Why the Prince of Peace Has Failed

by Tom Laughlin

At long last, Jung gives us the answer to the problem of good and evil in God.
  You will never know the sweetness and light of God's love until you first know and experience God's darkness.
  Christianity and all religions hang by a thin thread. The problem of the unlimited amount of brutal pain, suffering and violence inflicted upon the world, by these religions, especially those who claim consciously to most deeply believe in God and his goodness.
  Painful as it is to admit, gut-wrenching as it is to accept, the harsh unmistakable reality is that in the 2000 years since Christ came to bring peace on earth, there has never been a time when Christians who were committed to spreading Christ's peace and love, were not at war violently murdering, slaughtering, and even burning alive other Christians -- all, believe it or not -- in the name of God and Christ. When you add in the 2000 years of bloody violence inflicted on non-Christians, again, all in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, right up to and including the Christians in northern and southern Ireland who are bombing each other's children, and the Christians in Bosnia who are raping, murdering and torturing men, women and children for the expressed purpose of preserving their Christian religion, it becomes clear that Christianity has miserably failed in its mission to bring peace to the world.
  Not only have Christians failed on a global scale to bring peace to the world, the endless violence that takes place between Christians in their own cities, their own communities, and their own homes gives further evidence that Christ's admonition that Christians "love one another" has been less than successful. The constant emotional, verbal and physical violence and endless fights between spouses, parents and children, extended family and friends, shows clearly that the Prince of Peace has failed to bring peace and good will to even Christians on a personal level, where it should be the easiest to practice.
  The obvious answer of the believer is that this widespread lack of peace is the fault of Christians who fail to live up to Christ's teachings. Obviously that's true, but it only begs the question. It doesn't answer it. The real question is what is it about Christ's teachings that makes it so difficult, if not impossible, for Christians to live up to Christ's magnificent teachings of "love thy neighbor as thyself," on a massive scale?
  When Abraham Lincoln, an extremely devout believer in God and a true Mystic, was asked why, with his profound belief in God, he never joined the church. Lincoln replied, "Show me one church where the parishioners truly live out Christ's teachings, and I will join that church tomorrow."
  Why do we not see tens of millions of Christians living out Christ's ideal love on either a personal or global level?
  More important, is there something we can do to make it possible for Christians to live out in a practical way in the real world the incredible ability to love that Christ exemplifies?
  The answer is yes. But to do so we can no longer avoid taking a hard look at the massive problem of evil that seems to be escalating more out of control every day.
  We can no longer be afraid to explore in depth why the God of love allows so much evil, and why Christ's message of peace on earth has failed so miserably.
  The same is true of every religion. No matter how lofty their principles and ideals, no matter how magnificent their moral and ethical values, every religion contains a dark shadow side that continuously breaks out as one group of followers in that religion engage in a violent conflict with another group of the same religion, either on a personal level, violence between sects and sub-groups, or on a global scale, it is doubtful there has ever been a war that was not carried out in the name of God. Yes, all wars are fought for money, land, power or God (one group wanting to impose their religious beliefs on another). But even those wars done for money, land or power always invoke God as their ally and benefactor.
  Why does every religion have a shadow side that keeps it from living up to its ideal, and instead acts in complete contradiction of that ideal?
  Now, for the first time in Jung's astonishing Answer to Job, Jung gives us startling new insights regarding the problem of good and evil in God.

For the first time, Jung gives us a meaningful answer to the most difficult questions concerning God:

1. Is God the author of evil, or not? (If you answer that God is the author of evil, then you must explain why God creates evil.)
2. If God is not the author of evil, directly or indirectly, then why does God, being Omnipotent and Omnipresent, allow evil to exist? (If you believe God does allow evil, then you must explain why God allows evil.)
3. If God does not create evil and does not allow evil, then God does not have the power to stop it and is clearly not Omnipotent. The question then becomes, where does evil come from?
     Obviously, if you argue that God does not create evil and does not allow evil, then there must exist some other Power in the world that operates independently --autonomously -- and against God. The only way this other power can create evil freely is because this other Power must be equal in power to God, and God is helpless to stop that other Power from creating evil. (If you argue God is not helpless to stop this evil, but he simply chooses not to, then you are admitting that God allows evil to exist.)
     In short, if you argue that God does not create evil or allow evil, then you are arguing that instead of there being only one God, there are two Gods equal in stature and power, neither God superior to the other, and the whole belief in a monotheistic religion falls.

One other large area where people who want to believe in a good and loving God run up against a stone wall of difficulty is the personal area, the "Why me?" area. Why do people who've led a life of exceptional goodness devoted to God, have been exemplars of loving kindness, hard work, and tried always to lead a decent, moral life, suddenly find themselves stricken with a horrible fatal illness or the victim of a terrible tragedy. The 33-year-old mother of three who develops a brain cancer; the Polly Klaus syndrome of an innocent, vibrant young child snatched from her home and brutally raped and murdered; the drunk driver who hits a family head-on on Christmas Eve, killing the mother and three children, and leaving the young husband with a broken back and a 6-month-old baby. Not a day goes by that the news isn't filled with some young mother being abducted at a shopping mall at 10:00 am, raped and murdered; a child abducted on the way to school with the same cruel results, or some crazed gunman going into a post office or a school yard, opening fire and killing, wounding and crippling a dozen people.
  The Reverend Billy Graham's integrity never shown more brightly than when at the service he gave for the innocent victims of the unspeakable slaughter at the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, when he candidly admitted that from his days as a chaplin when he had to crawl under the bed of a mangled soldier whose wounds required he be suspended face down like a pig on a spit, until this clearly evil bombing, he never found an answer as to why God allows this extreme forms of evil to exist. "I simply do not know," he said.
  Nor does any other leader of any other religion, though they try very hard to console themselves and those trusted to their care with all the aphorisms and platitudes we also use when trying to console our friends and loved ones who suddenly, without any apparent reason, have their lives interrupted with a devastating illness or tragedy. How do you explain to a mother why her beautiful young daughter was taken to the hospital with what appeared to be flu symptoms during the flu season, and within six hours was dead, and all of modern medicine's high technology could do nothing to save her. When her pastor consoled her with the phrase all religious leaders use, "It was God's will," he was completely unconscious of the enormous implications of his words.
  Finally, thanks to Jung's startling discovery about the nature of God, we are finally able to find an answer to this enormous problem of reconciling evil with our inherent belief in a loving God. Like Job, who demanded God (Yahweh) explain why He, God, was so viciously torturing and destroying Job, his most faithful servant, at long last we find the psychological and spiritual explanation of the reality of good and evil in God.
Tomorrow:

NEXT: Difficulty #5: The Limitations of the Human Intellect