Who is God?
Part 3: If you conclude Father Christmas is not real, can you go on believing that God is a real person?
“But there’s no-one there” sums up the agonising disillusionment that many people come to as they give up faith – while many, of course, congratulate themselves that they never fell for this con trick / lie / fantasy / wishful thinking, for it was obvious to them from the start that there is no-one there.
Although atheists often compare faith in God to believing in Father Christmas in rather a trite way, there is, nevertheless, a large degree of truth in their criticism, and I think it exemplifies the problem that many believers face very well. Children often conceive of Father Christmas, as a mysterious figure, whom they have never seen (and aren’t allowed to see) but who is definitely real – because mummy and daddy have told them it’s true, and there is lots of evidence of general belief in him – and, most importantly, no doubt, there is the evidence that the child prizes most of all in the miraculous appearance of presents on Christmas morning. Yet, the term “miraculous” may not be quite right, for Father Christmas is understood to be a person existing in the natural world. Perhaps he has magical powers which enable him to get round the whole world, and to get down chimneys – and perhaps he has magical elves to help him – but he is thought to live somewhere, perhaps at the North Pole, and he drives a sleigh with reindeer, leaves footprints in the snow, and likes a glass of Guinness (in our house!).
Now, when believers, perhaps subconsciously, conceive of God in similar terms, even though he is now thought of in supernatural terms, with truly miraculous powers, it leads to huge problems, once they start to think about things, just like children eventually have to surrender their belief in Father Christmas. For, when God is understood as a person, “out there”, doing things, as an independent agent with a will of his own, and when he has been described as perfectly good and loving, anyone willing to take on board all the evidence is bound to confront severe doubts as to whether God is really there. Put simply, God is not doing enough to help us; he is not doing enough good; he is not putting things right. (We can imagine how short a child’s belief in Father Christmas would be if the promised presents never arrived, or if on Boxing Day they disappeared as indebted parents took them back to the shops for a refund). Believers can accept that God is a person “out there”, but why is it so difficult to detect his presence, the way some believers say it is, and who, it has to be said, apparently have no problem in experiencing his presence. Ultimately, a person who is never seen, and of whom it can never be said definitively that he changed an event in the world for the better, becomes a person who is very difficult to believe in. This is hugely influenced by our conception of what it means to be a person. No matter how much we try to take on board the extraordinary conception of this person of God (infinite, eternal, ever-present, perfect in all goodness), when we use the word “person” it influences us to conceive of a person like the other human persons we know. God is clearly not like that, and so, for many people, a crisis of faith eventually hits and they ask: “In what way is God a person?”. Not finding a suitable answer to this question, an obvious conclusion to draw is that God is not real.
Spiritual Devotion 