Passion and Atonement -- The Genesis of Atonement
[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 48, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 49.] What shall God do? The devils have betrayed His love; and do betray those He loves. Yet, as the eternal ground of all reality (including theirs), still being intrinsically Love in His own unique and independent self-existence, God still loves the rebel angels. The humans have betrayed Him, too; and are betrayed in turn by higher tormentors; and also betray whosoever they themselves can find to have power over. Yet, still, God loves them, too. God will do what He can, to mitigate the suffering that His beloved children cause, in their quests to affirm their own self-importance. Such a quest will always involve perverted suffering: for to make suffer, in pain or in pleasure, is to exhibit power over; and so to exhibit power over, in any perverted way, will be to make suffer. Yet God has given them such power that they pervert. And although...