God's will and his law

But then what of God's law? Didn't he say, "Thou shalt not kill" and so on? And doesn't it mean that in some sense he doesn't want these acts to be done by people? Then can he actively will people to kill and command them not to and send them to hell if they do?

Yes, he can.

What the Commandments of the Law are, fundamentally, are ways of spelling out what actions are inconsistent with the nature of the agent. We are, whether we like it or not, creatures, totally dependent in our reality and our every act upon God. If we refuse to acknowledge this dependence (if we refuse to worship God--the God on whom we actually depend), then we are saying, in effect, that we don't depend on him, and wanting not to depend on him. But we do depend on him, whether we want to or not.

Therefore, we must not (a) worship anything else, or (b) refuse to worship God. And this is the gist of the Commandments that deal with him.

Also we are children of our parents, and we owe our existence in this world to them. To show disrespect to them is to act as if we didn't depend on them, when in fact we do.

And so on. The Commandments, as St. Paul pointed out in the letter to the Romans, simply spell out what acts are self-contradictory, in case we don't realize it. But what they as commandments mean is this: "If you want to do this sort of thing, know that it carries with it eternal frustration." In one sense, it's a command, because the eternal frustration is a kind of punishment; but in another sense, it isn't, because the frustration is what it means to do something that can't be done, and the eternity of the frustration is connected with the fact that a choice is of itself an eternal act.

So the commandments do not express God's will for us, except in this sense: He created us with the genetic limits we have; and we try to exceed these limits at the expense of eternal frustration. But this does not mean that he doesn't want us to try, if we want to. He warns us of the consequences of the act; but if we want to do it and face the consequences, then (a) he isn't "angry" or "offended," and (b) he does not "allow" us to do it, but causes us to do it (in the sense above). In this sense, God simply does not care whether we sin and violate his law or not.

And this is why St. Paul in the Letter to the Galatians says that there is no law any more--including the moral law. The Law was simply provisional, according to Paul, to take care of the time between the giving of the Promise to Abraham's "descendant" and the appearance of that descendant, the Prince, Jesus. And, as Paul points out in that letter, we are not "descendants" of Abraham (daughters and sons), we are "the descendant," singular, the heir of the promise; we are the Prince. God is no longer a Master of whom we are slaves; God is our Father, and we are free.

He hastens to point out in the letters to the Corinthians and Romans that this does not mean that we can do with impunity what the law forbids. It is still true that if you choose to do something self-contradictory, you bring frustration down on yourself.

But the motivation for the Christian is different. The Christian is not interested in consequences for himself; and so, "if you do this, you will suffer" has no motivating force for him. But as a Christian, he loves and has respect for God's creation; and so, knowing himself to be the Prince's body, he will not "make the Prince into a libertine." He doesn't do this because there's a law against it, but because it's not consistent with what he is. God doesn't care whether he sins or not; and as a Christian he knows this; but still the sin is an inconsistency and damaging to the sinner, and he who loves does not do damage.

And this, of course, is why love fulfills the law while still being totally free of it as a law. You just don't want to do what the law forbids; even if it allowed it, you still wouldn't want to do it.

The point here, however, is that God's Commandments are not an indication that God's "real will" for the world is different from what actually happens, and that by sinning we can frustrate that will, and do something that God merely permits. No, when we sin, God wills that the sin occur just as we will it; and God is infinitely happy with that sin. It brings our damnation in its train, of course, and we know it; but God is infinitely happy with that damnation.

This is a hard saying, and few there are who will entertain it for even a moment. But if it isn't seriously faced, then we can't hope to do more than impose on God what we would like him to be, and not get our idea of God from what we know him to be.

But then if God is infinitely happy with our sins and damnation, why did he become man and die for us?