If God is spirit (John 4:24), then God is not an entity existing in space and time, as we human beings are. We humans are existents, bound in space and time during our brief lives. God, on the other hand, appears to be nothing more than a concept, an invention of the human imagination, whose nature and character changes with each religious group and/or individual. Hence, it appears that God, however conceived, has no independent existence, which exactly corresponds to those ideations of the human mind.
The rationale for this surprising statement is self-evident when viewed from the perspective of the history of world religions. Each religion (and there have been a lot of religions through human history) conceives God differently, yet the adherents of this or that religion believe that God is actually just like what they conceive. In short, they believe their view is the only accurate and true view that captures the essence of God. But, alas, different understandings of God exist in other religions and the adherents of these other religions likewise think that their understanding of God is actually how God is.
For example, there is no one biblical understanding of God. There are various views of God in the Christian and Jewish Bibles. Describing each of these ways of understanding God as different is based on the recognition that the Bible is a collection of diverse texts representing the historical evolution of two different religions Israelite and Christian. The authors in the Bible can only be held responsible for what that they wrote. This idea may be difficult to accept because modern users of the Bible tend to treat the Bible as a unified text rather than what it is—a collection of largely originally unrelated texts By treating the Bible as a unified and harmonious text readers tend to develop composite images of God (which themselves are also different).
Here then, necessarily briefly, are three different ways God is represented in the Biblical texts.
God the Giver of Tribal Laws: Principally, the Mosaic Covenant, which is found in Exodus 19-23 and Leviticus. Ancient Israel is directed to keep the laws which have been given by God through Moses. The obligations to which each party is committed are stated in Leviticus 26: The tribe of Israelites, 26:3-5; Yahweh, 26:6-13. And if Israel breaks any of these laws, there is a penalty: Leviticus 26:14-33. Would anyone doubt that the God credited with promulgating the tribal laws takes obedience to his commands completely seriously?
God the Merciful and Compassionate: The book of Hosea is permeated by the theme of divine compassion. It is at one and the same time a story of Yahweh's steadfast love for Israel, and Hosea's love for the prostitute Gomer, whom he married at God's direction (Hosea 1:1-2). She bore three children (Hosea 1:4-8) of whom Hosea was presumably not the father (Hosea 2:4-5). Gomer abandoned the family to take up again a life of prostitution, and Hosea at God's direction bought her back (Hosea 3:1-5), just as Yahweh refuses to abandon his people Israel (Hosea11:1-12). The dominant image that emerges from the book is the love and faithfulness of Yahweh in the face of Israel's unfaithfulness and abandonment of Yahweh (Hosea 4:1-19).
God the Capricious and Unjust: The Book of Job comes in two parts: a prose prologue (1:1-2:13) and epilogue (42:7-17), and a central poetic section (3:1-42:1-6). The central section is concerned with showing that not all suffering is the result of sin. The prologue, however, casts God as a capricious Eastern potentate who allows Satan to submit Job to every kind of suffering short of taking his life, even though God knows that Job is a righteous and blameless man (Job 1:1). There was no reason for Job to suffer except to settle a casual dispute between God and Satan as to whether Job served God in his own self interest (1:8-12; 2:3-6).
In each of these "types" I have described what seems, far and away, to be the prevalent tone of how that writer views God's character. Vestiges of other views may still be seen in each text, however. For example, the major chord of Ecclesiastes seems to be God the Distant and Disinterested Creator. The view of this writer is that although God is the creator of all, God has little to do with the creation. Nevertheless, one does still find vestiges of a kind of secular view of God (3:17-18; 7:18; 8:12-13), and even a bit of traditional piety (12:13-14). Nevertheless, God is not really a major concern in human life, and the ponderings of the author bring him virtually to the edge of despair.
My point in this essay is this: God is who we think or believe God to be. If there is a Deity, apart from the inventions of our minds, how would we ever come to the knowledge of that apparently completely unknown figure? Do we pick the one with which we are most comfortable and claim that figure as true God? Or do we simply stay with the understanding of the God of our childhood?
How does it seem to you?
