Letter from your Heavenly Father (Part One)

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This is a simplified and direct interpretation of the understanding I have of reality, and it is written as a letter from God to 'you', in order to emphasise the qualities which are most important in life and most easily lost in the essay form. It is based upon Letter from a Father by William Arkle

http://www.billarkle.co.uk/prose/letterfromafather.html

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My Dear Child,

In this letter, and others to follow, I hope to answer some of your questions, and clear up some of your confusions.

You may wonder why I created you, since I do not 'need' anything? Especially since I have the loving companionship of your Mother in Heaven.

I do not of course need anyone else in order to exist - whereas you depend on me for the nature of your existence. (It is true that you and I are both eternal; but before you became my child you were 'merely' - albeit vitally - an un-self-aware essence.)

However, although self-sufficient in terms of my existence; as a God 'of love', mere physical existence is not the point - I live in order to love, and to expand the possibilities and practice of love.

So, I am not only the creator, but also creative - my whole plan is creative; and at the heart of this creative plan is Man, including yourself.

This is not difficult for you to understand, because there is a profound similarity between my situation in ultimate, and yours in microcosm. As I can exist without you, but not you without me; a human parent can exist without any child, but not the child without parent.

And as a parent may create vast, open-ended creative possibilities by having children, and by raising them to autonomous adulthood; so I have done with you and with all of mankind and the angels.

The similarities, indeed go further; because your ideal purpose in having children is very close to my own ideal for you; that is - the ideal of a good human parent is to enjoy every step of his child's development; to provide the love and experiences (including trials) necessary for maturation - and there is the powerful hope that when the child becomes an adult he will choose to become a close and loving friend with his parents.

In other words,a human father hopes (ideally) to raise children to become of the same kind as himself - an adult human - but each as a new, unique individual and autonomous adult. Friendship with children cannot be coerced, each child is different, friendship is necessarily a choice on both sides and unpredictable; but it is certainly hoped-for.

And (although this seldom can happen in mortal life) the best possible outcome would be for parents and children, their spouses and children, to make a loving extended family and engage in creative and cooperative projects of many kinds (including raising generation upon generation).

That is almost exactly what I want from you. I have provided, as best I can, the type of love and experience necessary for your development to become of the same 'kind' as myself - which is what you call 'divine'. My greatest hope is that you will eventually develop from children as you currently are (in comparison with myself) to become divine of the same kind as myself; and will choose to become my friend, and to engage with me in creative and cooperative projects of a scope and nature appropriate to our divine status.

So, this is why I created you, and all the other humans and angels; not because I needed to but because it makes life better - potentially. I say potentially because everything depends on the choice to love and work together, which is not (and cannot be) coerced.

It will greatly, inconsolably, sadden me if you choose to reject this plan and 'go it alone'; but that is always a possibility. So, at every stage of choice I have provided the best possible opt-out - so you may choose to remain a child rather than develop towards divinity; you may choose to reject personal relationships and instead become an abstraction of un-self-aware happiness; you may even choose to reject my offer of friendship and extended familial cooperation and creativity (rejecting even the choice of which family you inhabit) and live alone and independent (this seems like a terrible choice to me, a hellish choice, but you are free to make it because real friendship cannot be coerced.)

I created you from the motivation of love, and with the creative hope that this may lead to more love in an open-ended and expanding range of possibilities - so you can see how my first motivation is love, and my second motivation is creativity.

Thus it was both love and creativity which made the world, the universe, and everything that has form. When you find yourself confused and uncertain about what I am aiming-at or meaning, I hope that it may be helpful for you to remember this about my nature and yearnings: I mean my fundamental attributes of love and creativity.

From your loving Father in Heaven

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