Simone Weil versus the horrible God of Power


Simone Weil believed that the idea of a God of power and might provoked a response of fear and the thought that he was your king would make you angry towards him for making demands on your freedom. She said that for God to suit our needs he would have to empty himself of his divinity and cease to be God (page 93,98, Faith and Ambiguity). To be an example of self-renunciation he would have to give up the privileges of being God. It would not be enough for him to empty himself of deity as man in Jesus for essentially he would still be the same sovereign God for only the human part would be emptied.
 
The following might be the response of some to this. If we were angry and fearful of this God then the reason this would be is that we do not trust him. A being we trust and see as good would not inspire this response in us. What really makes us angry is not his power but his goodness. We fear his power because we fear his goodness for that means he has the power to do what he wants which is good. If he had no power we would not fear his goodness.

Since we are by nature egoists and that is why religion says we will not cease to sin until after we leave this world and go to Heaven it follows that she is right about us disliking a God of power for this God will use the power to get what he wants for he says he knows it all when he says he is good. It is up to him what good is and not us. Fear and anger are the only things God could produce in us and the love is based on anger and fear and so it is not love at all but a convincing fake. Thus to merely believe in God is to advocate a mystery that is not good for us.
 
Real love is letting others be free to do what they want and make their own mistakes and being there for them when you are needed. How could you love God then for he is going to do what he wants for he is the supreme being and you are a mere speck of dust? You can’t let him make his own mistakes for he doesn’t make any and you can’t be there for him when he is unhappy because he is perfect and is not like man and is perfectly happy. So loving God is letting him do what he wants which means that if you love God most then you are missing out on two superior parts of love: being there for another person in their troubles and letting them make their own mistakes. It is inferior to loving a human being or loving yourself. It is not far from inhuman. If you can’t love God the most then there is no point in worrying about him or belief in him for the big attraction is supposed to be that loving God is a good thing. Letting God do what he wants would seem to include letting him do what he wants with you – such as turning you into a holy person like himself. But love means that you let people do what they incline to do and people do have different inclinations and perceptions and none are perfect. But God must want to remove diversity for some inclinations are better than others and he is perfect meaning he is not diverse or interesting. To love means that it is helping others to try and control their lives. There is no benefit in loving God.

Everybody says they don’t blame people who lose a loved one in tragic and horrifying circumstances for saying that God is not good to them. If they don’t blame them then it is it not selfish to say God is good when all is going well for you? Does it not imply a lack of sympathy and empathy for the bereaved. The sympathy that God is supposed to arouse is totally repellent for when improved health for women has made women more likely to have babies outside of marriage and obviously to have “illicit” sex it follows that the Church must regret these scientific advances. The bad times were good enough to be allowed to happen by God and he allowed them because they helped restrain sin a lot. A believer has to concur with that so the believer must wish that the bad old days never went away.
 



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