Walking to the movies Sunday, I walked past some Godhead’s with a sign reading “Is God Guilty?” I didn’t bother checking out their answer because I already knew their reply.
What I love about Christianity is “The Bible”, both Old and New Testament, not least because you can project so much on to the stories: it is anything you want it to. Malleable. Which is why you can see in the Dylan Born Again Trilogy move from the God of War to the God of Love.
Let me rate them for you:
Slow Train Coming (1979) – The greatest vocal performance of his career – A
Saved (1980) – Holding on tight to a solid rock with a greater Gospel feel – A
Shot Of Love (1981) – One of his greatest albums and the place where is able most closely to write in his own style – A+
Whenever I think about Christianity, if I am skimming my mind, I’ll maybe go with Sam Cooke or Aretha or maybe George Jones, but when I am looking for an idea I’ll go with Dylan even if I am not really listening. And I was searching my mind for an idea last night: Is God Guilty. Now, I am not a believer so what I am interested in is not a spiritual concept, it is an intellectual idea. And it goes like this:
The Old Testament begins with the sin of knowledge but so does the New Testament: the stories are mirror images. It goes back to Jung’s idea that Job was humoring God after God had taken everything from Job and Job had asked God why. God got angry and Job calmed him down: Job apologized, Job humored God. Because Job had empathy for God and God had none for Job. But God was guilty of nothing, God was innocent because he didn’t know what it was to be human. This lead directly to God becoming part human and Jesus. The God of the New Testament was Guilty of knowledge. The moment he became human God became guilty of the sin of knowledge. He knew how we felt.
It is this concept of God, not merely omnipotent and all knowing but all understanding. The difference between Christianity and all other reasons is that when Christians ask God to forgive them, they are also asking God to forgive himself.