Who is God? Part 4

Who is God?

Part 4: God as a powerful force, but not necessarily a person

However, it is not the only conclusion to draw. And this takes us back to the start of our thinking when we considered that many people have developed a very different conception of who God is. I think there are still two broad channels to go down. Some people have a view of God that, in my view, is not really a view of a personal God – though they may disagree, and the other route is to continue to believe in a personal God – but in very different form. I expect that there are multiple combinations of ideas, with the two routes over-lapping to greater or lesser degree, and perhaps becoming indistinguishable.

Hence, many believers understand God as a presence. They detect in the workings of their hearts and minds an experience of a presence. This is often understood as an experience of the transcendent, or the infinite and eternal, or of perfection. So, rather than experienced as a presence, you might simply call it an emotion or a feeling. Interestingly, (as a contact with the God who is simply “out there” ready to be found) this presence or feeling is simply there to be found. It just exists in the natural world – or, at least, it exists in the capabilities of the human mind, and I am calling that part of the natural world. Some people might want to claim that it is somehow “artificial” because it is a human construct, but I don’t think that argument holds, especially when we consider how universal and ubiquitous this experience is in human cultures – it appears to just be part of who we are as humans.

A very popular modern idea, linked to this, is the idea of God as “the ground of our being”. This is a very profound, multi-faceted idea, ( it could be compatible with God as a person, as some sort of spiritual force, or as “something else” that’s difficult to put into words) but I think, very briefly, it understands God as the something that enables existence to happen, and which imparts into existence qualities of goodness and love etc which it is possible for human beings to “tune into”. People with this view of God can live lives of profound faith, believing in the qualities of God, and trying to live them out in their own lives, and, in fact continuing to talk about God (for God must be talked about somehow) in ways that accord completely with traditional conceptions of God, while never being able to conceive of God with any precision, for God is simply an intangible sense that there is “something” behind, or within, or upholding existence, and our lives within it, and this something is good.

It’s tempting to think that if we push this approach too far, we simply end up with God as an ideal – he is a set of principles and values which anyone could hold, and which a number of secular philosophies of life have emulated through the ages. I think the view of God as ground of our being or as some sort of “sense of the divine” is saying more than this, but we can see that it could quite easily morph into this, in which case, there is certainly great scope for, and need for, the creation of a “secular religion” which becomes a philosophy of life for humanity to embrace, which would take up all the good ideals of religion without ever fully leaving a secular mindset.

Who is God? Part 3

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.

Who is God? Part 2

Who is God?

Part 2: What lies hidden behind the name: “God”?

At the heart of the matter, is that we have all continued to use the word “God”, even though we now understand that word is dramatically different ways. I remember during one of my own periods of doubt we had a senior minister as visiting preacher. When he spoke, he betrayed not a shadow of a doubt about God. At the time, that was briefly encouraging because I thought, “Well, if he, in his senior position, continues in faith then I should be able to as well”. However, it wasn’t substantially helpful because he was disguising the issues that I needed to face up to, I realise now that he was talking about God in a completely different way to how I conceive him. I also realise that I am quite a literal thinker. As a boy, I had been told about this God, who is an independent agent, and I believed them. I see now that the senior minister who misled me was thinking of God using ideas like, “God is the ground of our being”, or “a sense of divine presence”. Of course, he was not deliberately misleading me. I imagine that in his own journey to hold onto faith, he had realised, like me, that the view of God he had grown up with was untenable (Note: not all Christians think it is untenable!), but, desperately clinging on – perhaps through tremendous travail – he had found a way to redefine what he meant by God. This enabled him to continue to believe in God, and once this is done, he is able to speak about God apparently exactly as he did before. His listeners then relate to him with their own understanding of who God is, and they all assume that he is talking about God with the same understanding that they have.

There is clearly a level of deception at work here, or, at least, a terrible lack of clarity. I say again that there is no deliberate deception going on, but it would be extremely helpful to clarify what we do mean when we talk about God. Especially for that great mass of people who have given up believing in God, they would benefit from understanding that those who do still believe are not simply being dim and refusing to have the wool pulled away from their eyes. They might even find the new conceptions of God deeply appealing. And, of course, for all those Christians struggling with their faith, it would be extremely helpful for them to understand what conception of God is being used when he is being spoken about, and assistance to find a view of God that each person can live with would also be enormously helpful.

Who is God? Part 1

(A theological reflection in 12 – yes TWELVE – parts. Good luck! I hope your stamina is up to it)

Who is God?

Part 1: Seeking a new God after the old one has been lost

One of the things that strikes me about modern Christian faith is how sophisticated and how varied are the beliefs that people have about God. Although it’s rather simplistic, I think it is fair to give an analysis along the following lines. Seventy plus years ago, a large proportion of people in Britain were Christian. Their faith was often very profound, but also, I think, simple. (Simplicity is a profoundly good quality) There were also a lot of people who believed because they were told it was the right thing to do – there was a general consensus that God is real; those in authority supported the Christian view; the life of faith was understood to be beneficial and at the heart of community formation. However, it was often a simple and literal view of God that people had. Respected people, like clergy, said that there is a God, who is a person “out there”. He is an independent, personal agent, who exists independently of creation (that is, you could switch the universe off and God would still be there), but who acts within creation to achieve his will, and he is a person with whom you can form a relationship.

However, during my lifetime, the number of people active in the Church, and secure in their faith, has plummeted. Multiple factors have contributed to this, but in terms of believing, much of it is to do with disillusionment, doubt, and ultimately rejection of belief. People have formed the conclusion that they were told something that is not, in fact, true. There is not a God out there, and he is not going to help you – because there is no-one there. However, some have persevered. How have they done this? I think through the development of remarkably deep alternative understandings of who God is. As this is an intensely personal journey, often taking the believer through intense doubt, the solutions that people find can vary greatly – especially as each person is trying to answer the difficult questions that have arisen for them. Perhaps this leads one person to a particular understanding of who God is, while another person – who perhaps is not concerned about that person’s issues – finds a very different solution that answers their own questions.

Living a deeper life. Part 7

Living a deeper life

Part 7: Take a chance on what God might say next

So, peace of mind is the first foundation of living a deeper life, and this depends on spiritual integrity, in terms of being true to what we believe. I think that this is what fuels deeper awareness. As we reduce our inner turmoil, our inner conflict, then we are more able, more free, to become aware of what is happening in our lives.

If we can then tame our ego, this will be another giant stride forward. I think the key to taming the ego is to be secure in ourselves. If we have a fragile ego, we will be vulnerable, and susceptible to falling into faults. This is bound to damage our peace, firstly because we are aware that we have caused others harm, then because we realise we have broken our own integrity, and then that produces feelings like guilt and shame. However, if I don’t need to boost my ego because I already feel blessed in the love of God, then I can ignore my vanity, the desire to look good or put one over on others – these things are just not necessary. If I feel secure, I don’t need to be so hurt when others try to put me down, or dump their negative emotions on me – which may well be the product of their own unhappiness. If I can manage to step aside from the constant striving to establish ourselves in the pecking order – a desire that evolution has planted deep inside us – then I am free to be aware of my surroundings, aware of other people, and to become sensitive to their needs. If I can apply a fraction of the love that God has shown me, then I am free to respond to my situation with the aim of loving others rather than asserting my own needs. And I think that all of this is part of what it means to live a deeper life.

We have freed ourselves from the natural concerns of life to pay attention to the spiritual concerns of life – and we are aiming, by continual effort in living the life of faith, to make attention to spiritual concerns our natural way of being.

There is the huge question: “If I was not continually dwelling on my habitual concerns, developed over a lifetime of focus on my personal needs – as developed in the ordinary course of natural life – what else might God prompt me to do? The honest answer to this is: “I don’t know”. I don’t know because I have never really given him a chance. Of course, as a religious person, and someone apparently naturally attuned to the spiritual life, I have made some efforts and made some progress. However, I cannot say that I have ever fully committed to seeing what might happen if I gave myself completely to a spiritual way of life, rather than a natural way of life with useful support from God. So, a substantial part of my consideration of living a deeper life is that I will have to wait and see what happens if I try harder. Yet we have been exploring what this new life might be, and this is still useful to encourage us to try to live a different sort of life, and see that there is much to gain. We seem to be saying that we need to make more space in our lives in which God might speak to us. If we trust what he says, and do our best to act on it, then we should progressively grow into a deeper way of life.

Living a deeper life. Part 6

Living a deeper life

Part 6: Strive to keep in step with the Spirit and find peace

What does it mean to be a fully God-directed person? We do not decry the necessity of pursuing our worldly path. We have to live in the world, and sustaining ourselves can be a tremendous struggle. How fortunate so many of us are that our lives are so easy – despite the fact that, even then, we may have to work incredibly hard to make our way. The key rebuke to me is that – should I be able to find a deeper way of living – I should have always been following this way of life. However, we have said the past is past, and sometimes we need to spend many, many years just to get to the start line. That is not a rebuke; it’s the realisation that, given our starting point in life and our natural personality, it may take a long time to grow in wisdom sufficiently to realise what now needs to be done to live your life fully. I believe that this involves fully giving ourselves to the guidance of the Spirit. We must embrace our natural personality – this is the unique creation that God made us to be, but living in tune with the Spirit does not entail the submersion of our personality, lost within a constraining shell of standard religiosity, it entails the filling out of our unique life to attain the greatest expansion of which it is capable – to fully bring alive the potential we contain.

Living a deeper life must involve finding peace of heart and mind and soul. While we are troubled, we will be attending to the negative thoughts and feelings produced, which in itself will be unpleasant, and which are likely to demand our attention, and drown out other voices, perceptions and awareness. I think there is a gift of peace that God can give – it simply interrupts our natural or expected response to the situation we are in, and replaces it with a gift of deep calm – often with a sense that “All will be well”. And it is this assurance that all will be well – perhaps in direct contradiction of your actual circumstances – that allows the sense of peace to pervade your soul. I have often wondered – and wanted – that I might somehow receive this gift, and never leave it. I strongly suspect that this is not possible – not in the sense I was hoping for, because God’s peace is a gift to help you in particular circumstances. And the particular issue with it is that we are asking God to achieve a miraculous solution to our problems. I have come, at long last, to the conclusion that this is not a good solution – even if it was possible, which I strongly suspect it is not. What I was hankering after was that God would “overrule” the dynamics of my life and simply replace what would otherwise naturally be there with his spiritual gift of an invincible peace, that allowed me to float through all difficulties in an other-worldly sense of tranquillity. Far better, I think, is to achieve a sense of peace that is warranted by our natural state of life. (There is a theological tension here as, theoretically speaking, all spiritual progress is a gift of God’s grace, rather than earned by our efforts. Yet, in practice, spiritual progress is achieved in response to our efforts. We can still give God the primacy through our understanding that all is grace, but it is our task to co-operate with God by our efforts to make ourselves open to the working of his Spirit. Personally speaking, my developing theology, which focuses on the spiritual life, suggests to me that our efforts are crucial, in that the spiritual life entails us exerting ourselves in order to grow in the grace of God). So, we aim for a peace that is warranted by our natural state of life, I mean the peace that arises from spiritual harmony (to whatever degree we have attained that). If we have succeeded, albeit partially, to remove tension from our hearts and minds – and this term might be interchangeable with our souls – then the spiritual integrity we have found will warrant a state of peace.

Living a deeper life. Part 5

Living a deeper life

Part 5: Transcendence and immanence: the call beyond and the discovery within

In the greater freedom that I now have, I want to focus on the most important goals. What do I really want to achieve? I acknowledge that this is so much easier when I feel I have achieved my worldly goals. But what now are the existential goals that I wish to attain before death. If my consciousness is to cease, I want to be someone who contained within that consciousness – even if only in transitory form – the ultimate in what it is possible for the human mind to contain.

I am aware of the very valid point that perhaps it was in the gaining of those worldly goals that I experienced the most precious and ultimate experiences. I think it is the problem of the transcendent. When one becomes aware of the transcendent dimension of life, there is always the thought that, no matter how wonderful the experience that you are immanently engaged in, there is something even more “behind” that experience. This may or may not be true. If we are also aware of the immanence of God within the everyday experiences of life, then we are in no way “missing out” on the depth of life by “merely” attending to the immediate tasks before us. Yet our transcendent moments open a window for us into a new world of exhilarating depth and fullness. Whatever the truths of the immanence of God’s love, it is also true that we are often engaged in superficial, trivial or partial living that is barely aware of the full wonder of life. Therefore, I ask myself: “Is there a deeper, fuller life that can be lived?”.

There is also the question of whether we have just one quality of awareness, that may be either directed towards deep or shallow objectives. So, perhaps, there is no such thing as a “deeper awareness”, it is simply the case that when we become aware of deeper things, our awareness records and responds to that depth. However, perhaps it is also possible to develop a deeper awareness that becomes our general way of being, such that when we attend to things that are “routine” we can nevertheless experience them in a deeper, more fulfilling and vibrant way. It is this question of the possibility of deeper awareness – that could theoretically be entered into and never left – that we are considering.

So, what are the existential goals that a spiritual person should be devoting themselves to? Having become aware of the reality of God who, regardless of our previous thoughts about transcendence and immanence, deeper and shallower experiences, is always more than we can take in, how may we fill ourselves with all the depth of God of which we are capable? What shall we do and how shall we act?

Living a deeper life. Part 4

Living a deeper life

Part 4: Let the wind fill your sails

I realise (very late on in life) that I am a habitual thinker. I have a stock of favourite things to think about. Very early in the morning, they will spark into life, and I will pick one or the other of them up and run with it again. Or something will trigger a thought, and I will gladly take it up and think it through all over again. I must admit that I enjoy doing this. I am a deep thinker, and I like thinking, but I do now realise that this is not an entirely positive trait, and I therefore become the prisoner of my thoughts – thinking through all the old ones for the umpteenth time – rather than the director of my thoughts, choosing what to hold in my mind and heart today. This is a truly awesome thought: if I have a free choice – and I now see that I do – what will I choose to dwell on now?

Although much of what I think about is creative and positive, I can be dominated by the negative aspects of my personality. They are genuinely part of me, but I tend, in my inmost self that directs what I think about, to collude with those negative traits, rather than putting a firmer hand on the tiller to direct my thoughts to something more positive. The tendency to dwell on mistakes or anxiety rather than put them behind me has already been referred to.  

I am a careful and cautious person. I’ve already noted my hatred of making mistakes. So I have “played a pretty straight bat”. And that’s all good, and much good has been achieved by it. But what if now – directed by God – I can be a bit braver? If I was willing to courageously take chances – and risk failures without being distraught by them – what more good might I do?

Now that I have a greater awareness and freedom, I believe I can better resist the external and negative pressures that have often driven my behaviour, and instead focus on the inward aspect of my personality and spirituality – which are quite well-developed already – to allow that inner well of spiritual living water to direct me. I don’t have to be bossed about or blown about or distracted. What can I find within myself that I can now employ with greater vigour to achieve my own deepest goals rather than more superficial goals, and perhaps set by others? And, of course, when I ask, “What can I find within myself?” I am not at all asserting some individualistic, self-realising form of egotism, I am asking, “If now at last, I truly, deeply sink my heart into the well of God’s Spirit, what is it that might well up?”. If I do not impede it, or neglect it, or give up on it, how might God direct my life? I have always believed that God’s Spirit is like a spring of living water, and I know what it is to drink of it. Yet I have treated it as a well to return to from time to time to refresh myself as I direct my attention to my tasks in the world. However, the promise is that we can experience this spring constantly welling up within us, and so my attention could be always plumbed into these depths, even while engaged in my worldly tasks.