Charles W. Hedrick
17 comments:
Your title and at least some aspects of this piece reflect Tillich's assertion that God does not exist because existence implies place, location, being here but not there. In that sense, for Tillich, and, I assume for most of us, God does not exist. But that is not true for all religions or all periods of particular religions. The most ancient strata of Semitic faith would hold that Yahweh was enthroned above Mt. Zion, such that captives in Babylon assumed that Yahweh could hear neither their prayers nor their psalms.
Many modern trinitarians would insist that God exists in an external sense but has the added dimension of a spirit that is in all places at all times.... indefensible and virtually meaningless but satisfactory to lots of pew residents.
Where I would quibble with you is the introduction of "God is what you prefer" claims. Yes, I think that love is better than indifference, peace is better than war, acceptance is superior to prejudice, and it is easy to ascribe such preferences and characteristics to the Divine, but it doesn't make it so. I may want to insist that angels don't exist but that there are lots of invisible giant tacos that poop ice cream all over the place but saying it, wishing it, recording it in a book, or even getting public consensus has no impact on what is.
That's just my opinion. I could be wrong. Roger Ray
I'm thinking that at the heart of the matter the universe is more importantly relational than rational. In some basic relational sense human consciousness is the universe reflecting upon itself in thoughtfulness and prayer (see Wink, The Human Being, 2002). This process includes not only human relationships but also relationships among the multiple environments in which we live. This means that whatever ruins relationships ruins life and hides deity. However, at times of clarity deity is recognized as the impulse for fulfilled relationships, and there are certain places where that impulse is more visible, perhaps, for example, in the servant and burden bearing life of Jesus the Messiah. The human heart, without trust and love, tends to act on impulses which ruin relationships: GMark has a list of them at 7:21-22. But when the human heart delights in the divine impulse for fulfilled relationships, that is when we ride on the clouds of glory with the elect of the Son of Man.
Couldn't help those dramatics. Please understand the language as symbolic.
Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.
This is meant to be funny, but also serious. I thought of a more contemporary symbol for delighting in the divine impulse for fulfilled relationships, and that is the joy of careening down the mountain in a sleigh with the Grinch to reinstate relationships, and make amends, with the folks of Who-ville on Christmas day.
Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.
Good afternoon Roger,
From what I have observed church folk seldom think about the issue I have raised in this short essay, and they simply continue to affirm what they were taught about God in their childhood. It would have been irresponsible of me not to have mentioned these two possibilities for handling the God problem, since these are the two ways the problem is generally handled--that is, they can reinvent God or stay with what they were taught.
I am not an advocate of one invented view of God over another with this one exception: People should not invent Gods that bring harm to them or others physically, psychologically, and economically. In those cases I consider it my personal responsibility to point out the inconsistencies in the their concepts and denounce the harm such beliefs cause.
Readers may want to know that the Community Christian Church is having a Conference this Fall on the subject "What Do We Mean When we Say God?"
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Gene,
I gather that your last sentence standing alone at the end refers only to your last sentence of the previous paragraph. Only in that last sentence of the previous paragraph do you conceive yourself as writing symbolically. Is that correct? Readers should then understand that with the exception of your last sentence of the larger paragraph, you are writing in straight-forward and discursive language. Am I correct?
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
Yes, the last half of the last sentence of the large paragraph is meant to be symbolic. Rather than literal, I pretty much take the expectation of the coming of the son of man idea as a symbol for justice.
On the other hand, isn't everything and anything we say and have said about "God" symbolic? In the final analysis God is what each person identifies as ultimate. I think that the impulse for fulfilled relationships is the ultimate. But one can only come to this conclusion at the experiential level, not at an abstract level. I don't think that this is really very far from fairly standard Christian theology.
Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.
Hi Gene,
Do you suppose that the advent of the son of man was also taken as a symbol by the earliest followers of Jesus? And if the hope of the advent of the son of man originated with Jesus, do you suppose that he regarded it as a symbol or did he regard it as an actual event that would take place in the future?
