God’s love maximizes options. As He designed the universe everything had a particular task. It was designed to work in certain ways. Everything had certain properties.
We can all recognize that two things cannot occupy the place at the same time. This enables us to piece lumber together and build houses. We stamp and machine parts that fit together and make cars.
Since things cannot occupy the same place at the same time, things can fit together and become working objects. Yet that same law is effective in accidents where objects meet is ways we don’t desire. Things then crash, rumple and break. To avoid that we write and try to enforce “traffic laws”, laws designed to guide behavior to avoid the harm that comes from ignoring the natural laws.
We recognize the rigidity of natural law. But when it comes to how we live there seems to be much more flexibility. And there is. But, as with natural law, there is need to operate within limits and boundaries for things to function. Today’s news, global, national, local, even personal indicates the crash and damage of thinking and acting outside design parameters.
God created people in a variety of societies. These people possess the properties of intelligence and societal relationships. They can think and make a wide range of choices – even to challenge and oppose. To limit or prevent those choices would make God a tyrant. The nature of His love seeks intelligent, voluntary appreciation. He seeks nurture over control.
God took a great risk when He created a universe where love is the fundamental reason for its existence. Love is a property given intelligent beings. (We will often use the word “people” to include us and the other intelligent beings (angels and such) in the universe.) For love to exist and flourish we must interact with others within certain parameters. We touched on the idea of law in the nugget on sin.
Ezekiel chapter 28 provides major insight into the starting point of things going wrong. “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,
Till iniquity was found in you.
16 “By the abundance of your trading
You became filled with violence within,
And you sinned;
Therefore I cast you as a profane thing
Out of the mountain of God;
And I destroyed you, O covering cherub,
From the midst of the fiery stones.
17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;
I cast you to the ground,
I laid you before kings,
That they might gaze at you.
18 “You defiled your sanctuaries
By the multitude of your iniquities,
By the iniquity of your trading;
Therefore I brought fire from your midst;
It devoured you,
And I turned you to ashes upon the earth
In the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you;
You have become a horror,
And shall be no more forever.” ’ ”
Isaiah 14:12-15 records another facet of this king’s ideals:
12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
He wanted to sit in God’s place.
God did not create iniquity and sin and all that follows in its wake. Those qualities were found in this king of Tyre. He had been in Eden. This was the voice Eve listened to at the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He there presented the proposition that God had withheld something of value from them – knowledge of good AND evil.
What follows is exposition and comparison of good and evil. How is each defined. What are the qualities and benefits of each.
History is the lab report of what happens when a sentient people choose the knowledge of good and evil. It records contrasting comparisons between God and the one who became known as Satan – the adversary.
It demonstrates and defines that there are laws of society, laws of love, laws of life that make love a wonderful way to be, a wonderful currency of relationships.