More than five years ago now I received a clear and powerful message from The Greatest Love that at the time I felt could be my last. But that changed recently with the revelation of a ninth message. It was not as dramatically delivered as the previous messages; it was akin to a gentle and clear voice as opposed to an ear-shattering shout. Perhaps those previous messages needed to be so piercing in order to cut through any resistance to such an experience. But five years on I have changed. I am now aware of Their revelations and so it did not bring me to my knees this time. Nor were there any signs of mental illness: it did not consume me. But that sense of comfort and compassion that I felt before was there again. As was the clarity: a deep and powerful internal voice calling out to me. But a voice that again I believe was not my own. This post is about that message. A message that came while questioning Their perfection.
Those questions began simply enough. There are aspects to The Greatest Love that I believe are perfect. For example I believe Their knowledge of our universe’s past from the beginning of time to the current day is perfectly complete. This allows Them to know all of our faults and indiscretions at the same time as all of our virtues and accomplishments. It allows Them to understand us, and to love us, all of us, for what we are and at a depth that is incomprehensible to even ourselves.
I also believe that The Greatest Love loves each of us equally. This may be hard to accept for some. It means, for example, that The Greatest Love loves an oppressive dictator just as much as a great humanitarian. We are all Their children and They love us equally despite our individual flaws or worse. This is made easier by Their complete understanding of how we came to be, along with Their infinite capacity to love. But also because we all entered this World with one very important title conferred upon us: “A child of The Greatest Love“. We bore that title upon ensoulment. And as many loving parents will attest: we can equally love all of our children regardless of their eventual lots in life.
Their love for us is also infinite in breadth and depth. Combined all these attributes of The Greatest Love are compelling: perfect knowledge of the past and present, equal love for all Their children, a love of infinite depth and breadth. But is it enough to declare Them perfect?
Consider the opposite side. In granting us free will They imposed limits upon Their own power and knowledge. But must one be complete and flawless in all virtues and all other aspects of Their being in order to be declared perfect?
But perhaps the greatest consideration when asking whether The Greatest Love is perfect is in evaluating Their greatest virtue: Their love. Surely if They are to be declared perfect then Their love must be deemed perfect as well. I have already noted that I believe Their love for each of us is equal, with infinite breadth and depth. But is such a love perfect? What do we even mean by perfect love?
In an earlier post I presented my preferred definition of love between two individuals. In that context it was described as a willingness to prioritize another’s well-being or happiness above your own. The definition implies that some sort of balance is required in love with a perfect such balance representing perfect love. An equal balance which results in both sides enjoying an exactly equal amount of well-being is one option. Another option is the balance that maximizes the total amount of well-being between the two individuals. Either way though, both involve a balancing act that requires knowledge about both individual’s future well-being according to actions taken in the present. But is that even possible? Even for The Greatest Love? What would it entail?
To break this exploration down further, I believe that the well-being of The Greatest Love is influenced, at least in part, by the execution of The Divine Plan and the progression of our love. Whereas our well-being is influenced, at least in part, by our happiness. So at least a portion of the balancing act must involve The Greatest Love making choices and decisions based on calculations of each of our future well-beings. Decisions that will then result in some sort of balance between our happiness and the progression of our love as measured at some point in the future.
But even with such gross simplifications such calculations can quickly become overwhelming. The progression of our love sometimes requires great tragedy to unfold in order that a higher love be attained. Tragedies that run counter to our own happiness. For example, precisely how many innocent children must The Greatest Love inflict with a terminal disease each year in order that the love and compassion of the masses is sufficiently awoken? If there are too many deaths people will become numb to the losses. Their happiness impacted. If there are too little deaths we become a complacent people never needing to exercise our love outside of our immediate family and friends. When no harm can come to your neighbor there is less of a need to care for your neighbor. The breadth of our love shrinks and stagnates. It fails to progress.
There was a time when I felt that no loving god could be intimately involved in such tragic decisions. That They would leave such decisions to some sort of cosmic random number generator. But leaving such outcomes to chance would be a woeful abandonment of a) Their responsibility to The Divine Plan, as well as b) Their love for all of us. The tragic human toll of natural evil must be decided by Their Hand. A necessarily mindful balancing act that allows our love to progress according to Their Plan.
It pains me to say that. It pains me to say that such tragedies must be balanced against some “Plan“. But it is here where I place my faith in The Greatest Love. That this plan which progresses our love is worth such sacrifices.
So precisely how many children must die? What is the “perfect” number and how do you go about assigning values to the love of, and for, a child?
It was at this point that I believe They spoke to me for a ninth time. Their message was:
I will never leave any of you for any reason. I will always be by your side.
