by Ethan Johnson
May 31, 2006

Salon.com recently ran an interview with Karen Armstrong, author of The Great Transformation. Her comments were interesting, and naturally they set off a firestorm of pro/con sniping in the comments section. I personally don't agree with all that she said, but what matters is that there is a dialogue about this stuff. Unyielding bumper-sticker theology (or athiesm) doesn't advance anything.

Rather than get into a blow-by-blow account of the interview, I would rather quote one of the comments, as submitted by Ban Johnson (no relation, to my knowledge):

Disbelievers, hold firm in your holy skepticism. Only, don't stop there. Keep pushing that skepticism even further, into mystery and humility. Aim it on your own dogmatism and anger. Use it to unearth the hidden assumptions you've inherited from our age. Recognize that much valuable human knowledge and practice lies outside of what can be proven by math and the five senses, in the same way that much of what you value in YOUR OWN LIVES transcends what can be proven or controlled.

Believers, cling to your faith. It's a rock, and a gift. Only, don't let your belief calcify into concepts, phrases, schtick, smugness, exclusion. Allow your faith to give you the courage to laugh at every concrete certainty. Recognize that, in an ambiguous and relativistic created world such as this one, there's some good in almost every bad and some bad in almost every good. Treat your flaws as fertile opportunities and your virtues as potential traps.

The Divine is big enough for all of us, no matter what any of our relatively puny conscious minds have to say about it at any point in time; It really is.

I mentioned in a previous article that a strict adherence and devotion to science is as counterproductive as the approach taken by "anti-scientists". To flesh this thought out a bit more, I challenge you to prove in purely scientific terms that love exists. Sooner or later, a less rigorous and empirical sort of language must be used to describe love. Empiricism and skepticism are necessary lest we all be taken for fools, but there will come a time that the language of empiricism will fail us.

Back in 2000, I imparted the following thoughts about the nature of God:

Thus, I have surmised that if the concept of "God" is just that, perhaps it can be said that the connection between everything focused in physical reality is where God shall be found. Stating one's disbelief in God in this scenario does not cause God to no longer be. A disbelief in the intangible does not disprove its existence.

After all, is the internet not etherial in and of itself? Can you get in your car and drive to the internet? Can you catch the next bus headed for the fabled Information Superhighway? Certainly not. And yet it exists, and we have ways of accessing the internet with equipment designed for that purpose.

In 2006 I would amend the first paragraph to say "all realities", not just physical.

I recently wrote of the sense of "other" that is conveyed by people who harbor racist views. I note that God is often referred to in a similar fashion: God is far away, God is going to punish you for that, God knows everything, God made everything, someday God is going to come "down" here and then you'll all be sorry. There is no connection present in this language, any more than one can feel a sense of closeness to Santa Claus. (Note that Santa Claus is probably the best tangible metaphor that we have for the omnipresence of God - he manages to be in several shopping malls at once in December.)

When Ban Johnson said that the Divine is big enough for all of us, that is quite an understatement. I don't believe that we as humans grasp the vastness of the God concept, any more than on a more scientific level we comprehend the vastness of the Universe. I was amused to read about the practice of writing "G-d" out of a belief (I'm told) that destroying something that says "God" on it in some way destroys some part of God itself. I disagree. If God is so easily destroyed, in whole or in part, that's not much of a God.

Mark Twain wrote in Letters From the Earth:

Jealousy. Do not forget it, keep it in mind. It is the key. With it you will come to partly understand God as we go along; without it nobody can understand him. As I have said, he has openly held up this treasonous key himself, for all to see. He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."

You see, it is only another way of saying, "I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things."

What manner of God is this that is petty and small?

Conversely, there is often an expectation that God will serve in the role as Caped Crusader. Stuck in a tree? God will come save you! Drowning? Don't bother swimming, God will come rescue you! Harrassed by bullies? God's got something hot for them!

In these ways we attempt to narrowly define the infinite for our own petty ends. We disregard our own potential, and instead either credit or blame the idea of God for whatever befalls us, good or bad. I note that in hierarchical organizations like large corporations, there is an assumption that the CEO (or President of the United States) knows and sees all, and will personally intervene in all critical matters. In truth, such figures operate on an entirely different wavelength (for better or worse). The petty anger or salvation dispensed by our narrow concept of God is essentially an insult to the greater force that God represents.

Setting God aside for a moment (heh), there is the adage that Love will conquer all. But how does Love conquer? Through us, not outside of us. We do not sit idly by and allow Love to ride in to right our perceived wrongs. Love inspires and motivates us to act, but it is we who act. So too with God. We are endowed with the capacity to love, and to act. God may inspire us to these actions, but it is up to us to perform them. This has nothing to do with Fate, Destiny, or Predestination. Nor does this mean that every act is divinely inspired.

I have been making a lot of hay lately with an analogy concerning our lives being like a boat with no sail or rudder. We float along, making do, but we are not setting a firm course and striving towards any particular destination. It is up to us to string up a sail and fashion a rudder. I have found myself fantasizing about coming into a large sum of money (such as winning the lottery, which I don't play), but as I thought this through, I asked, what will this solve? I won't have a sail or a rudder, just a fancier boat. This is not to say that money or wealth is inherently bad. But the lesson that I am learning is that without direction and a sense of purpose, my life will amount to little more than idle (or frenzied) floating on a lake of hope and uncontrollable external circumstances. I am bigger than that.

So too is Love.

So too is God. <EM>