Principles of Faith

In divine terms, non-self-interested love is God’s true essence, the pure impulse toward goodness that makes creation possible. In human terms, non-self-interested love is the manifestation of God’s nature in human beings. It is the “image of God” in which we were created.

There is a transient separation or estrangement of temporal life from eternal life.

There are nevertheless points of contact between eternal life and temporal existence.

The purpose of creation is for God’s nature, which is All Goodness, to be known.

The nature of God is revealed in human beings in expressions and acts of non-self-interested love. On the human level, this form of love expresses itself as the awareness of the individuality of others. Such awareness at its deepest level brings forth feelings of benevolence that we associate with love, in a way that moves us beyond ourselves. Non-self-interested love begins in the heart and expresses itself in action.

Therefore when we act in accordance with non-self-interested love, we help fulfill the purpose of creation. When we act contrary to non-self-interested love (i.e. choosing self over love to the point of harming others, and most especially acts of cruelty), we act against creation’s purpose. The negative consequences of such behavior, for self or for others, make this evident.

The prophets revealed a moral order underlying God’s creation. This moral order instills in us the demand for justice. Justice when practiced properly, not from vindictiveness but from the desire to protect those who need it, is the societal expression of non-self-interested love.

Therefore the forces of injustice, even when they use the language of justice to justify themselves, are not of God, even if they seem temporarily dominant. The use of the language of morality even for immoral purposes shows an awareness of the moral order (called logos in the Bible) and thus of the existence of God. The moral order applies only to human beings: we do not judge animals for being immoral, yet somehow we know it is important for human beings to act morally.

Our ability to act either for or against the divine purpose has consequences. If we are working to increase love in the world through acts of kindness, morality, and right justice, we are in harmony with God and open to divine direction. Something within eternal life connects with us and helps us. But if we act otherwise, we are left to our own devices, with possible consequences for eternal life.

This is the legacy of the Hebrew prophets, brought to its clearest expression in the teachings of Jesus. Together these constitute the essential biblical message, first revealed in the history of the Jewish people and then given to the rest of the world: if you desire eternal life, love God (which means love goodness) with all your might and your neighbor as yourself.

But what about suffering? It is not God but necessity that creates the possibility of human suffering. Only in a world of suffering can compassion (literally being “with the suffering” of others) be expressed and known. Compassion is the birthplace of non-self-interested love.

No one can practice non-self-interested love flawlessly. We all need assistance.

God has provided this assistance in the messianic figure of Jesus as the Christ. He represents the culmination of Jewish prophetic tradition.

The image of God, which is our essence, is obscured in us to greater or lesser degree, but still discernible to greater or lesser degree. That which obscures the divine image within us is what the Bible calls sin. Thus the divine image, although being our essence, is not completely visible - with one exception.

Jesus displayed non-self-interested love in its purest form, allowing God’s nature as All Goodness to appear through him undistorted (John 14:9). His presence reveals, undistorted, the image of God in which we were created. Thus he provides a visible standard for the direction of our lives, drawing us back to our true essence.

Jesus responds to our suffering by voluntarily choosing to share it with us and showing us it is not the end. His cross is our cross; we all suffer, sometimes excruciatingly.

Nevertheless, the resurrection demonstrates that spiritual presence persists and survives suffering and even death. All suffering is finite; God is infinite.

We can now answer a persistent question: If Jesus is indeed the Messiah, why did he have to die? Jesus did not die to pay the price for our sins. God does not punish the innocent to spare the guilty. Rather, Jesus died to show us that the sufferings of this world are not final.

Jesus did not intend to found a new religion, but brought Hebrew prophecy to its ultimate conclusion and universalized it. Whether Jew or Gentile, the standard is the same. God looks to the heart. If what is in our hearts reflects God’s nature as love, we can know eternal life.

Only what is within us that conforms to the image of God in which we were created, and as revealed in Jesus as the Christ, survives to eternal life. This includes the compassion we have learned and shared. The rest melts away in the “refiner’s fire.” What is left is what God recognizes, and God recognizes only that which conforms to the divine nature (Habakkuk 1:13). The “final judgment” is our separation from all that separates us from God. “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The divine life realizes itself in separation and return: this is the message of scripture.

February 2024, rev. April 2025