How should we understand what God is?

Part 4: Reasons why our belief in God developed: To help us explain things

Another key reason for belief in God to develop was as an explanatory mechanism. Early humans became aware that they lived within a system of creation governed by massive forces, compared to which our puny fragility made us excessively vulnerable, forces which we could not control and did not understand. Not unreasonably, we extrapolated from what we did know that there must be invisible powers at work to make the universe happen. Early people graphically experienced their relationship with these forces, to which they felt intimately connected, and which they regarded with reverence and awe. Today, we understand, well, nearly everything. Should we then just completely abandon this strand of support for belief in God? In many ways, it seems fair. We can understand why people did make this mistake, but accept it was a mistake and we should not be encumbered by it anymore.

The main objection to this is that loss of sense of deep connection to the elemental forces of the universe and our reverence for them. Modernity gives us such immense benefits in length and quality of life compared to “natural life”, say, roaming the open plains. Many also feel trapped in an artificial, superficial and in some strange way, unsatisfying world – though we are so busy working and enjoying ourselves within our human-made creation that we don’t have that much time to notice it. There are still some big philosophical problems to deal with, such as, “Why should there be something rather than nothing?” Many scientists feel confident that one day we will understand exactly how the universe came into being, and, when we do, it will have an entirely scientific explanation. There will be something about reality that means that, even before there was a universe, the forces that brought a universe into being had to exist.

This seems counter-intuitive: how can there be anything about reality before there was any reality? However, quite a lot of modern science is counter-intuitive, so it’s a possibility. Those who believe in God can still justifiably hold on to the view that God could be the reason as to why the forces that created the universe were possible, or that – if science alone can explain that – that God also exists alongside a universe that did not need him to exist. However, this seems an unnecessary conjecture to bring the existence of God into the equation if everything can be explained without him. There would still be the issue of the first reason to believe in God: the encounter with God we call religious experience. However, if this second point does become cut and dried, it may then be fairer to reassess the nature of religious experience. I will still argue that it is the most precious thing in existence, but the source and nature of it will have to be reinterpreted.

How should we understand what God is?

Part 3: Reasons why our belief in God developed: We encounter him

This idea of God developed for several reasons.

Key was the power of religious experience. Human beings feel that they have encountered this mysterious person, whom we call God. Certainly, this must partly be a response to the awesome reality of being alive. In our existential self-reflection on the fantastic fact that we exist, and in those moments of well-being when we are uplifted in spirit, and come to clarity of understanding, we are simply over-whelmed that we exist; we are so glad to be alive; and we feel at one with the universe. For brief moments, we feel that all that is absolute, infinite and eternal about existence is being expressed in our lives and we are sharing in these qualities. This is in itself a spectacular revelation. Yet even beyond this, in these moments of supreme clarity about our own reality, we do not simply become inspired by abstract principles such as love, truth, and beauty, nor are we just impressed by the reality of our existence – simply exulting that we are alive. Rather, we experience these moments as moments of personal encounter with someone. We have learnt over the centuries to give the name “God” to this experience, but that is just shorthand for the experience of meeting a mysterious stranger, I know not whom. And bit by bit, we have built up a picture of who this stranger is – and he fits the description given above of the traditional understanding of God. If somehow we could erase all knowledge of God, I believe that we would recreate our current faith because humanity would rediscover this numinous encounter with “someone”. This someone is the greatest mystery of existence/the universe and the greatest treasure.

How should we understand what God is?

Part 2: We can have a relationship with God

Despite God’s holiness, we are able to encounter him. Although he is completely beyond our understanding in terms of fully comprehending him, we are able to meet God, relate to him, and hold within us just an inkling of his reality. Yet even the merest inkling of God’s infinite reality stretches us way beyond our capacity to grasp the fullness of who he is – but not beyond the capacity to know that we have met him, or to love him, or to know that he loves us. In the most stupendous mystery of all, this God – as he is conceived to be in the majesty of his perfection – loves and cares for us. Both these dimensions of the truth about God are what impresses us so much: both who he is, in his infinite, eternal goodness, and that such a person should care for us. Perhaps only a being like God could care for us in the way he does. God is completely unchallengeable. Nothing can ever diminish his abilities; he will never fail to be himself; and such is the healing purity of his nature that anything that comes into contact with God is healed; he is never tainted. This God wants us to know him and to love him. He makes himself known in many different ways, and calls out to us. He wants us to be whole, and he wants us to know him. In this way he honours his loving intention in creating us. As he did not need us, he created us in order for us to know the joy of being alive, and therefore, he wants us to share our lives with him in order that we can fulfil his intention in making us: that we should be fully alive.

A note to readers

For many of my posts, I have adopted a format which I particularly like, which is to have a theological or philosophical reflection, which is an extended piece of thinking, published in several parts, and then, alongside each part is a more devotional piece which is in some way prompted by, or is a commentary on, the reflective piece.

However, my next series of posts has these two dimensions of theological reflection and devotional writing, but they don’t have any particular connection. I’m simply aware that I’m posting my most in-depth reflection so far, and for those who aren’t particularly drawn to theological philosophising, I thought a series of devotional pieces might be a welcome diversion.

How should we understand what God is?

God is the voice I create in my head.

Overview

This long – long – theological reflection – coming in 9 parts – considers who God is from two points of view: the traditional one and a possible new understanding that God is a voice we create in our own minds. I personally consider that the traditional one is perfectly valid, but, of course, I’m aware of the challenges to belief in God in the modern age. So, I will consider what I think is a valid reason to believe in God, even within a secular, atheistic understanding of reality.

The different sections are:-

1. The nature of God as traditionally understood
2. 3 reasons why belief in God developed:-
   • Religious experience of God
   • As an explanatory device
   • Through philosophical exploration

Including an acknowledgement that modern ideas might undermine them, leaving belief in God as simply a psychological effect in our own minds

3) A modern defence of believing in God even within a framework of understanding that God is “just in our own minds”.

Part 1: God as he is understood to be

Traditionally:

God is a spiritual being who is the ultimate source of reality. Everything that exists, exists because God does. He is the creator. He is a personal being – not an impersonal force, such as electricity; he has a will; He is perfect in his moral nature. He is completely self-sufficient, in that he needs nothing to be complete because he is already complete. He experiences absolute fulfilment in himself. However, as a person, he has the capacity for relationship, and the essence of his nature is love. As a personal agent, he has the ability to act, and so, out of love, he has created other beings. We presume his intention is out of love – in order to be true to himself – so that others can also appreciate what it is to exist. However, God is also holy, which, in essence, means that he is completely unlike anything else and contains within himself absolute goodness, purity, truth and love – and every other good quality, to infinite and absolute degree.