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
Speaking just for myself, my opinion is that (1)"the advent of the son of man" was taken literally by the followers of Jesus. I tend to think that the notion came into the Jesus movement through converts from the disciples of John the Baptist who seems to have expected "one to come." Perhaps this group was also responsible for the material (Q) common to Matthew and Luke. (2)I'm inclined to think that Jesus was not apocalyptic, but he probably did think in terms of a non-specific future eschatology. For example, the structure of the mustard seed, leaven, and sower parables suggest that an inconspicuous beginning and huge ending characterize the Kingdom of God. (3)One wonders if Jesus expected to trigger some sort of divine intervention by going to Jerusalem.
Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.
Charles, God is not who we think or believe him to be, but is our Creator, that is, he made us, we did not make him. We come to knowledge of God through our hearts and minds. People may pick and choose a god from the world's religions, but the "true God" picks from among us, that is, he or she selects individuals to serve him. A child's understanding of God is that God is bigger than the whole world and can grant favors; this is a good starting point in the quest for understanding.
Hi Gene,
How does it happen that an anticipated literal event comes to be regarded as a symbol? Is it your private symbol--that is it seems so to you that it should be regarded as a symbol? Or do you regard it as Mark's symbol (i.e., Mark 8:38)?
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Paul,
Thanks for weighing in on the discussion. Your comment that "the true God picks from among us" raises the following question: if we can only be accessed by God "through our hearts and minds" how can anyone possibly know for certain that they are have made contact with the true God? I would imagine that every religion that claims union with a divine force would make the same claim that God dwells mystically within their hearts.
Cordially,
Charlie
Wit regard to your #3 statement above: Albert Schweitzer agrees with you that Jesus expected to trigger something on his final trip to Jerusalem. Here is the way he put it: ". . . Jesus in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign. (Quest of the Historical Jesus, 370-71).
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
I pretty much take it as an almost certainty that Mark thought literally about the "coming son of man." Perhaps Mark wrote his gospel, at least in part, due to the failure of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and temple to immediately trigger the son of man's return to earth. He encouraged his community, 'Try to be patient, it's going to happen, and some of you are going to see it.' (9:1, ch 13, 14:62).
After 2000+ years of no return, I think of the coming son of man as a symbol because it has never become actual, and it is a waste of important life space and time to treat the belief literally. However, it can sure be a powerful symbol for the notion that God never gives up on the goal of a just society.
Your quote of Schweitzer was very enjoyable and educational. He sure had the knack for writing dramatically. I've read his Jesus book, but it was years and years ago. Most references one sees to the text are to use Schweitzer in support of an apocalyptic view of Jesus.
Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.
In may life it has come closer to be the former although I no longer let any one religion define Him for me. The God of my childhood was so totally focused on every detail of everyone's life that it became absurd and hard not to start blaming him. (How could He let that happen?!) I continue to believe in God and certainly the Spirit as exemplified by love. (Vestiges of Jesus of my childhood?) I believe in free will and that He gave us abundance. If He pays much attention to us anymore, He probably puzzles over our struggles. Despite seeming to have everything to begin with, we still suffer so....
Marlyss Simmons
Charlie,
The various commented opinions of God indicate God is what each of us choose him to be, i.e. various religions; or God is the mysterious power that created the universe. I believe God to be the mysterious power that created the universe. While we may never perceive the totality of God, science is the best tool for comprehending this creator and has provided much understanding of "it".
Jim
Hi Jim,
I agree that "science" is the best tool for learning about the universe. And if one believes in a creator, science is a tool that helps thinking people infer aspects of the creator. As a scientist what do you infer about the creator from the creation?
Charlie
Charlie,
Re: As a scientist what do you infer about the creator from the creation?
Science, though not necessarily all scientists infers the creator is what science calls the Laws of Physics or put another way, "Mother Nature". As science uncovers these laws, the creator becomes better known, e.g. gravity is a widely experience characteristic of the creation, but little understood (by humans) until a couple hundred years+ ago.
Religion has done little to explain gravity or practically any of the universe. Religion's explanation for the creation of the universe hardly gives credit to their ability. Religion seemingly deal with that which exists in the universe only in the minds of humans, along with love, fear, happiness, fairness, good & evil, etc.; real things for sure, but absent in the universe without human imagination. Science is researching this human realm too as it is a part of the Laws of Physics. As strange as may seem to those unscientific, human imagination is a complex operation of electrical current and chemistry in the human brain.
Jim
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