden to lean on our own understanding of spiritual things. The Bible tells us who God is, what he wants from us, and what he will do to us if he doesn’t get it.
This was the God who Nietzsche said died of old age, and he did. If we find ourselves at a loss its because he is the only god we ever knew. But our hearts should not be troubled. It is only the god “above” that has gone missing – not the God who lives in us. Remember what Jesus told his disciples, “If I don’t go, the holy spirit cannot come”. If God in the sky doesn’t go he will never be discovered in you.
Growing up I didn’t know if God loved me. But over the years I came to understand what Jesus meant by, “The kingdom of God is within you,” and what God meant when he said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last”. What can come before the first or after the last? God must be everything there is.
Think about that. If God is everything there is he would have to love you.
Now get over it.
