God's Will? Hmmmmmmmmm...(Part 2)
Ever since my inception into Christianity, at a age where I couldnt decipher if what I felt was merely my emotions or divine insemination, I've always been pondered much about my new religion. Let me thus share my thoughts one such moot point: God's Will.
Christianity preaches that everyone of us have a purpose in life and that purpose is what Christianity labels as God's Will. According to many preachers, in order to attain enlightenment on what that Will contains for us, we have to have a close relationship with God - through prayer, fasting and whatever else is prescribed by our "spiritual father" a.k.a Pastor. Essentially what this means is that we have to spend part of our lives discovering what has been decided by God for us and then spending the rest of it living as he wanted us to. Now what could be more glorious and fulfilling than living a life predestined by our Creator right? But is this truly what God meant by his Will in our lives?
Genesis 2:7 says ,"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." This is the first and only reference, throughout Creation, to a soul. God created man with a difference from the rest. Man was given power over all other life created. Man was made god over all else except God. Man was created with a soul, in the image of God and with the freedom to make a choice over the Tree of Good and Evil. What this means would be God created a free spirit, one very much like him and the Tree of Good and Evil was the first temptation. Temptation was created together with Man. Adam and Eve both had an relationship with God and God's Will for them was this: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28. This was God's first Will for Man.
We all know what happened in the garden soon after and the rest of the happenings in the Old Testament. The turning point was the birth of Christ. Before this, throughout the Old Testament, God was manifesting his Will in a tangible manner. During Christ’s time on earth, God mostly worked through Jesus. It’s almost like an evolution. Although we still do see here and there instances where God still spoke through Angels and other corporeal means, the substantial withdrawal of explicit guidance from God in the New Testament was startling and it only got more obscure after the departure of Jesus.