What Happened to the Bull?

Just what kind of God do you believe in?

I'm afraid for most people, God has become an amalgamation of an angry Zeus hurling lightening bolts, an IRS agent knocking at the door, and an abusive parent. On the way to meet a friend for dinner tonight, I saw a sign that read, "God WILL settle all accounts." Such an attitude toward God makes me sad and just a little queasy.

The God who comforts me and gives me inner strength to meet each new day is not a God to fear. There is no doubt that evil is part of our universe. We confront evil, both personal and cosmological all the time, but it is not our natural state. I do not believe that a God who loves me as part of Creation requires sacrifice to make me acceptable. Although animal sacrifice has shown up in almost all cultures and religions, we do not know that such a practice was any more than a way to make people feel better about their choice to do wrong—which ironically comes from humankind’s own freedom to choose. In fact, I would like to suggest that repentance is the most important prerequisite of any ritual whether it is sacrificial in nature or not. Hosea 14:3 reads, "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord. Say to Him, forgive all iniquity and receive us graciously, so we will offer the words of our lips instead of calves."

In the Psalms, God asks, “Do I require the blood of bulls and of goats?” The answer is a rather definite NO! Rather, God says through the Psalmist, “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." (Psalm 50:14-15).

Celtic spirituality celebrates the goodness of Creation. Humans are part of that Creation, and God is very pleased with that Creation. God does not need to settle accounts, nor does God need to judge our every motive and behavior because ‘sin, death, and unhappiness are not from God’. (1) We are created free.

John Scottus Eriugena’s seminal work was Periphyseon. In it he states, “God is the beginning, middle, and end of the created universe. God is that from which all things originate, that in which all things participate, and that to which all things eventually return. (Periphyseon III.621a-622a). Thus, Eriugena rejects any divine predestination to evil by an appeal to God's unity, transcendence and goodness. (2)

Eriugena’s mysticism “allows God to be truly God, utterly free of all limiting human notions of space-time, distinct entities, finite relationships and other constraints which have more to do with ignorant human conceptions than the actual Divine nature.” (3)

Human nature, however, wants to believe we are bad. I for one, want more of the God of Monty Python who unequivocally states, “Stop that groveling!” And remember that God really did say, “It’s good!”

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1http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/

2-3 http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/John_Scottus_Eriugena.html