Note to readers about what’s coming next

When I started this blog I knew there were lots of things I wanted to write about, and I expected them to fall into 2 broad categories: theological and philosophical reflections on God and the life of faith on the one hand, and spiritual, devotional writing on the other. The things I’ve written in the last 3 months are those that have come to mind each day as I sat down to write. I had no master plan. However, in the last few weeks I can see that the core of my worldview on religion has emerged, and I am now writing more systematically to expound what it is.

The series of posts on “How should we understand what God is” is the main starting point, and I thought it would be helpful to know where we’re headed. There is a lot of intensive reasoned argument coming, which I hope readers (O small, happy band of souls, may you be forever blessed!) will find interesting and enjoy thinking about. I will try and post some other things on the devotional side as “light relief”.

So, I think things will unfold like this:-

• The Journey of doubt
• Framework of understanding
• Framework of understanding idea related to God is the voice in our heads
• A biographical note on why my new framework of understanding God is so important
• God: Who are you? What are you?
• What use is God if he can’t actually do anything for us?
• What is the appeal of Jesus?

I must stress that, personally, I am perfectly happy to operate within the world of faith. However, I note that others are not, and it’s always struck me as the epitome of a good argument to be able to justify your case not simply using your ideas and values, but using the ideas and values of those who disagree with you. Therefore, in very broad brush terms, my overall aim is to provide a bridge between faith and reason. My hope is that I can show that faith in God is entirely reasonable in ways that both theists and atheists can agree on, rather than atheists and theists both arguing against each other that the other point of view looks wrong from within their own worldview. If I can show that faith is valid even within the atheist’s worldview, then, of course, it will also be valid within the faith worldview

How should we understand what God is?

Part 9: God is still God

Most importantly, God is still a person. The believer is not simply holding in their mind key principles and values and committing themselves to living by them. Instead, the believer still experiences the voice of God as a dynamic personal agent who has the ability to “answer back” when the believer addresses them. God is still personal because the believer does not have complete control over what this voice will say. This voice is not me. Even though the voice is the person’s own creation – developed through constant attention – the voice of God has acquired independence. To repeat, from the believer’s perspective, there will be no practical difference in a person’s relationship with God between this new understanding of God and the traditional one. However, in the past, if a believer who has been full of faith suddenly loses confidence and starts to doubt whether God truly is real, they discover that their faith evaporates. However, now, the believer is immune to this threat, because they self-consciously understand that the voice of God in their head has indeed been created by them. However, this voice still attains the same authority and power to guide and strengthen as God has ever had. Crucially, this voice still has the complete nature of God – and perhaps this is how I can be so certain that this voice is not me: this voice has all the qualities of God – and I do not! The voice of God, which I have created in my own head, loves me with a love that I do not have – but God does.

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.

How should we understand what God is?

Part 7: One of the voices in my head is different, because it’s not me.

Let’s now apply this understanding to what could be happening in a believer’s life of faith. I must say again, I think what’s happening is best explained by accepting that there is an independent personal agent called God. However, some wish to undermine religion by claiming that belief is all just a psychological issue really. So, let’s follow this line of argument as though it has been fully accepted. I still claim that, even as “just a psychological issue”, belief in God is the most profound and beneficial thing a person can do and is an entirely valid and justified way of life. I accept that, historically, believers have made their commitment because they believed that there really is a God. Would anyone be willing to embark on this process if they saw very clearly from the start that God is their own creation – “just a psychological process”? It would certainly be harder, but I don’t see why people shouldn’t freely and with open-eyes embark on such a path. Instead of therefore adopting atheism, I am going to recommend believing in God.

For, what has actually happened when someone reaches the stage of saying, “I believe in God because I have met him through my religious experiences, and now he is my strength and guide in life”? I think it’s this. I will use the example of a Christian, but it works for all religions.

Through continual focus, and regular practice, the Christian applies their attention to God. In this scenario, God does not exist as a person, but they apply their attention to the idea of God. This God has all the qualities of the traditional God, except that this God is now a make-believe figure – he is “an imaginary friend”. However, the believer – in company with other believers who share the same ideas and use the same language in ways that they comprehend within their community of belief – immerses themselves in a value system. These values are embedded in stories with which the believer becomes intimately acquainted, stories which continue to be revered as revelatory of ultimate truth in just the same way as scripture traditionally is. The Christian returns to these stories and prayers over and over again, and as their own life develops so these stories keep speaking to them with ever more enriching overlapping layers of meaning, revealing guidance and imparting strength to the believer. These stories and values become completely embedded in your consciousness (and perhaps your unconscious too). Through the method of prayer – which as we are considering that there is no-one you are speaking too, must now be considered a form of meditative self-reflection – the believer learns to hold in their mind and heart the voice of what a person who was actually God would say. And this is what the essence of God is in this scenario: the believer has succeeded in creating the voice of God in their own mind.

How should we understand what God is?

Part 6: How our minds work: we talk to ourselves

A modern view

Let’s suppose for a moment that there is the final triumph of science in explaining the universe. Let’s suppose that humanity becomes no longer willing to take that step of faith which is essential to believing in God. (Though perhaps that willingness to take a step of faith is the very essence of humanity). Will there be any role left for God? What would God be in that scenario!? I am going to outline a possibility that I think is an impregnable defence for belief in God. The essence of the position is that, if God does not exist, in his own right, then (the idea of) God is humanity’s greatest ever invention. If God is not a personal, independently existing agent, then he is a voice in our heads that we have created. Rather than seeing this as a reason to abandon God because: “he’s not real; he’s just in our minds”, I will instead argue that God is supremely precious, because it is not simply  the idea of God that is humanity’s greatest ever invention, we have actually succeeded in creating God.

We all know what it is like to have a conversation with ourselves. We have the ability to debate the pros and cons of a course of action and we seem to have the ability to put forward several points of view, all of which are our own. Or, at least, it’s the point of view of a section of our thinking. Or it’s a possibility which we regard as valid, and we are not yet certain which of the several points of view we will finally adopt as our considered judgement. Famously, Freud regarded our psyche as being made up of 3 parts: the id, the ego and the superego. Without saying that Freud is right, it’s easy for many of us to accept that this is a helpful way of understanding what is going on in our heads when we are deliberating a course of action: that we are having an internal debate with ourselves. Likewise, we readily understand the position of those who take account of particular voices – not voices in our heads in a mentally ill sort of way, but we understand when someone says, “I always try and think what my mother would say”. We may also accept that a person may subconsciously be always trying to please a person whom they hold in authority or love.

How should we understand what God is?

Part 5: Reasons why our belief in God developed: Just think it through as deeply and honestly as you can.

The third strand of support for belief in God is, perhaps, a combination of the first two, and I will put it under the heading of philosophical reasoning. If philosophy is understood as the examination of truth claims to determine their validity, then humanity has presented itself with a number of big questions. Why does the universe exist? What should I do with my life? Why do some people claim that a person called God exists? What is the nature of reality and how does my life fit into it? A long and noble tradition of intense thought has brought humanity a repository of wisdom and – while it is not proven – there are valid arguments for believing in the existence of God as integral to the human story. Some scientists think that scientific discoveries will make philosophy redundant, but I think some scientists don’t understand the pertinence of philosophy to our lives.