'What does God want?', Kierkegaard writes in his journals, 'He wants souls able to praise, adore, worship, and thank him – the business of angels. And what pleases him even more than the praise of angels is a human being who, in the last lap of this life, when God seemingly changes into sheer cruelty, nevertheless continues to believe that God is love, that God does it out of love'.
That God does it out of love: what can that mean to us? But we're not on the last lap of our lives, not yet. Then will it become clear one day? Will it all be revealed to us?
If he's cruel to me, it's out of love, W. says. It is meant as the highest kindness, when he sits on the Chair of Judgement, listing the many compromises of my life, my betrayals and half-measures. Who else would have taken notice? Who else would have thought to teach me the meaning of sin?
Ah, would that he had a similar tutor! If only someone had the same interest in him! But perhaps my ingratitude is only a version of God's cruelty. Perhaps my moaning in protest, as he sits above me on the Chair of Judgement, is a way for God to test the extremity of W.'s love.
Lars Iyer's Blog 