A biographical note on why my new framework of understanding God is so important. Part 2

A biographical note on why my new framework of understanding God is so important

Part 2

Note: my new framework does not require all religious people to adopt it. I would expect the majority of people who are currently religious to prefer going on with the traditional framework of understanding.

This is fine.

I don’t see any reason for conflict between “traditional Christians” and “new Christians”. (Of course, I am being too optimistic. Some Christians (eg at the end of the evangelical spectrum) like to compete for being the most pure and orthodox in faith, and anyone who disagrees with them is seen as “failing to be a true Christian”.) However, from the point of view of the new framework, a new Christian is not saying to traditional Christians that they are wrong and must change. Their message is that traditional Christians are completely entitled to continue with their understanding – they must just therefore accept that there are points of conflict with what science tells us about the universe, and internal difficulties within the religion to explain (eg evil and suffering). So, the new Christian has no difficulties with traditional Christians. However, the new Christian also has no intellectual problem with atheists in terms of provable facts, and raises no points in this area on which atheists might criticise them. (Of course, there are likely to be huge disagreements based on the different values and outlook that Christians have compared to atheists) So, many people today are not able to make the leap of faith necessary to make a commitment to traditional Christianity, but there are no stumbling blocks to prevent an atheist adopting a new Christian life.

(There would be an interesting philosophical discussion to be had as to whether such an atheist who converts to the new framework of understanding is still an atheist or has become a theist. In the traditional framework of understanding, the atheist has not adopted a theistic point of view, but they have accepted that the term “God” is what the new framework of understanding defines it to be, and in this respect they are now theists because they believe in and have made a commitment to this God. I think it would only be sensible to call them theists. In a way, God has now been defined in atheistic terms)