“God is not the author of fear. You are.” – T-4.I.18:3-4
“God is not angry; He merely could not let this happen.” – T-17.IV.14:3
“God is but love, and therefore so am I.” – W-pI.rVI
I. God Did Not Create the World
The Course’s most radical departure from both Judaism and Christianity.
“The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is not as you perceive it. God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do not see.” (T-11.VIII.1:1-3)
“The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love’s absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him.” (W-pII.3.2:1-4)
“The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished.” (W-pII.3.1:1-3)
God creates only spirit, only what is eternal and changeless. Everything that is perishable – bodies, planets, galaxies, time itself – is not God’s creation.
II. God Creates Only the Eternal and Changeless
“Creation is the sum of all God’s thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself. There was no time when all that It created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything that It created suffers any change. Forever and forever are God’s thoughts exactly as they were and as they are, unchanged through time and after time is done.” (W-pII.11.1:1-5)
“Creation is the opposite of all illusions, for creation is the truth. Creation is the holy Son of God, for in creation is His will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole.” (W-pII.11.3:1-2)
“We are creation; we the Sons of God. We seem to be discrete, and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. For Love remains with all Its thoughts, Its sureness being theirs.” (W-pII.11.4:1-4)
III. God Is Not the Author of Fear
“Again I tell you that when you are afraid, be still and know that God is real and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are. God is not the author of fear. You are. You have willed, therefore, to create unlike Him, and have made fear for yourself.” (T-4.I.18:1-5)
IV. God Does Not Punish
“The Final Judgment is one of the greatest threat concepts in humanity’s perception. This is only because you do not understand it. Judgment is not an essential attribute of God.” (T-2.XIII.2:1-3)
“God Himself is still the God of mercy.” (T-2.XIII.2:5)
“The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God. Actually, it will be undertaken solely by the Sonship with my help. It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much you may think punishment is deserved. Punishment as a concept is in total opposition to right-mindedness.” (T-2.XIII.4:1-4)
“God does not believe in karmic retribution at all. His divine Mind does not create that way. He does not hold the evil deeds of a person even against himself. Is it likely that He would hold them against me?” (T-3.III.5:5-8)
V. God Is Not Angry
“God is not angry; He merely could not let this happen.” (T-17.IV.14:3)
“Their own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection, and out of their own fear they spoke of the wrath of God as His retaliatory weapon.” (T-6.I.20:5)
“God is not at war with the god of sickness which you made, but you are.” (T-10.IV.13:6)
VI. God Does Not Demand Sacrifice
“Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God.” (T-3.III.11:1)
“Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His Own words have clearly stated is unworthy of His children?” (T-3.III.2:6)
“I was not punished because you were bad.” (T-3.III.4:5)
“Persecution is a frequent result, justified by the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His Own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless.” (T-3.III.3:4-5)
VII. God Does Not Teach
“God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack which God knows is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at change, but God created only the changeless.” (T-7.I.5:7-10)
“The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication. A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego’s voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it could shatter yours. God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being questioned, He did not question. He merely gave the Answer.” (T-7.I.6:1-6)
VIII. God Would Not Interfere
“He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Himself, and God is not insane.” (T-10.IV.10:2-3)
“God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son’s creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God.” (T-10.IV.10:6-7)
IX. God Knows Nothing of the Dream
“Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing.” (T-11.VII.8:2)
“For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind, because it was not His Will.” (T-11.VII.9:4)
“God does not know of separation. What He knows is only that He has one Son.” (T-25.I.5)
The Course teaches that God does not perceive the dream at all. He knows only His Son as He created him – whole, sinless, and eternally at home.
X. “Fear God” Is a Scribal Error
”‘Fear God and keep His commandments’ is a real scribal error. It should read, ‘Know God and accept His certainty.’ This error is why the commandments are almost all negative, in contrast to my statement: ‘Thou shalt love.’” (T-3.V.11:8-10)
XI. The “Wrath of God” Is Projection
”‘Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord’ is strictly a karmic viewpoint. It is a real misperception of truth, by which you assign your own evil past to God.” (T-3.III.5:1-2)
“Atonement thus becomes a myth, and vengeance, not forgiveness, is the will of God. From where all this begins, there is no sight of help that can succeed. Only destruction can be the outcome, and God Himself seems to be siding with it to overcome His Son.” (T-23.II.8:4-6)
The Course argues that the biblical portrait of a wrathful, vengeful God is the ego’s projection of its own guilt onto the divine. Wherever the Bible depicts God as angry, punishing, or jealous, it is the authors’ fear speaking, not God.
XII. Fear of God Is Really Fear of Yourself
“Fear of the will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind was already profoundly split, making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is.” (T-9.I.1:1-2)
“The very fact that the will of God, which is what you are, is perceived as fearful to you demonstrates that you are afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the will of God of which you are afraid, but yours.” (T-9.I.1:4-5)
XIII. God’s Will Is Only Happiness
“What God wills for Himself He wills for you, and what He wills for you is yours.” (T-11.VII.7:5)
“God’s will for you is complete joy.” (T-7.XI.1:1)
“His will is joined with yours, and cannot be apart.” (T-8.VI.8:5)
“God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything.” (T-15.III.3:3)
XIV. God Is But Love
The Workbook’s great refrain, repeated across an entire review:
“God is but love, and therefore so am I.” (W-pI.rVI)
“The fact that God is love does not require belief, but it does require acceptance.” (T-9.I.13:1)
“God is love means that all the painful appearances of the world are not the truth.” (W notes)
XV. God’s Final Judgment: Not Condemnation but Declaration
“This is God’s Final Judgment: ‘You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am your Father, and you are My Son.’” (W-pII.10.5:1-2)
XVI. The God of the Bible vs. the God of the Course
The Course does not attack the biblical God. It reinterprets him. Wherever the Bible speaks of God’s love, mercy, and care for His children, the Course affirms. Wherever the Bible speaks of God’s wrath, jealousy, vengeance, and punishment, the Course diagnoses this as the ego’s projection – the frightened mind attributing its own violence to the divine.
“There are some glaring examples of upside-down thinking in the New Testament, whose whole gospel is only the message of love.” (T-6.I.21:1)
“Can you believe that the Father really thinks this way? It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be very sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind.” (T-3.III.4:3-4)
“Good teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers. The result is learning failure.” (T-3.III.11:4-6)
The God of the Course is not complex. He is simple. He is Love. He creates only the eternal. He does not know about the dream. He does not punish. He does not demand sacrifice. He is not angry. He has no opposite. His will for His Son is perfect happiness and nothing else. Every depiction of God that produces fear in the reader is, by definition, a misperception.
“If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God.” (W-pI.190.3:3-4)