Riddle of God

"I love God… that’s why I’m doing this. Send this to fifteen of the most special persons in your phonebook in your before December 15. Don’t ignore. If you fail, you will lose the most special person in your life. If you really love God… you will send this."

A friend sent me this text message from a few days ago. I was in a jeep on the way to my classmate; I almost fall from my seat when I read this. This was just one of the few "Send this if you love God" text messages that constantly barrages my sophisticated, state-of the-art Nokia 3310 (courtesy of my nephew). But this one goes to the extreme.

The text message looks like a harmless test of faith. It only wants me to express my deep devotion to God by disseminating them to fifteen friends, the way you send your "quotable quotes" by the likes of Majin Boo, Manny Paquiao, and panty napkins to every person in your phonebook (If you hadn’t received any of these messages, you must be living under a rock). Everyone will agree, loving Him is a must for every person. I can hear the faithfuls now saying in chorals "Wouldn’t you care to give a few push of the buttons for Him?"

Remember, I gave you your fingers.

But if God will really kill your most precious if you fail to send them to fifteen most special and gullible person in your phone book, if God will really liquidate the most important person in your life if you don’t do it until the December 15 due, If God will really nuke everything out if you don’t proclaim to the whole wide world that you really love Him, then God must be the most egoistic, malevolent, and murderous self-serving tyrant I’ve ever known. He alone can give shame to Nero, Adolf Hitler, and (our very own) Ferdinand Marcos combined and rolled together.

Has God, through time, evolved into something like this? Had he become someone who wants to hear He is loved and executes everyone who didn’t? Goddamn it. Now I can see the sense of these words.

When I saw the message and eventually think about it, it harks me back to the time when our zero to hero Robert Langdon still rocks (until Tom Hanks came in). In Angels and Demons, when Vittoria Vetra asked him if he believes in God, our humble symbologist categorically answered:

"I can’t see the sense of believing in a God who, in all His omnipotence, creates imperfect humans, and then sends them to hell for their faults"

Well, perhaps, this is the biggest paradox of all. Who really is God? Some people (priests, preachers, Elie Soriano) will say they know Him. But, if all the mysteries the physical universe had possessed, with the biological complexities a single human cell has, and with astronomical mathematical figures like the Googol (number 1 followed by 100 zeros, not the search engine, you berth) or the Googolplex (number 1 followed by a Gogool of zeroes, makes me dizzy just thinking about it), each of these things is too big for the human comprehension, if God is greater than all of these combined, how can we say we know Him?

Paradoxes, they are as complicated (and as answerable) as the concept of God itself. Good thing I had unlimited load that day, otherwise I could have not sent that! Whew! That was close!













If you want to know what God's greatest creation thinks about, check out Adam Creed, or what other God is ruling with us, in When Impermanence is God.