How should we understand what God is? Part 3

How should we understand what God is?

Part 3: Reasons why our belief in God developed: We encounter him

This idea of God developed for several reasons.

Key was the power of religious experience. Human beings feel that they have encountered this mysterious person, whom we call God. Certainly, this must partly be a response to the awesome reality of being alive. In our existential self-reflection on the fantastic fact that we exist, and in those moments of well-being when we are uplifted in spirit, and come to clarity of understanding, we are simply over-whelmed that we exist; we are so glad to be alive; and we feel at one with the universe. For brief moments, we feel that all that is absolute, infinite and eternal about existence is being expressed in our lives and we are sharing in these qualities. This is in itself a spectacular revelation. Yet even beyond this, in these moments of supreme clarity about our own reality, we do not simply become inspired by abstract principles such as love, truth, and beauty, nor are we just impressed by the reality of our existence – simply exulting that we are alive. Rather, we experience these moments as moments of personal encounter with someone. We have learnt over the centuries to give the name “God” to this experience, but that is just shorthand for the experience of meeting a mysterious stranger, I know not whom. And bit by bit, we have built up a picture of who this stranger is – and he fits the description given above of the traditional understanding of God. If somehow we could erase all knowledge of God, I believe that we would recreate our current faith because humanity would rediscover this numinous encounter with “someone”. This someone is the greatest mystery of existence/the universe and the greatest treasure.