Tag: A Course In Miracles

Is God Perfect?

My experience with most religious people is that they will tell you that God is perfect. I have been told this by extreme fundamentalists, and I have been told this in Unity. I have been told this by people who study A Course In Miracles (ACIM).

I have been told that God is perfectly loving, perfectly powerful, and perfectly intelligent, that he (she/it)  knows everything that was, is, and will be. In ACIM I have been told that I am perfect and my real problem is that I don’t yet realize how perfect I am.

With one exception I don’t remember any religious person admitting that God could be less than perfect. If I look around in the world that I see – and which many will tell me is an illusion – I don’t see a lot of perfection in anything.

I searched for the definition of “perfect” on the Net and I got:

perfect

ADJECTIVE

having no mistakes or flaws

completely correct or accurate

You may occasionally find an individual who for the moment seems to have no physical mistakes or flaws in their makeup, but in reality even the most beautiful and perfect specimens will age and become old, weak, and eventually die. If even physical perfection exists in this world it is only fleeting and appears to have the seed of its own destruction.

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all negative and all that!

The point is that if there is any reality in this world, and if God made it, then if that reality is any reflection on its maker, then that maker is not yet perfect. Maybe that is not such a bad idea after all.

Perfect is that which has no where else to go, has nothing to learn or do, because everything would take it from perfection. It is at the end of its road, so to speak. Perfection is an illusion.

If God is not perfect then that is not a flaw. It is just a reflection of the self-apparent fact that God is not done with its creation just yet.

Being God
What Is God?
Who Is God?
What Question Would You Ask God?

Are Good And Evil Real?

Many on a New Age path do not believe in a duality of good and evil, or that real evil exists. Author Joseph J. Dewey summed this up very well in his article Good & Evil – Light & Dark.

Many believe we should not see good and evil as even existing. They believe that because in the Ultimate Reality all is one and all is peace, we can escape the evil others see and do by concentrating on this Reality, and denying the idea that evil exists. One of the few criticisms I’ve received of the book [The Immortal] is from people telling me I should not be teaching about a Dark Brotherhood because it just adds power to an illusionary belief; that Dark Brothers do not exist unless we conjure them up. The basic belief from this camp is if we do not give any belief to the dark side it will not exist.

… [but] …

Because all form is created from the dualities, and we are the power of Decision to “know good from evil,” to say evil does not exist would mean good does not exist also. Good must co-exist with evil to have meaning, just as light needs darkness to be seen. In the Ultimate Reality neither one truly exists; they’re both illusions. Your body doesn’t really exist either. But in this reality we live in, you’d be crazy to jump over a cliff in the belief that your body can’t be hurt because it doesn’t exist.

To really understand evil we must understand that it does have a purpose. Without evil good could not exist. Without hate love could not exist. We live in a world of duality and whether it is an illusion is simply irrelevant. If it is an illusion it can be very painful if we ignore learning the rules and trying to play by them.

This is probably the best summation of the meaning of good and evil I have ever seen:

The basic difference between good and evil is this:

Good is that which takes us forward on the path of Spiritual evolution toward greater freedom, livingness, intelligence, light and love.

Evil is that which takes us back into the past to lesser freedom, lesser livingness, lesser intelligence, light and love.

Good & Evil – Light & Dark is a good read.

Also see:

Is Evil Real?
Is Evil Necessary?
Good & Evil – Light & Dark (Joseph J. Dewey)

Is Evil Real?

Many who adhere to some form of New Age thought do not believe in a real existence of evil in the world. Benjamin E. Zeller writes on Patheos that:

New Age beliefs tend to deny or at least minimize the fundamental existence of evil. … The New Age [believes in the] illusionary nature of evil.

A Course In Miracles, sometimes called a New Age Bible is very clear on the idea that evil (and a lot of other things) are not real, for example in Lesson 110:

If you remain as God created you fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist.

Unity is a popular church in many cities. From a discussion between Unity Worldwide ministers:

Truth reveals that evil is only a basically harmless illusion.

What really is “evil“?

It is a word used to describe many things from unpleasant conditions up to and including malignant and powerful intelligences bent on harming humanity. “Evil” can refer to “suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing; something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.” Merriam-Webster

In terms of suffering, misfortune, wrongdoing, sorrow, distress, and calamity I find it hard to understand how one can claim that this sort of evil does not exist in the world. Perhaps if one lived in a monastery without access to the evening news?

If one is rational this sort of evil does exist. If one believes in God or a Supreme Being who created the universe then it is hard to deny that this God is the author of that kind of evil. In the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament this is made clear:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7

Some translations like to use the word “calamity” instead of “evil,” but in the original Hebrew the word is  רַע (ra`) which does in fact mean “evil.” In Judaism there is a concept of this kind of “evil” being created for the purpose of testing mankind.

That makes sense to me. If we did not have the possibility of this kind of evil, if we did not have to overcome disease with modern medicine, hunger with modern agriculture, and discomfort with air conditioning and overstuffed couches, and more importantly if we didn’t have the God-given intelligence and desire to overcome evil, then I guess we would still be setting around in caves scratching the fleas on our hairy butts.

Also see:

Is Evil Necessary?
Are Good And Evil Real?
Good & Evil – Light & Dark (Joseph J. Dewey)