How should we understand what God is? Part 8

How should we understand what God is?

Part 8: Critical mass has been achieved and the idea of God ignites into a person

This now transcends what we all understand as the debate within ourselves for, by long practice of attending to the idea of the person of God, this voice of God has ignited into life and now possesses within the psyche of the believer exactly the place that God holds within the traditional understanding of God. This modern believer is not simply manipulating a voice to help them to get what they want; they have created a voice in their head which appears to act with complete independence and with a nature and authority all of its own – and this nature is exactly what traditional theists have always said about God. So, for example, in exactly the same way as a traditional believer experiences God saying to them, “I know you hate yourself and are ready to give up, but I still love you and I will help you to keep going”, so under our new understanding of God being the self-created voice of God, the believer experiences this voice saying to them exactly the same thing.

Now, remember, in this scenario we’re exploring, God doesn’t actually exist, but the believer has succeeded in bringing him into being such that, in terms of the practical outcome in the believer’s life, there is no difference between this new understanding and the old one. In the new situation, does God exist or doesn’t he? Well, no, he doesn’t exist if you are trying to defend the claim that the traditional God exists, but God does exist if you adopt the new understanding. “God” is just a shorthand word for meaning “what is ultimate” and in the new understanding this idea of God – and the way this idea dynamically operates in the believer’s life – brought into being through their life of faith – is the ultimate. And, in practical terms, it makes no difference: for the believer, God is still being God.