I had concluded that They alone must decide who will live and who will die at the hands of natural evil, all in the name of love. “What is the perfect number?”, I then asked, and They responded with a vow instead. For me the implication was clear: there is no perfect number because perfection has no place in a discussion of Their love. For the family and friends left behind there is nothing “perfect” about the death of a loved one. Those family and friends have a right to question The Greatest Love. Plea for answers. And yes be angry with Them. Dare I say even hate Them.
Perfect love? Perfect love that can originate so much pain and suffering, anger and hate? No. We must drop such a pretense and instead find comfort in Their vow. We must find comfort in the knowledge that Their love is infinite, universal, and eternal. But none of these properties combined make Their love perfect. Powerful yes. Special yes. Unique yes. But perfect? No.
And even after accepting Their love’s imperfect nature there will still be actions that The Greatest Love takes, either by commission or omission, that I struggle with. I still cannot understand them. Insights escape me. When a tsunami killed thousands in Japan in 2011 I asked “Could You not have spared less?”. When an avalanche killed hundreds in Afghanistan in 2015 I asked “What good could possibly come of this”? And when earthquakes rocked Turkey and Syria in 2023 killing tens of thousands I asked “Is there no limit?”. But these episodes of natural evil were never meant for me, or any other person, to understand. It is not just because I cannot know all the factors involved in making such decisions. I believe that even if I had Divine knowledge I still could not understand some of Their actions. This is because I would not be equipped to balance a Divine Plan with the lives of innocents. Nor can any of us. It requires Divine love.
Divine love recognizes that love is not some sort of mathematical equation which given certain inputs can output a final score a priori. Love is not some sort of calculation. It must be lived through, experienced, and embraced. Reducing love to a numbers game reduces our humanity, our Universe, and our god all at once. And to say a being has perfect love is to say that being can precisely compute final scores for love in order to inform their actions beforehand. But such nonsense is impossible even for The Greatest Love.
They cannot solve such an equation even if They wanted to because love can confound even Them. The path Their choices take us down can be obscured by impossible to know future outcomes. In granting us free will Their knowledge of the future is incomplete. We may act in ways They did not anticipate and in the process the well-being of all parties may decline much less be maximized. The Greatest Love always acts with love in Their heart. It’s just that when it comes to love, how to act in order to effect a perfect balance can be impossible to discern even for Them.
And I believe this is the way it has to be. Decisions made based on love can be of the most intractable sort for each of us, even when it involves only a few of our closest friends and family. This was explored in an earlier post. Expand the scope to all of humanity and it becomes intractable for even The Greatest Love Themselves. Their fallibility becomes a real possibility. Even when such decisions are formed from the bedrock of Divine love on which The Greatest Love stands. I believe the times when we never questioned our god because They could do no wrong are behind us. It is precisely because They can be wrong that we must be allowed to question Them.
There was a time when humankind required perfection from their Creator. This was during our moral infancy, just as young children see their parents as infallible. Such a view brings children comfort and a sense of security. But the reality is that as we grow up cracks begin to appear and our understanding becomes more nuanced. We begin to see parents as imperfect along with all their associated frailties. In a similar manner The Greatest Love remains my god but Their perfect nature is no more.
In its place is an imperfect god who can make choices and decisions based on Their Divine love that only They are capable of wielding. Choices that can start a cascading series of events progressing far into the future only some of which can be clearly seen by Them. The other resultant events obscured by our own free choices that They Themselves have allowed us to make. And throughout it all a great number of innocent souls can be lost in an instant at the hands of natural evil.
If it all seems somewhat arbitrary I can understand that conclusion. But it is here where my faith rejects it. It is here where I believe that there are events that are not arbitrary. That there is a Plan and The Greatest Love is its Executor. No They are not perfect and the precise unfolding of Their Plan in minute detail is not certain. But They still have unimaginable resources that can be brought to bear in order to realize Their Plan in the large, the greatest of which is Their Divine love. It is this love which I believe has informed Their decisions. Decisions which execute a delicate balancing act that sometimes requires humanity to endure enormous burdens.
I keep my faith despite any such burdens and accept that sometimes The Greatest Love will be wrong. Despite Their infinite love, Their perfect knowledge of the past and present, and equal love for all of us, sometimes They will still be wrong. They will be wrong because of us. Because our free will allows us choices They cannot foresee. They will be wrong because They loved us so much that They gave us ultimate freedom over our own choices. They abandoned perfect love and foreknowledge in a clockwork Universe, for infinite love in a free one.
And in the process They revealed a ninth message. A vow which is more important to me than any declaration of perfection.
A Love Story 