George MacDonald Exposes False Conflicts

INTRODUCTION

Three Traditional Conflicts

Can God be less loving than Jesus?

Can God be less forgiving than Jesus?

Must scientific truths and religious truths clash?

Strongly held but widely differing answers to the first two questions are ripping churches and denominations apart, driving away church members, and causing ministers to be dismissed. The third question is more complex. Specific scientists and certain religious groups assert that evolution and creation by God cannot be reconciled. George MacDonald honors the genuine, noncontradictory differences between science and religion in a way that clarifies this current debate.

George MacDonald (1824–1905), surrounded by nineteenth-century Scottish Calvinism, discovered early that this atmosphere obscured God. His struggle to find what he hoped was a God of perfect love, one worthy of worship, blessed him with a strong sympathy for anyone who feels uneasy with conventional ideas of God.

While finding a God as loving and as forgiving as Jesus, MacDonald wrote fifty volumes of sermons, essays, novels, poetry, literary criticism, fairy tales, and fantasies. He boldly stated: “I write for the sake of those whom the false teaching, that claims before all to be true, has driven away from God—as well it might, for the God so taught is not a God worthy to be believed in.”

George MacDonald welcomes growth and newness in Christian thought. He offers both background and insights that illuminate the current theological and scientific environment. Even though he assigns greater import to attitudes and actions than to beliefs, and hopes his readers will do the same, he gives those of us who like to ponder Christian beliefs plenty to think about.

Since George MacDonald braved the explosive discords buried in the three questions above and found the God of unlimited love, he can provide us with welcome guidance. To anyone who hopes to negate the disturbing implications of these three questions, MacDonald submits currently plausible ways to think about Jesus, God, and God’s relation to nature and to humans. His insights can guide us as we seek to understand and react to present conflicts. His vision of God, after he cast aside false limits imposed by historical, traditional conflicts, offers us refreshing liberation and vital energy.

The first of the three questions above, “Can God be less loving than Jesus?” embroils us in current church disputes concerning the character of God and the relation between God and Jesus. Not everyone is puzzled by teachings that picture Jesus as more loving than God, but George MacDonald was. God’s concern for his own glory appeared to be so unlike Jesus. MacDonald refused to ignore the muted but undeniable contrast embedded in certain portrayals of the Son’s self-sacrifice and the Father’s self-glorification. He overcame this confusing contrast by basing his concept of God upon what we know about the words, deeds, aims, and beliefs of Jesus Christ, rather than upon Greek philosophical concepts, Roman fear of powerful rulers, or church creeds, doctrines, or traditions. MacDonald clung to his foundational belief that whatever is not like Christ is not like God.

The second question, “Can God be less forgiving than Jesus?” uncovers a traditional contrast between God’s justice and God’s mercy. The nineteenth-century Calvinistic idea that God’s justice required some of his children to suffer eternal torment presented a formidable obstacle for George MacDonald in his search for a God of unlimited love. MacDonald also faced other questions. Is it true that we must forgive all those who have harmed us, but God limits his own forgiveness? Does God love only those individuals who believe or do certain things? What are the unforgivable sins? Did God change because Jesus died on the cross? MacDonald brings fresh insights to readers today who are put off by teachings that picture God doing things contrary to ordinary human understandings of love, goodness, and fairness, things we would consider unjust if a human did them. MacDonald’s insights into these questions reassure readers that God is truly a God of “pure unbounded love,” just as the old hymn says.

MacDonald answers the third question, “Must scientific truths and religious truths clash?” with a “No.” He observes that religious truths and scientific truths do not contradict each other but dwell on different levels. Religious truths dwell on the level of why, the level of divine intent, meaning, and purpose. Scientific truths dwell on the level of how things come to be and how they work. Science investigates the ways and means of the universe.

Many of the questions that MacDonald faced are still around. Does the lack of scientific proof of God rule out the possibility of God? Does belief in creation by God require one to believe that God used unnatural rather than natural means to create? Is nature a power independent of God? Is there nothing at the root of things except cold, impassive, material law? Have humans grown superior to their origin when they experience genuine love? MacDonald answers “no” to all these questions, because he experiences God as being above and beyond and in all existence, including scientifically verifiable facts and laws.

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