An Insecure God

I’m sorry, God but you are significantly insecure, and this has affected your treatment of humanity over many years. I would have expected a deity to have a robust constitution, but the bible has certainly painted God in a more diffident light. I am suggesting that God’s insecurity has created torment for humanity and placed an unreasonable expectation upon our fealty.

Even right back to the Garden of Eden, we witness God’s total insecurity. There was one tree for which the consumption of its fruit was forbidden by God. The tree of “Knowledge of Good and Evil” was off limits. Adam and Eve did eat the fruit from this particular tree. What might be the effect of that knowledge should humanity eat of it? The bible tells us the impact and tells us of God’s significant insecurity in light of humans eating it: “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.[1]” Adam and Eve weren’t banished from the Garden of Eden as punishment for their disobedience; they were kicked out because the deities were afraid humans would also obtain immortality via the Tree of Life. God feared humans becoming his equal. Such profound insecurity is curious in a deity who is supposedly so mighty and powerful.

The Ten Commandments clearly depict a deity who is struggling with self-esteem. Rather than provide humanity with the keys to peace and tolerance, God chooses to set in stone (literally) rules ensuring he remains most important in our minds.  Four commandments exist solely to uphold God[2]. Four! I mean, come on! is that entirely necessary? But here they are:

1.) You shall have no other gods before me;

2.) You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me;

3.) You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name;

4.) Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God.

They’re not just tacked onto the end of the commandment list to provide a nice round number of ten, though. These four commandments even come before the rules about murdering and stealing. And he admits to being jealous which is frequently linked to feelings of self-doubt. God has gone way overboard on these and shown that he needs reinforcement of his greatness by constant worship.

The instructional book of Leviticus sets out plenty of rules for sacrifices and justifications for killing people among other things. I haven’t counted them all but the number of times the phrase, “I am the Lord your God[3],” appears in this book is quite ludicrous. That level of overkill just screams insecurity in such obvious fashion. One of the more curious instructions in Leviticus is, “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.[4]” and it is repeated soon after, “Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death[5].” I admit to being concerned that this sentiment is in the bible once, let alone needing to be repeated. God is significantly needy in Leviticus so he could be in his jealous mode and wants child sacrifices made to him instead of Molek. After all God did ask Abraham to kill his son, Isaac, so you can’t be sure he’s not up for child sacrifice here and there: “Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”[6]”  Child sacrifices are vaguely mentioned later[7] in a negative way but it really should’ve been written more clearly at the outset. One can never be quite certain, when dealing with a deity experiencing worship withdrawal and general self-esteem problems, that the requests are going to be reasonable. The Abraham and Isaac story warns us God could ask for anything when he’s in the mood for a blood sacrifice even asking us to bind our kids to an alter so he feels loved.

According to the bible, the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt and there was a whole convoluted tale about how they came to be released. Anyway, the Israelites ended up wandering around, with Moses and Aaron as their leaders, for forty years before they managed to arrive in the “promised land.” Part way through that journey, people had to contend with starvation and thirst not to mention the nomadic life they now had. Unsurprisingly, there was restlessness amongst the people and doubt in the leadership of Moses and Aaron[8]. They’d even requested to go back to Egypt and their slavery so it must’ve been pretty brutal for them. God was angered by the whinging and the contempt at the leadership so God said he would smite those people[9]. Well, yes, he did smite them. The ground opened and swallowed the 250 men, who had been concerned at the leadership, including every woman, child, servant of their households. Clearly, God does not want his actions to be questioned even though several decades passed for the Israelites without promises being delivered. A confident deity would have been able to sustain mere humans questioning his actions. Not God, though. He had to murder a few hundred people so that people would never risk questioning his leadership after this display. These are not the actions of a confident deity.

The bible book of Job shows how easily God’s frailty was able to be manipulated with alarming consequences. God and the Devil were having a good ol’ chinwag about Job’s fearless and enduring faithfulness to God. Satan suggested that Job was only loyal to God because God had protected him and if unfortunate circumstances were to befall Job, he would soon turn away from God. God said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.[10]” So off went Satan who killed all of Job’s family and servants, destroyed all his livestock, and inflicted him with major health problems. It was just so easy for Satan to do. Nothing but a brief conversation with God was all it took for Satan to best God and wreak untold havoc. Clearly, it was vital to God that he be proven right, whatever the cost might be to others, and the Devil easily preyed upon these insecurities. God couldn’t stand the thought of Satan mocking him, so he let Satan inflict untold pain upon innocent people. A deity who was confident in their own power could never be so easily manipulated by a foe and wouldn’t require such an extreme proof of allegiance.

I wonder if there was a similar wager with Satan prior to the Holocaust or Stalin’s treatment of his own people. Does God have to prove himself every so often because he gets upset by Satan’s ongoing mockery? How many atrocities has humanity endured because God needed to demonstrate his power in some way? Perhaps God was too feeble to even stand up to Hitler or Stalin, despite their humanity, or the terms of another wager with Satan meant that God sat on the sidelines and willingly watched the untold human destruction. Given we no longer adhere to child or animal sacrifices, I wonder if we are angering God because he feels unloved. Stories in the Old Testament show God as being insecure and warn us of the extent of his neediness. It poses a concern for humanity as it’s impossible to predict how a deity might act given their insecurity issues. I certainly won’t be bullied into worshipping an unseen deity.

[1] Genesis 3:22

[2] Exodus 20:3-11

[3] Leviticus 19:3, 19:4, 19:10, 19:12, 19:25, 19:31, 20:7, etc.

[4] Leviticus 18:21

[5] Leviticus 20:2

[6] Genesis 22:2

[7] Deuteronomy 12:31

[8] Numbers 14

[9] Numbers 16

[10] Job 1:12