Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes in the Times Online about a central conviction of his faith:
If the Universe was brought into being by One beyond the Universe, then it was created by a being who desires to bring things into being. The simplest way of expressing this is: God created the Universe in love. For it is love that seeks to bring new life into being. It is love that makes space for the other. God’s love made space for the Universe and for that astonishing sequence of events that produced us.
If so, then each of us is here because of God’s love. That fact transforms the human condition, rescuing it from ultimate solitude. We are not alone. We exist because someone wanted us to be, someone who believes in us even when we lose belief in ourselves, who knows our fears and hears our prayers, giving us strength when we falter and lifting us when we fall.
And just as God creates in love so He asks us to create in love. The Abrahamic monotheisms are the only systems to place love at the heart of the moral life. There are other codes of ethics: every civilisation has them, secular or religious. All civilisations have something like the golden rule: treat others as you would wish to be treated. Many of them have forms of justice: treat equals equally. But only a vision that sees the world as God’s work of love makes love the highest value. Love God with all your heart, soul and might. Love your neighbour as yourself. Love the stranger for you know what it feels like to be a stranger.
And yes, there is another way of seeing the world and our place within it. The Universe came into being for no reason, and one day for no reason it will cease to be. There is nothing special about humanity: we are mere primates with a gift for language. There is nothing special about any of us. We are born, we live, we die, and it is as if we had never been. Our ideals are illusions; our hopes mere dreams. We have no souls, only brains; no freedom, only the hardwiring of our genes. And the biggest illusion of them all is love, the smokescreen created by humans to hide the fact that we are here to reproduce.
I know which I prefer. Better is a world built on love than on the Darwinian struggle to survive. Greater the mind that lifts its eyes beyond the visible horizon than one that refuses to believe anything that cannot be measured, mapped and scientifically explained.
Read the full article here.
