The Mystery of Prayer
Chapter 4
World-redemption is the great well-spring of love
But do you not think that the great principle of world-redemption might have an even greater purpose than merely to help the "faithful"?
It is a divine blessing, of course, that the redemption mentioned – at a time when the ability to believe was the culminating field of consciousness in the great majority of humanity – was able to create a phenomenon which could help all unhappy people in their distress, which could comfort them and reassure them through the very ability which was most developed within them.
However, it would have been a very bad defect or shortcoming in the principle of world-redemption if it had not been able to lend a single helping hand to all those who, even against their own will, did not have the minutest form of ability to believe.
If these hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of people who today are not able to believe live only in order to end up in "hell", a state from which they can never, in all eternity, be rescued once they have arrived there, the authorised ecclesiastical Christian concept of the world does not give a particularly flattering picture of the Godhead, though, in its terminology, this Godhead is described as "ommiscient" and "almighty" besides being identical with "all-love" itself.
If the Godhead now is "omniscient", he knew beforehand how all the above-mentioned "unbelievers" would end in "hell".
Why then has he created all these souls?
It would have been much more loving never to have let these unhappy beings experience life.
If he was "almighty" why has he not endowed everyone, without exception, with the "ability to believe"?
Has he been interested in creating beings only to see them suffer?
And why let them suffer eternally?
Of what use is this continuous suffering if they can never be set free from this torment and if they are not going to acquire from it experience and knowledge through which they would be able to qualify for a perfect life afterwards?
Does the Godhead delight in seeing suffering?
Is it a pleasure for him to see these souls groan under the most terrible torment, since he has decreed that they will never be set free?
If not, why has he not, being almighty, transformed this phenomenon into a glorious manifestation of humanity?
If he is unable to do so, he is not "almighty".
And if he is unwilling to do so, he is not "all-loving", because a never-ending torment can have but one single purpose, namely to be entertainment or pleasure for the one who demands its prolonged existence despite possessing the ability to stop it.
Is it not an ancient "heathen" concept of God that here looms forth from the Christian terminology?
Is it not endowed with a level of consciousness which really belongs to the primitive, low human level where one can hardly have enough of hating and taking revenge on one's enemies, or is it simply an expression of pure sadism or perversity?
But the believer does not see this.
Through his faith he has long ago found support and rest in his faith in Jesus.
He has come into the good graces of the Godhead and "his trespasses have been forgiven".
He feels himself in contact with the Godhead.
How the special details of this Godhead's conscious life appear is something which lies completely outside his wish to know.
He feels satisfied knowing Christ's special life of consciousness and his love.
He even thinks that it is blasphemy to occupy oneself with the consciousness of God which, from the outset, he thinks is inaccessible to any researcher.
He finds perfect satisfaction in the traditional thesis: "The ways of the Lord are past understanding".
But as world-redemption, with such great certainty, can give the believer salvation and bliss, should one not think that today, when the world is filled with unbelievers as never before and believers are in the minority, world-redemption also has a helping hand for all those souls, in order that no one can be lost or end in an "everlasting hell"?
In that case the Godhead would appear more like being omniscient, almighty and all-loving.
As the Godhead, through the principle of world-redemption, allowed the birth of a being whose behaviour and appearance were pure all-love and pure lovableness towards foes as well as friends, is it not then likely that His purpose was, to some extent, to give the lie to the old heathen concept of God?
Allowing a being to be born who by far outshone the concepts and ideals which people had formed of a Godhead would sooner or later cause the heathen concept of God to decay.
Sooner or later people had to realise that if a being in physical flesh and blood could be endowed with such a brilliant devotion to everyone, the almighty Godhead could not possibly be considered as an inferior being.
If this were so, sooner or later one would have to revise one's concept of God.
A Godhead who in intellectuality or love is surpassed by a being in physical flesh and blood cannot be a true Godhead.
The highest consciousness or being of the universe must be at least as prominent in humanity and love as such an animal being.
And is it not at this point that the well-spring of love from world-redemption is sending out its helpful rays and leading the "unfaithful" to the heart of the Godhead?