Some thoughts on "God"

 
   Something I've been thinking a lot about this past year is this thing we call "God". Belief in God is something that I have maintained throughout my life, but if someone were to ask "do you believe in God," I don't think I could answer it with a simple 'yes' or 'no' as in times past. The reason being because usually what people seem to mean by that question is "do you believe in MY God?" and while my idea of God may resemble someone else's in some respects, it may be radically different in others.

   There are so many different conceptions of God or gods and definitely many more than I think most people are consciously aware of. For a good percentage of people, at least in the western world, I don't think the idea of God goes much beyond the famous 'magical-bearded-man-in-the-clouds' concept (as depicted above from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) to which they either accept or reject. While it would be practically impossible to talk about all the different variations out there, suffice it is to say that "God" is almost a useless term unless you are in conversation with people that you are sure hold an identical or near identical concept with you. So, perhaps a question I could answer better would be "to which god concept do you believe in, if any?". Though even my answer to that would be extremely hazy, as the idea of God is more of something my brain likes to wrestle with, as opposed to being a solid and unchanging belief. Belief in that sense is relatively dead to me, anyway.

    In a nutshell, I have come to perceive the word "God" as a kind of blanket category for a level of reality connecting all things that we have yet to fully understand or define, because (like all spiritual things) it pierces the limits of language that are applied to it. Yet, we have no other choice but to apply language and symbols to it if we hope to discuss it or make meaning out of it...hence the existence of all religions.

    It seems highly unlikely to me that with all the different religions out there that a single one of them has just so happened to have properly and completely understood what and who God is, while all the rest are totally incorrect. A more reasonable view, to my mind, would be to admit that possibly all religions, philosophies, etc., may each understand certain things about the divine while misunderstanding other things. Everyone has a few pieces of the puzzle, but no one has the complete picture. And as the world becomes ever more connected through various media, I think a lot more people are actually coming to a similar conclusion concerning God and beliefs in general.

    Now, as to what parts one group is right about and what parts another is wrong about is, obviously, a very debatable thing. Yet, I think the simple admission that no one is fully right and no one is fully wrong about the God question is an enormous step in the right direction. That admission allows us all to be teachers as well as learners when it comes to understanding this mysterious, mythical, yet real part of our universe. I would even be as bold to say that being open to this concept of God is a step towards world peace, as it would undoubtedly foster religious and cultural understanding.

Why I Believe (Pt.1): Belief in God

Introduction

Lately, I've been trying to deal with a question that has really been floating around in my head for quite sometime now, but just recently have felt more compelled to think upon. The question being "Why do I think I'm right about Christianity in the first place?". (Of course, I use the term "Christianity" loosely here, as I do not adhere to all the fundamental beliefs commonly held by Christians. Rather, I'm referring to the core ideas of Christianity that I still find to be true...such as the belief in God, divine inspiration of scripture, and obviously the teachings, atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.) Which I suppose is the inevitable result of questioning/reexamining other long held beliefs, which I've been doing for almost two years now anyway.

But I'll be blunt, this is a scary question and one that I've greatly neglected; not only in writing about but in thinking about. Its one thing to question and reexamine a brick in the wall of your faith yet it's a whole nother thing to question the whole wall upon which your perceptions about life are built upon. But as uncomfortable as it may be, it's an extremely important question to ask. Because if I do not deeply understand why I believe all that I do, then I cannot expect myself to commit my life to said beliefs, let alone help anyone else to consider the same. So with that, I would like to take you on a little journey through a short series of blogs where I will investigate my core beliefs and why I believe them. And what better place to start, than at my belief in God.

The existence of humankind

Macro-evolution tells us that man evolved through several upon several mutations over a period of billions of years...from a tiny single celled organism to the complex multi-celled organism we are today. And while we do not possess superior abilities/mutations in comparison to all other animals, none-the-less we are very unique; particularly in our advanced intelligence and ingenuity that has caused us to dominate this planet.

This, from an atheistic standpoint, is said to have happened merely by chance. It just so happened that a universe came to be, with not only the right conditions for life to form, but also the right conditions to sling us high above the rest of the Earth's organisms; all because of one big multi-billion year long string of luck. And while I cant doubt the possibility, it all just seems much too unlikely and much too coincidental. Atheists such as Richard Dawkings must be conscious of this unlikely-hood as well, for them to suppose that there are an infinite number of universes and, what-do-you-know, this universe so happens to be the one that can sustain life and has caused humans to excel. But as interesting as this proposition is, I think the existence of just our one universe (without a creator in the formula) is puzzling enough on its own, let alone trillions of universes without one. Even Stephen Hawking admits in relation to our universe "it would be very difficult to explain why [it] would have begun in just this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us".

