This Is Endorsed By Progressive Christianity

 

Human beings want to believe in God

Since the birth of self-consciousness, human beings have been part of an ongoing process of imagining and creating new conceptions of God. In a very real sense, it is natural to our human situation. More directly, it is what we human beings do. Without exaggerating, it can be said that we human beings (the vast majority of us) like believing in God. We want there to be a God, and we want to believe in this God.

However, to believe in God with integrity, conceptions of God have to be adequate to our modern experience. They have to be believable. They have to make sense. As evolving human beings, we cannot be expected to embrace the God of traditional Christianity, the God of supernatural theism (sometimes referred to as the God of theism). This “God in the sky” is thought to be external to the universe, independent of human beings, and a God who intervenes in human affairs only at times of God’s own choosing. Imagine the problem this poses for the timeless problem of human suffering. If God is viewed as all-loving, how can God intervene in one situation of human suffering or deprivation and not in every situation?

Having said this, we humans are desperate for a new conception of God, a conception we can believe in, but also a conception of God that has some accounting for the reality of human suffering.

God as the great MORE of the universe

When I think of God, I think of God as mostly Spirit (thus the capitalizing of “s”). I also think of God as infinite energy and love, and as abiding presence and endless mystery. Always, there is a mysterious element to God, to God as MORE. God is always more than our ability to describe God, more than our ability to measure God, define God, conceive of God, or imagine God. It is in this sense that God is the great MORE of the universe.

What I like about this notion of God is the more aspects. Forever, people have tried to define God or prove God’s existence. In both cases, this is a hopeless task. And what makes this the case is the more attributes of God. With God, it is always useful to be reminded that no matter how much we think we know about God, no matter how well developed and enlightened our theology, God is always more. In every way, this is a humbling experience, as well it should be.

Every generation has to create images of God that work for it

One of the many points British author Karen Armstrong makes in her impressive book, A
History of God, is that every generation has the responsibility to work out its own understanding of God. In other words, every generation owes it to future generations to re-imagine God consistent with its own understanding of life and in accord with the most recent advances in scholarship. I like to talk about this in terms of adequacy, as opposed to whether it is right or wrong. In other words, given all the advancements made in science, for example, how adequate is our understanding of God to our modern experience? And if our answer is “not very adequate,” then perhaps it’s time, in our generation, to start imagining a new conception of God.

To make my point, indeed, how adequate is the idea of the God of supernatural theism to our modern experience? Seriously, does anybody still believe in the three-tiered universe– with God (an actual being) up in heaven (wherever that is), hell down below, and earth in between? No doubt some people still believe in this “dated” view of the world. But the vast majority–some of whom might think they’re supposed to believe this, no longer do.

The mystery of it all

As believers in God and persons who want to believe in God, we cannot help but be drawn into the endless mystery of the great MORE. Indeed, the mystery of God is both fascinating and ineffable. In trying to grasp the essence of God–the Holy One in our midst–thought and reason have their place, but they can only take us so far. Our feelings and intuition are more concrete. They open the door to our imagination and nudge us more deeply into the mystery and wonder of God.

When we enter this realm, we enter into the world of the poet and the mystic. Jesus was a mystic; so was Paul, as were many of the prophets, like First Isaiah (in the call to Isaiah from Isaiah 6:1-8). For the mystic, there is a new way of knowing and a new way of seeing. All of this is important in our human effort to embrace God as the great more of the universe.

As human beings, along with the mystic, we hunger for more of God, for deeper revelations of God’s truth and love. Indeed, we yearn for a deeper experience of the profound mystery of God.

~ Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz