God: who are you; what are you? Part 5

God: who are you; what are you?

Part 5

I come back to the simple reality that the voice of God is experienced in my own mind.

If it’s me all along, then I am God. Theoretically, this is idolatry, the greatest sin, though, in this case, it would not be meant in a hubristic way, it would be a case of honouring the truth, and accepting that the individual human being has the status that we have traditionally given to God. Of course, we are painfully aware that, traditionally, God is always God – he never falters from his perfection, whereas we – if we are God – only attain this achievement in fleeting moments. Nevertheless, there is the opportunity here for an exalted humanism which would, in its principles, be identical with the religious view of, for example, Christianity. The difference would be that we would be taking complete responsibility for – well, everything, as we truly are on our own, and there would be a number of adjustments required to religion to do with there being no-one to ask help from. I think – with a little imagination – we could create a new “humanistic religion” that was in all practical impact identical with Christianity. So, the issue would simply be: which is more honest – to believe that there is a God or that the human mind has “divine” capabilities?

We’re considering that God is all in my mind, but it doesn’t feel like me. And feelings are important. Though we must reason things out too. As so often, the honest answer is that we don’t know which is the right answer. We could argue that it doesn’t matter in that both routes lead to identical outcomes. And so, the only issue is that people following both a religious and a humanistic route through life genuinely believe it with an untroubled mind, rather than having “the voice of God” impeded by doubts by continually wondering if this is God or “just me” talking.

Christ in all humility

Christ in all humility

To hold everything in your hands, but to lay it all down,

To have all power, but to grasp after nothing;

To wait gently and patiently in tranquil love,

For the other to step closer,

Ardently longing for the approach, but forcing nothing;

Bearing all power and authority as lightly as a smile,

Being responsible for all things, but deeply settled in soul, at peace,

Oblivious of all clamour, listening intently to the whispered cry for help,

Not a trace of arrogance in a mind pure of self,

Too focused on the other,

Gazing in love;

Forgetful of all his concerns, but full of sympathy for us;

Hands held out empty in entreaty

To take hold of his offer of friendship;

Kneeling, he washes our feet and tends to our wounds;

Looking intently into our eyes he discerns our emptiness,

The aching void and the longing for wholeness;

And piercing our façade, he reaches to the roots of our dis-ease

And gently, patiently, steadily draws out the thorn till it is gone;

And closing up the wound

He presses the flesh together

And we know it will heal;

To walk light-stepped, when the weight of the world presses on his shoulders,

To have time for the least of us,

To break off from men of power and wealth to enquire after us;

To laugh full-heartedly at our pleasure;

To know all things, yet desire our thoughts;

To shape his life to our cares:

This is Christ in all humility.

To keep the night watch,

To bear the pain of endurance,

To do the hard slog through the night to be ready waiting for us at the dawn,

To do the work all alone when everyone else has neglected it,

To bear the insults and the slapped face, undeterred,

To not turn aside when all others have;

Keeping faith with the faithless, still hoping for us to turn again;

Making all sacrifices, and then doing it again,

And still without reproach, still hoping on our behalf;

Even though we lost our hope long ago, he has kept it safe in his heart;

Suffering to hold his place by our side,

Bearing the blows, heedless of wounds,

Held fast by his love for us;

Most of all bearing the injustice of the suffering of all the innocents,

And weeping long into the night, all alone,

And getting up again, resolute;

Kneeling again to tend our wounds, not his own,

The flame of hope still alight;

Not just resisting evil, but overcoming evil with good;

And still to laugh

With overflowing mirth, joyful beyond measure,

A stream to water all seeds of the soul,

To fill the heart with joy;

To suddenly come alongside us,

And by his friendship make us whole,

Through his presence to bless us:

This is Christ in all humility.

God: who are you; what are you? Part 4

God: who are you; what are you?

Part 4

This is a theoretical possibility – though I am reluctant to judge that this is so – not least because this “3rd voice” so often seems to strike through the dross of usual concerns to reveal a distinctively different – and better – angle on the subject. It is a “divine” angle because it is so elevated, altruistic, principled, beneficial. As I know myself to be not a terribly nice person, this voice sounds so incredibly wise and loving that it’s reasonable for me to think: “This is not me talking now”.

So, is God’s voice just the work of our own minds? Of course, God’s voice always speaks with our voice. It uses our vocabulary and sentence structure. It uses our core ideas and values. Because we are the only person who has access to our own minds, then we are aware that the “internal conversations” are going on in our own minds. By the way, how else is any of this going to happen? If God is going to speak to us, where else would he do it except in our own minds – using our normal words and thought forms – but imbued with his nature. None of this is necessarily arguing against God. Nevertheless, this “voice of God” is clearly experienced as existing in our own minds – just as the other voices which we readily accept are our own voices exist in our own minds. Therefore, it is natural to say that this “God’s voice” is our own voice too really – and religious people have simply made a mistake. Interestingly, this conclusion is so natural that it makes me wonder why anyone ever thought that it was God’s voice. Are the points above about the “higher” quality of this voice really sufficient to make us think: “That’s not me; that’s God”? Is it because this “voice of God” is so often taking up a moral position contrary to our own desires? So, in our internal conversation, although we’re putting up a good battle with ourselves to “do the right thing” we know that “really” we want to do the selfish thing. So many people successfully talk themselves round to the selfish point of view that we mustn’t take an easy psychological way out and say, “Ah, so God is just the internalised voice of moral authority – Freud was right all along”. It seems more honest to me to give God (“the voice of God”) a bit more credit. My cunning self-interest is quickly grinding down the resistance of my principles when the voice of God commandingly cuts through: “You will honour me and put your self-interest to one side”.

God: who are you; what are you? Part 3

God: who are you; what are you?

Part 3

Perhaps our experience of God is simply a peculiarity of the way the human mind works – perhaps an accident of evolutionary development. What religious people find most striking is the way the voice of God does indeed seem to them to be external and different to themselves. But perhaps this is just to do with the working of the brain. Perhaps (just speculating) these sorts of ideas are dealt with in a part of the mind separate to the “usual” working parts of the mind, so that when this section of our mind says, “Hey you, I’ve got an idea/message for you”, it seems as though it is “coming from outside” because it is, indeed, coming from an unusual and discrete part of our mind.

These are all good thoughts, but I’m still beating about the bush and avoiding concentrating on the heart of the matter.

Suppose I am mulling over deep thoughts, in a “usual, entirely human” sort of way. I say to myself, “I hope my blog becomes really well-known so that I become famous”. I am immediately able to use my own principles to say, “Denis, that’s terrible; you’re such a vain person”. My own judgement is able to chip in, “What I really hope is that my blog will be of great help to many people”. Now, I’m much happier because I can see that this is a much more noble aim – one that I approve of, and I believe God does too. But then “the voice of God” chips in, “Your blog is irrelevant: what I want to know is whether or not you are at last ready to devote your attention to me”. Though this is a bit artificial, I think it illustrates what I mean by “the 3 strands of thinking” I mentioned earlier, with God’s voice “cutting through” my conversation with myself. Now what is this voice? Is it simply that the mind has “a higher level”? We have the ability to have conversations with ourselves – which we readily understand as an internal debate, but we also have the ability to synthesise, reflect and comment on these conversations and come to a higher-level evaluative judgement. As all thoughts simply pop into our heads (though we may be aware of having been working on them), this is simply another thought, but it surprises us by its profundity. It strikes us as “above the ordinary” and – because we have adopted the framework of understanding that God might talk to us – we take this 3rd voice to be the voice of God when in reality it is “simply” our best judgement on the subject. As it “pops into” our heads, we think, “Where on earth did that come from? It must be God”. However, really, it is all the work of our own minds.

God: who are you; what are you? Part 2

God: who are you; what are you?