The beauty of life

Another thing that points me towards God is simply the very beauty that surrounds us and is in us. The amount of it in nature is astounding; whether it be scenery, majestic animals, the stars in the sky, or ourselves. Beyond that, the things we do and create bring in a whole new level of beauty into what already exists. We create art and music, think of theoretical and abstract ideas, construct breath-taking architecture, high-tech machines and have modeled the laws, agriculture and monetary systems that enhance our everyday lives. None of which any other organism (to my knowledge) does. And while nothing is perfect per say, and there are also many "ugly" things in our world (though I'd say this typically results from beautiful things being abused) its quite hard for me to see how this could've come together simply at random, with no supernatural intelligence(or God) involved. Even the simplest things like a child grow and learn over the years or seeing a beautiful girl smile, I find to be a clue that the splendor of existence had an intelligent source. Otherwise, as Tim Keller says "if we are [merely] the product of accidental natural forces, then what we call 'beauty' is nothing but a neurological hardwired response to particular data". And personally, I cannot accept that as an adequate answer for why such beauty exists at all.

the existence of morality

I'm pretty sure that just about every person I've ever met believes some things are right, while believing other things are wrong. Where does this sense of right and wrong come from? Certainly society and personal upbringing has something to do with it, but isn't it interesting that most people hold to the same general sense of morality and seem to have all throughout known history? Most societies in most times have taught that things like stealing, murder, cheating and lying to be wrong. And most societies in most times have taught that things like courage, justice, kindness, honesty, mercy, forgiveness and respect to be right (of course there are exceptions to this, but I'm saying in general). So it would appear to be that there is an inate sense of morality that supercedes that which is defined personally and culturally.

Some suggest that morality is the result of individuals surviving in greater numbers when they displayed the above "right" characteristics, as opposed to those who displayed above "wrong" characteristics. Thus, the favorable genes of the more unselfish individuals got passed down, causing most of us to feel these universal ideas of right and wrong. In other words, its only natural that our instinct tries to compel us to do the right things over the wrong things, because the right things help us survive. But do they always help us survive?

Stealing is considered wrong, yet if I'm a starving hobo the best course of action for survival may indeed be me stealing some guys hot dog, or robbing a convenience store. The right thing to do (which would be to not steal at all) wouldn't aid me in my survival in this instance. Helping people stranded on the road with car problems is considered courteous and right, yet doing so may cause me to be late to work and lose my job; and certainly the risk of losing my job or putting it in jeopardy wouldn't aid my survival in any way either.

So the question still remains; where does this universal sense of right and wrong come from? Why do we feel inclined to adhere to it, even when it determents our survival? Well, my answer is that perhaps there is a God, who put it there in order to teach us what is good, and help lay a path for living life that goes deeper than even any religious text or life philosophy. Not only that, but it seems to imply there is some real purpose to our existence beyond just living and dying (purpose being something I talked about in a previous blog).

The unfulfillable void

Perhaps the evidence I find most compelling for the existence of God, is that each human seems to have a particular void in them that appears to leak whatever they put into it. And the hunger that void creates, I contend, drives us to do all that we do in life. We try to fill it with money, success, relationships, possessions, fame and even video games...but all of it fails at keeping this void satisfied. This is perhaps why many musicians who've dominated the charts and seem to have all that you could ever want, still sing about emptiness and fall into life-shattering things like drug addictions. If there is nothing beyond the physical and said void is purely an evolutionary mechanism to help us survive, such situations really make no sense. After all, most of those musicians have all the food, sex, money and fun they could possibly ask for, let alone need...so why should they continue to find themselves so unsatisfied and broken? From an evolutionarily perspective, they are surviving very well and probably reproducing, so how are we to explain this phenomena of emptiness?

I've heard some say that it is merely a fluke or just "evolutionary baggage" we acquired over time, as I believe Carl Sagan said. And while I suppose thats possible I just don't find that answer to be satisfactory. I think that the void is unfulfillable by any worldly thing for a much more significant reason. That reason being that it was purposely put there to show us we need something other-worldly to complete us; and it is my strong feeling that this other-worldly thing is a creator God who wants to have relationship with us.

Limited to the logical

Over the past few weeks, I had the pleasure of debating with a random atheist (something I hardly do anymore) via the "undisputed king" of meaningless, angry controversial debates....YouTube. I really only replied to him to correct his assumption that I believed that God "sent people to be burned for all time", but we ended up messaging back and forth for several days about different things. The main thing came down to the typical "why does God allow suffering" argument that I already refuted here a few weeks back. However, his argument made me think a bit deeper.