Living a deeper life. Part 3

Living a deeper life

Part 3: Don’t just follow the old grooves; chart your course as though free to rove anywhere over the ocean, and pursue your way vigorously

I recognise that I am a responsive person. There are many good features to this: it helps to make me considerate and kind, to notice what is going on around me, and to try and help others rather than massaging my own ego. Yet it can easily make me a passive person, reacting to a situation created by others rather than directing my path actively in the way that I have chosen. What should that path be? If I don’t have to follow any pre-set route, but can be truly creative, what kind of a life do I want to carve out – both for myself, and to offer as an alternative if others are also seeking something better?

I need to develop my powers of judgement, direction and energy. If I can use my awareness to rise above the immediate melee of conflicting demands for my attention then I can raise my head above the mist and see the way for me to go. This includes resisting the temptation to simply react against what external agencies are saying, and resisting the lazy, easy way of just doing what I usually do, and, instead, taking charge of the inner competition for “brain-space” – that is resisting the competing impulses to spend time thinking about my habitual favourite topics: what do I choose to hold in my mind today?

I confess that I have often been overcome by the pressures that I face. I worry about things far too much. Although in many ways my natural default demeanour is of a deeply peaceful person, I am also prey to anxiety. Being too sensitive, I allow things to prey on my mind, and find it hard to let them go. I hate to make mistakes and have a terrible fear that some action of mine might have spoilt what would otherwise have been. I hate the idea of failure. I take my responsibilities very seriously and agonise at the thought of not fulfilling my duties, or letting someone down. I could have had a more robust spirit, more adept at drawing on my inner resources to project self-confidence rather than allowing the context or framework in which I find myself to contribute so much to my self-esteem. If now, I am to be more resilient, more creative in what I choose to offer to the situation, more willing to offer what I think, and confident in my own judgement rather than sensitive to the judgements of others, what would I have to offer?

Living a deeper life. Part 2

Living a deeper life

Part 2: Joyful awareness in attention to what we’re doing

A key possibility arises from the fact that I am someone who looks up from my book often. What do I mean by this? For many years, while on holiday, one of my greatest treats is to have, say, a whole morning free to read my book; it is sheer pleasure. Yet I feel myself torn: reading my book is sheer pleasure, yet I also want to look up to appreciate the sheer pleasure that I am able to read my book. Of course, when I am looking up, I am not reading, but when I am reading I am not taking in the full awareness of the ability to spend this time reading. Is it possible to do both? Possibly not – but is this a clue to what I’m seeking in living a deeper life. Many wise people aim to be wonderfully aware of the presence of the present moment,  but there has been throughout my life an either-or element to it: I can either enjoy the existential moment of being here, but that moment has no content – other than the appreciation of the existential moment, or the moment has content – in this case, reading my book – but I lose that awareness of the wonder of the moment.

However, one fruitful step in response to the issue of distraction, is that before, I would look up, but just for a few moments, to become aware of the wonder of existence, but then I would feel drawn to move on: my time is short before my period of leisure is over and I am back to the burden of work that must be done. If I am now free not to have to move on, I can work (and I think this is something that really needs working on) on exploring precisely what it is that “calls to me”, which makes me look up from my book, but which has been too intangible for me to fully take in. I think it’s the resonance of the fact that life – being alive – is more important than any particular thing we do with our lives. What we do is always going to be so partial compared to all the things we might have done – that is why it is so vital that we perceive the absolute and ultimate in the particular. It is impossible for our experience to be anything other than minute, yet we can appreciate that the course we have chosen to follow expresses within it the absolute and ultimate. However, even beyond this truth, I think I am seeking after a deeper joy in the fact of living. It doesn’t really matter what you do with your life – provided you have exercised some sort of choice in what you do, and are free from unwarranted suffering and oppression – the important thing is to be aware of, and exult in, the wonder of being alive. Now that I am free from having to do things in the world of work, I really want to apply my attention to that joy in living. If I can then blend that wonder seamlessly into the activity or content of what I choose to do, then I think I will certainly be living a deeper life.