Part 2

I’m also extremely unwilling to give up my understanding of this voice as the voice of God. Whatever this voice is, it is the most precious thing in my life. Through it, I have gained greater insight, clarity, uplifting transcendence and compassionate wisdom than through any other voice.

Could it be my voice? I wonder if it’s possible for me to identify any clear, specific examples of an inner conversation where the 3 strands can be discerned: my voice “as my usual self”, my voice being my altruistic best, and the (supposed) authentic voice of God, striking through all doubt and confusion, self-interest and self-deception, suddenly revealing a new dimension dazzling in truth, goodness and love?

Is it fair to say (sounds a bit like a cop-out to me, though it could be true) that whenever we speak words of love, truth and justice, that is God speaking? And does that mean that “God” is simply a personalised version of the abstract principles of truth, goodness and love? I want God to me more than this, though, in what way could God be more than this? What’s better than perfect goodness, truth and love? Yes, God is personalised, but what does this add? Is it only because through aeons of evolution, we understood abstract things in concrete personal forms? However, a personal God certainly changes these abstract good principles and applies them to me in a personalised way. This somehow seems “better” than me applying them to myself – though this is also a person acting – it’s just that it’s me doing it to myself. And having a personal God seems better than me simply being inspired by an abstract idea – even a supremely perfect one. Though if this was the case, perhaps I should give myself credit for being so inspired– and by extension, give the human race credit for being able to do this– rather than giving God the credit for “giving us” this inspiration?

God: who are you; what are you? Part 1

God: who are you; what are you?

(Coming in 6 parts)

Part 1

It has been a staple of my thoughts for some years now that the voice of God that I experience in my head is distinctly different from my own voice, and I know this to be true because I know what it is like to think things over with myself, but when God “talks” to me, it feels different. This voice has become extremely precious to me, and is, in practice, the foundation of my claim to believe in God because he is real. I do have my final, fall-back defence whereby I reinterpret God as a creation of the human mind, rather than an independently existing being. However, in everyday living it is my sense of being in a relationship with God, because we converse with each other, which is the heart of my faith.

However, I now want to consider if I am wrong, and the voice of God in my head is not so different from my own voice after all.

The most I’m willing to say is that – if the voice is mine – it’s a very remarkable voice, as though I had attained the wisdom, insight and compassionate justice of God himself. This is so intrinsically unlikely that it’s more plausible to suppose that it is the voice of God. However, if I try to bend over backwards to be kind to those of secular persuasion – and, of course, to give due reverence to the wonder of human nature at its best – then I wonder if it’s possible that this “God’s voice” is what we sound like when we are having moments of great insight. Of course, many people fool themselves into thinking that their own desires are the voice of God – sometimes in a good but inadequate way, but we also know that this can be in grossly immoral ways, such as, “God told me to slaughter those people”. However, God’s voice in my head is always kind and wise, to an extraordinary degree – and this is not true of me.

A biographical note on why my new framework of understanding God is so important. Part 4

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

Part 4

I must say that I personally prefer the traditional view of God as an independently existing personal agent. I am very happy to take the leap of faith, and as I have done this throughout my life, I have found that I have landed on a firm foundation of the reality of God. However, my concern is to try and bridge the gap between faith and reason. It is all very well for me and countless millions of others to live by faith, the difficulty is that some people are not able to take this step of faith, and there is a growing gap between how atheists and theists see things. In a way, I am happily leaving faithful people living their life of faith, while I go in search of those who are not able to find faith. I want to show that a life of faith is completely reasonable. However, instead of arguing this from within a believer’s frame of understanding (that God is an independent agent within a metaphysical reality), I want to argue from within the atheist’s framework of understanding. It seems to me that the ultimate unchallengeable framework of reality for atheists rests on the foundation of the Big Bang and evolution. Therefore, I have used this as my foundation for reality and sought to show that faith has reasonable justification within it. In other words, faith is not a matter of having to have faith in it (precisely the thing some people are unable to do), instead faith is a part of this reality – an indubitable, proven part of reality.

