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"But when He came as God Incarnate, He imitated myths thatmen had made to try to sanctify all suffering, to try to say that historyis not horror, but has meaning. He plunged down into man-madereligion and brought His Divine Grace to those images, and Hesanctified suffering by His death, whereas it had not been sanctified in HisCreation, you understand?""It was a bloodless Creation and without sacrifice," I said. Myvoice was dull but my mind had never been more alert. "That is whatyou're saying. But He does believe suffering is sacrosanct or can be.
Nothing is wasted. All things are used.""Yes. But my position is that He took the awful flaw in His cosmoss梙uman pain, misery, the capacity to suffer unspeakableinjustice梐nd He found a place for it, using the worst superstitiousbeliefs of Men.""But when people die梬hat happens? Do His believers find thetunnel and the Light and Loved ones?""In the places where they have lived in peace and prosperity,generally, yes. They rise without hate or resentment directly intoHeaven. And so do some who have no belief in Him whatsoever orHis teachings.
"Because they too are Illuminated.""Yes. And this gratifies Him and expands His Heaven, andHeaven is ever enhanced and enriched by these new souls from allquarters of the world.""But Hell is also full of souls.""Hell so far exceeds the size of Heaven as to be laughable. Whereon the planet has He ruled where there has not been self-sacrifice,injustice, persecution, torment, war! Every day my confused andembittered pupils are increased in number. There are times of suchprivation and horror that few souls ascend to Him in peace at all.""And He does not care.""Precisely. He says that suffering of sentient beings is like decay;it fertilizes the growth of their souls! He looks from His lofty heightupon a massacre and He sees magnificence. He sees men and womennever loving so much as when they lose their loved ones, never lovingso much as when they sacrifice for others for some abstract notion ofHim, never loving so much as when the conquering army comesdown to lay waste the hearth, divide the flock, and catch up thebodies of infants on their spears.
"His justification? It's in Nature. It's what He created. And if batteredand embittered souls must fall into my hands first and suffer mytutelage in Hell, so much the greater will they become!""And your job grows heavier all the time.""Yes and no. I am winning. But I have to win on His terms. Hell isa place of suffering. But let's go over it carefully. Look at it; what Hedid:
"When He threw open the gates of Sheol, when He went downinto the gloom of Sheol, like the god Tammuz into the Sumerianhell, the souls flocked to Him and saw His redemption and saw thewounds in His Hands and Feet, and that He should die for them gavea focus to their confusion, and of course they flooded with Him intothe Gates of Heaven梖or everything they had suffered seemedsuddenly to have a meaning.
"But did it have a meaning? Can you give a sacred meaning to thecycle of Nature simply by immersing your Divine Self in it? Is thatenough?
"What about the souls who shrink in bitterness, who never floweras the heels of warriors walk over them, what about the souls warpedand twisted by unspeakable injustice, who go into eternity cursing,what about a whole modern world which is personally angry withGod, angry enough to curse Jesus Christ and God Himself as Lutherdid, as Dora did, as you have done, as all have done.
"People in your modern world of the late twentieth century havenever stopped believing in Him. It's that they hate Him; they resentHim; they are furious with Him. They feel. . . they feel. . . .""Superior to Him," I said quietly, keenly aware that he was sayingnow some of the very words I myself had said to Dora. We hate God.
We hate Him.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, you feel superior to Him."' 'And you feel superior.''
"Yes. I can't show them His wounds in Hell. That isn't going towin them over, these victims, these grieving, furious sufferers of painbeyond His imagining. I can just tell them that it was the DominicanFathers in His Name who burnt their bodies alive, thinking themwitches. Or that when their families and clans and villages wereannihilated by Spanish soldiers, it was all right because His bleedingHands and Feet were on the banner which the men carried to theNew World. You think that would get somebody out of Hell, findingout that He let it happen? And lets other souls ascend without sufferingone drop of pain?
"If I were to begin their education with that image桟hrist hasDied for You梙ow long do you think the Hellish education of a soulwould take?""You haven't told me what Hell is or how you do teach there.""I run it my way, of that I can assure you.
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