INSIGHTS ON LIFE

Did Coronavirus Invalidate The ‘Power of God’?

A barrage of snide remarks and mockeries flooded the online community as atheists, anti-Christian and anti-religion folks questioned the presence of God in the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a confrontation to the God of religion which the major religions of the world have painted as all-knowing and all-powerful, with written tales of intervention in human affairs and of miraculous performances.

The instruction to take preventive measures against the spread of the virus and stay indoor offer opportunity for people to belittle the place of religion in the human experience. Churches, Mosques, and Temples are all shut down. Their leaders are silent too, some of them relying on the inventions of science to protect themselves.

Scientists and medical professionals are not sleeping to find a vaccine and cure for this virus which is rising to proportions like some of the deadliest pandemics of history. Meanwhile, the rest of humanity, young and old, and those who promise us heaven afterlife on earth, are all scared and in panic, fearing to lose their precious lives, and waiting for science to announce that the virus is gone.

Does it seems that COVID-19 has invalidated the power of God as we have been told operates in human affairs? The straight answer is no, the virus did not invalidate God’s power. Rather, it validates the fact of the human experience as a trip of good and bad things. It validates the power of humanity to find a solution to its problems through the power of mind and collaboration. It validates the fact that Earth is our realm and what becomes of it is ours to bear. It validates the Laws of God as they exist in the Universe, one of which is “what we sow, we reap”.

The right question is not whether COVID-19 negates God, but whether God directly interferes in the human experience. Does God directly interfere in human experience?

The Abrahamic religion will answer yes and fight to defend it that God directly interferes in the world, seeing all men and knowing all they do, rewarding those who stand aright before God and punishing those who don’t. They will say God regulates the rise and fall of nations, in fact, God does everything, including allowing COVID-19 so that humanity may be humbled. And this picture of God’s administration is the picture of someone seated above running the lever of control, day and night, probably without rest, or resting only on Sunday.

This narrative in the irrational mind would accommodate the foolish thought that a virus, or any evil occurrence, negate God, the Source of All Life. But to say it invalidates the powers of the gods of religion would actually make more sense.

This is not the first time the world has been hit by a pandemic. Among several others was the Plague of Justinian, which ravaged the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in 541 and 542 BCE. There was the Black Death, which swallowed one-third of Europe’s population in a series of expanding waves of infection from 1346 to 1353. Another was Bubonic Plague that began in Yunnan, China, in 1855. This episode of Bubonic Plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China, with about 10 million killed in India alone. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One-fifth of the world’s population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history. The many wars of history, the different incurable and transmittable diseases, and many unexpected deaths resulting from accidents have all claimed lives up to billions. Either people accept that the gods of religion cause these evils or the gods of religion cannot stop them from happening.

We would not ask if viruses and every other forms of evil invalidate the power of God if we have the accurate knowledge of who GOD is. God is a SOURCE of All Life, from which everything that breathes and moves originate, is connected and sustained if properly aligned. The Essence of God spreads across the Universe into the dark spaces of nothingness. Where the Manifest Being of God is localized we do not know, or whether it is at all localized.

Through what we see in Nature, we discover that the universe is not a chaotic environment. There is Order because there are Laws which hold all of Creation together. It is to these Laws that all human affair is subject. All good is a result of the right adjustment to these laws, all evil is wrong adjustment to them. We cannot act outside the divine Laws of God and God doesn’t act towards us outside of these laws. God doesn’t directly interfere in our affairs, but God does experience existence with us through the Laws. If we cultivate an environment of carelessness, degradation and filth, then it is certain that diseases and viruses will emerge from them. If we create environments of order, beauty, and godliness, health will flourish. We are the governors of Earth. We are responsible for what our world becomes. God is immanent in us giving us what we justly deserve by our thoughts, words, and actions.

If God doesn’t directly interfere in human affairs, how then do we explain the religious miracles attributed to God? The answer is that we have not understood ourselves well enough; if we do we will see that those miracles are the result of human mental operations in alignment with God’s laws for such outcome as should be called a miracle. Technology is a miracle. Medical advancement is a miracle. Because these are the miracles of the mind does not mean that faith healers haven’t been using their own minds to stir the minds of their patients for a healing or a restoration of sanity.

We humans have come a long way, but we are still on a low rung on the ladder of mental evolution. The teachings of Christ center around the possibilities we are capable of when we realize our godhood, the kingdom of God that is inside us. That realization will cause a continual mental evolution that takes us into higher levels of life where we can consciously manipulate the creative forces inherent in the universe to not only create fantastic forms but to transform our lives. Imagine we nipping every virus in the bud the moment they are released into the atmosphere through the operation mind. Imagine so many awesome things we can do if our minds can operate like the mind of gods. Greater things than these shall you do.

Humanity is evolving. The common destiny of humanity is to rise to higher states of being, where prayer will be unnecessary as a plea for God’s help. We will fully understand the laws and principles of manifestation we wouldn’t need to cry like babes for things we can get for ourselves. To reach these high states of being, we will have to defeat the monsters of our nature and every unknown hindrance to such realization, some of which are vile entities hiding behind the curtain of reality who do not want humanity to ascend.

The onus is on humanity to break religious and political barriers so that we can collectively explore our common destiny of unlimited power and greatness and make our world the heaven it should be. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to all creatures to redesign our world. It is a mark of childishness to seek to fault God for what is ours to bear. We either control our world or lose it.

Victor Negro is based in Lagos. He writes on matters of life and existence as he thinks, preferring a better understanding of common questions.