A biographical note on why my new framework of understanding God is so important. Part 3

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

Part 3

Note: I am not saying that the new framework must be better than the old framework. I am not saying that the old framework is wrong; it could be right – in fact, I prefer it. All I’m saying is that, if it’s right, it goes beyond what a scientific explanation of reality can say, and goes beyond what Enlightenment principles of reason can say in their pursuit of truth and justice. Religion is (unsurprisingly) a speculative set of ideas that depends on faith, and a trust in God cannot be had without taking the leap of faith, beyond what can be known. This leap of faith is extremely precious to me, and I need to watch that my new framework does not inadvertently destroy the very thing that is most precious to me: faith in God. I don’t think it does, because the leap of faith is still essential if you are going to make a commitment to live this spiritual and religious life, and still depends on faith that the voice of God can indeed be created in your own mind (and that this voice will be “true to God” and so not delusional or destructive or merely self-interested). I nearly said that the new framework removes the need for faith in the intellectual sphere of removing the question: “Is God really there or not?” because that has a definite answer: definitely yes. Therefore, faith is only required in the sphere of making a commitment to live this way. However, what I’ve just said above is true: you still have to have faith that this inner spiritual life will develop and you will not just be talking to yourself or meditating on profound principles.

Christ untaintable

Christ untaintable

One of the things I love most about Christ is that he is untaintable.

There is, in the very best of our human nature, a desire for purity. We recognise that we are compromised by our living in the world. It is too difficult to keep our hands clean – even when we desire it. Too often – so very often – we fall from our ideals and find ourselves wallowing in the mud, scrabbling for crumbs, fighting for a slightly better seat in the gutter. If we do not fall, we are often pushed, and, kicked and beaten, we crouch in fear and find that, against our will, our hands are dirty again. And in our darkest moments we revel in the filth.

Yet all the time – all the time, except perhaps for those very few who are completely lost in corruption – a flame still burns. Against all the odds, it still flickers. In blessed moments, a shaft of light pierces our gloom, and, gazing up, we remember. We recall the innocence of our youth and the clear, simple goodness of our ideals. We lift from the earth a half-forgotten object, and, stripping away the layers of dirt, rediscover our dearest treasure, still somehow intact and untarnished, like gold, and holding it gently, it becomes a chalice for our tears.

And so, we find ourselves kneeling, and in the most sacred moments, we take the hand of the person kneeling next to us, and we remember that once we loved, and once we hoped together.

But, there is, in the very worst of human nature, a desire to blame others. To demonise them in futile attempt to cast out our own demons. To pour on them all the dirt and filth that we can conceive of, and then, in comparison, we find ourselves clean. All the anger and hurt that we feel at our own struggle to stay clean, we turn against them, and then imagine ourselves righteous – when really we have simply become self-righteous.

Then, most sinister of all, having made others dirty, we consider that all that they touch becomes dirty. Like a stain that can never be erased, like a contagious disease, they are unclean, and everything that comes into contact with them becomes unclean. Such fear prevents anyone from reaching out, rules out compassion, for it is the unclean who threaten me with infection.

But Jesus touched the leper and made him whole.

Instead of Jesus being tainted by touching him, the leper became clean by touching Jesus. The chain of contagion stopped and was turned back. No, more than that, the disease was transformed into health.

This is what Jesus stands for: absolute untaintability. All who want to condemn him, exclude him, eradicate him are confounded. He is not made unclean; instead, all who are condemned, excluded, on the brink of being eradicated, are made pure. His untaintability is complete and infinite; there is no false accusation that cannot be dismissed by his word, no distorted judgement from which we cannot be acquitted by his authority. And suddenly turning his gaze on us, there is not the shadow of a doubt that some sin could be too great for him to cure.

And that is why I kneel at his feet: Jesus untaintable! No longer kneeling only in penitence and grief, but in joyful liberation. Till he takes me by the hand, lifts me up and says, “Walk with me”.

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)