He argued that an infinitely powerful and loving God could not exist, because there is suffering in the world. If God was truly both of those things, he'd argue, God could have produced love, appreciation and character in us without the use of suffering whatsoever. And though I tried to find my way around his argument as hard as I could, I realized I was just avoiding a hole in my theology. One that had been engraved in me since as long as I can remember...the idea that God is limitless in power.

After thinking about it for a few days and listening to various opinions, I came to conclude that maybe God is indeed all-powerful, but only within the realm of logic. God can do whatever he pleases, but is limited(by his own choice or what I don't know) to that which, well, makes sense. For example, God could create a triangle as big or as small as he could possibly imagine, but He really cannot make a "4 sided triangle" because, well...that doesn't make any sense. A four sided shape is a square (or a rectangle), saying otherwise defies the definition and is simply illogical.

But then you might say,

Well what 'bout Biblical things like talkin' snakes, parting seas, and water turning to wine? Those things don't sound logical but God did 'em!

Regardless of the fact that such things MAY or may not have been exaggerated or metaphorical (in some cases I assume they were), I think maybe they fall more into the "highly unlikely" category, rather than completely "illogical". For example, snakes have mouths like humans, and the ability to make sounds. So a creator of the universe could easily allow a snake to actually speak a human language, if He so chose. It would be "highly unlikely" but not totally illogical. It would be illogical, however...to simeltaneously deem that snake as a toaster oven; that just makes absolutely no sense. The snake could logically be transformed into a toaster oven via supernatural means, or possibly even a snake shaped toaster oven(how would that work?), but it could not be both things at the same time.

The idea of God having "limits" was uncomfortable to me at first, but now I feel it makes decent sense. God is still far higher than us in all his qualities, but not so high that he is limited by no consistent moral or logical truths. A verse that may attest to Gods higher, yet not necessarily unlimited qualities is 1 Corinthians 1:25,

For the foolishness of God is wiser than mans wisdom, the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength

If God truly had no limits...he could contradict any definition or characteristic of himself, and still be perfect. He could tell the truth, and lie, at the same time. He could love you, and at the same time, hate your guts. He would have no moral limits and thus, it'd be impossible for us to base our life around a being that holds to no absolute, logical definitions on anything. In order to serve God or accept personal revelation from God, there would have to be a plane of morality and logic he was limited to...or he truthfully could change the rules at any moment and still not defy his characteristic of being just and fair. And if that were the case, we might as well all just give up trying to understand what God is saying to us (haha)

So then I wondered if this idea (that God is limited to the logical) punched any holes in relation to my universalistic theology? I wondered if perhaps, it would not be "logically" possible for God to save all people, even though he'd really like to(which is basically the Armenian view)? But then I thought, how would God saving all his children, from that which harms them, be illogical whatsoever? I mean, wouldn't any loving, able parent seeing their kids drowning at sea, do everything in their power to rescue them? Why would God be any different?

What would be more illogical to me, is if God was indeed the example of perfect unconditional love (after all that's what he IS, according to 1 John 4:8), but yet was willing to, at some point, burn his children in torment for all eternity? With not another chance at forgiveness or purpose for the punishment beyond revenge? That would certainly defy any logical definition of love and morality that humans were hardwired with. And I suppose the same would work for the thought that God is "just", yet supposedly requires infinite punishment for finite crimes. Which I think would again, be illogical according to any human definition of justice.

So anyway, back to what the atheist originally was arguing against. Which was, that an all powerful, all loving God would save us from any suffering and still would be able to produce in us love, appreciation of that love, and good character. In which my answer is, is that the ability to choose and experience things outside of God(be them good or bad) is logically necessary, in order for concepts like true love, appreciation, etc to come about within us. Sometimes our experience with those things outside of God are negative, and generate the suffering we see in this world all around us. But what husband could truly say he loved and appreciated his wife, if he had never met another woman, particularly one who treated him poorly? What person could say that they have a wonderful house, if they had never been outside their house and seen a rundown, decaying house? It would be logically impossible. In the same way, in order to truly appreciate the unconditional love, and good things of God, we must be given the chance to experience bad, in order to know and love that which is good. I think this is what is meant by Romans 11:32,

For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on them all

Logically speaking, God could not have mercy on anyone, if they were never allowed to fall into disobedience and the sufferings that come from that. So it would logically make sense to me, that this same mercy God wants to have on us will not fail to save one person that he allowed to fall. And while suffering is necessary to produce the good, relational love God wants for us...it will not last for anyone. Mercy will someday find every man, woman and child.

P.S. Thank you to as the cracker head crumbles For mentioning SavageSoto in their "sites to see" blog. Greatley appreciate it.