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
7 comments:
Things I like, as far as it goes, in this essay:
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
Indeed.
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.
He's not mistaken. We SHOULD strive to understand God and we are NOT beholden on older human opinions of God. We ought not ignore them, but we're not obliged to fully embrace those human opinions just because people held those opinions in the past. Do you disagree?
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, not many. Nor should we heed those opinions just because humans in the past ~1,000 years held them. Do you disagree?
Otherwise, I don't agree, don't necessarily disagree. There's just not much to it, to me. Again, what of it? Is there something specific that you're saying that you find problematic?
To me, for a good part of my journey through and out of conservative religionism, there was a lot that I didn't find so much as being problematic as being, meh... there's just not much there. When we're talking about an almighty everlasting God of love and good news, you'd think that the teachings happening in church would be world-changing, exciting, challenging, dangerous, amazing. But by and large, most Sundays in conservative religious land, I was just bored by their poor imaginations of what an almighty God of perfect love and justice might be. Of course, there was increasingly a lot that I actually disagreed with, but a significant part of my departure from conservative religionism is that it was just so damned milquetoast, bland and boring.
Gag me.
For not being impressed and it being lightweight, Dan strangely likes it.
Obviously every generation gets to give YHWH a makeover to fit their fancy.
Either YHWH has immutable characteristics which don’t change, or He doesn’t. If you want to argue that each generation has to come to grips with these immutable characteristics in slightly different ways, ok. But to suggest that every generation reimagines YHWH while putting aside the testimony of The Church, seems presumptuous.
Why “SHOULD” we? Why do you get to announce what others “SHOULD” do?
I love the “3 tiered” straw man. It’s set up as if the up/down spatial relationship is the critical factor. But you’ve been pretty clear that you don’t see the whole heaven/hell thing as a big deal anyway. Of course the notion of YHWH as an “actual being” should be discarded immediately.
The totality of the three pieces I posted/linked to paint a picture that is much less a version of historic Christianity, than an amalgam of whatever. bits of New Age and Eastern religions drifted across someone’s transom. Its self/experience centered very much inverting the potter/clay dynamic we see in Scripture.
I just figured that since you were so poor at articulating things, that I’d go to the source.
It’s not the product of a towering intellect or particularly scholarly.
Craig...
"to suggest that every generation reimagines YHWH..."
I'm not suggesting that. I don't think the author is suggesting that.
Read for understanding.
Clearly, it seems to me, that each generation is obliged to try to understand God for themselves, regardless of what their parents and grandparents imagined about God.
What's wrong with that?
Craig...
"while putting aside the testimony of The Church, seems presumptuous."
Of "the church..." ?? You mean what previous generations of religious humans thought? Is it not hopelessly presumptuous to presume previous humans understood God and morality perfectly?
No, thank you.
Previous human religionists were okay with slavery, with misogyny, with racism, with all manner of bad human ideas. We are of course obliged to consider history, to accept the reasonable, moral and Godly things other humans got right and reject that which they got wrong. Otherwise, we'd still have slavery, sexism, racism, homophobia and even poorer ideas of human rights.
No thank you.
Come on. Think this through. You can't seriously be in favor of accepting human tradition simply because it was human tradition, right?
Dan
Interesting, that you somehow think that your hunch about what he said is more valid than anyone else’s.
Whats “wrong” is that’s not what he said, it’s what you think he should have said.
“It seems to me…” isn’t some magical proof or something, so who cares how it “seems to you”.
No, The Church, The Bride of Christ, the constitution of Israel. The entire scriptural narrative is about passing The Truth about YHWH from generation to generation.
Not nearly as presumptuous as you misrepresenting what I actually said to scoff at a straw man.
The “Human Tradition” straw man has been dealt with on another thread, I’m not indulging your straw man BS.
It’s bizarre to see how you cling desperately to some snippets of Scripture and some human traditions that fit your narrative, while pushing this straw man is amazing and amusing.
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