A Thought for a Friday in Lent

Imagine for a moment that there really is a God. By definition, of necessity, God is perfect. If he were imperfect, he is not God.

This God, therefore, being perfect, is perfect in every way; anything else is not true perfection. He is therefore emotionally perfect, perfect in love, perfect in compassion. Overall perfection implies perfect love.

Now, a God of perfect love for his human creatures would necessarily want to share their experience, their sufferings, perfectly. This necessarily implies the incarnation.

And, if God himself incarnated as a human, wouldn’t everything happen just as it is described in the Gospels? He would have no interest in preferring Jew to Samaritan, or potentate to leper. He would scold all illegitimate authority.

And he would quickly be put to death by the powers that be.

Nor would he resist this death—though of course he had the power to. For experiencing condemnation and death would be the perfect act of compassion for mankind.

Everything follows, it seems of necessity, from the original premise that there is a God.

I submit further that there is no need to imagine that premise. It is a certainty of both reason and experience, as demonstrated by so many philosophers: Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, to name a few. I find both the ontological argument and the argument from design impossible to deny; were it not also possible to prove the thing to oneself in prayer.

I submit we should all act accordingly.