I said last week that I can’t believe in a God “out there” who runs the universe. The universe is now about 42 billion light years across. So even if God’s thoughts travel at the speed of light, God’s intentions could take longer than the universe has existed to affect that part of the universe.
Of course, you could argue that God – and anything to do with God – is an exception. To the history of evolution. To the speed of light. To anything.
I don’t like, I don’t want, I can’t accept, a God who has to exist as an exception. How would I know, for example, when I’m perceiving the real thing, and when I’m perceiving the exception? I want, I need, a God who fits the evidence of today’s universe.
Where does that leave me? I don’t know.
I cannot deal with a world in which there is no God at all. As I wrote last week, I need something that I can call God.
That’s why I write about God. Writing about God is how I sort out my thoughts. Often, I don’t know what I think until I try to put my vague intuitions into words.
But those words convince me that I am not just an atheist, an unbeliever. Yes, there is a God. I am obsessed by God. I don’t know how to understand that presence. But I will keep trying.
The closest I can come, at present, is by analogy with gravity. Gravity is invisible, yet we all feel it. We all know it is there, even if we ignore it most of the time. Gravity interacts with everything, and everyone. It’s not just the earth pulling on us. We pull on each other.
Simply by being here, I have an effect on you. I attract you, and you attract me. The connection is both inside and outside us.
Using that analogy, God is among us, within us, beyond us. God exists in our relationships with each other, with other life forms, with our environment. Even if we ignore it.
As a web of relationships, God influences everything but causes nothing. That kind of God has no power to intervene in natural events. But that kind of God can certainly influence how we respond to those events.
But gravity is not a perfect analogy. God is more than gravity.
Gravity acts most strongly between objects that are physically close to each other. Also, the more massive the object, the greater the gravitational attraction.
The parallel does not apply to relationships. Relationships do not necessarily decline with distance. Or with time. I can feel ties to someone on the far side of the world. I can feel intimacy with someone who died half a lifetime ago. I can be moved more by a helpless infant than by an arrogant politician or a bulldozing corporation.
I am immersed in relationships – and yet often I am as unaware of them as a fish is of water. They affect me; I affect them. We – all of us – swim in a sea of relationships.
In that sea, I find what I call God.
That doesn’t define God. But it helps me see that there can be a God who is not the old-man-in-a-robe.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
My column last week, as I attempted to define a God I could believe in, prompted Boyd Wilson to send along his own essay on the same theme. We’re more or less on the same chapter, I think, except that Boyd brought included Jesus in his faith statement. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention Jesus, in ether last week’s or this week’s column, because that would have turned the columns into either a defence or an attack on Christianity.
For the record, I don’t have any difficulties with Jesus.
Besides, I don’t see any necessity to include Jesus in a discussion about God. The Lord’s Prayer didn’t. Paul rarely mentioned Jesus in his letters – you won’t find him, for example, in 1 Corinthians 13. The Psalms don’t name him at all, except possibly by implication.
Ray Shaver wrote, “Thanks for the excellent beginning of a very difficult subject. You are indeed brace to begin to handle it. So far my thoughts on the subject are on the same page as your every word. I can hardly wait for your follow up article next week.”
Similarly, James Russell wrote, “Can’t wait for God II.”
David Rattray also said he “can’t wait…” But he was curious. The last line of last week’s psalm paraphrase said, “I rest my case. I am satisfied that you will be fair.”
David asked, “Who, what, whatever is 'you'?”
I blamed the “you” on our human inability to create dialog without using personal pronouns, even if they don’t address anyone in particular. Any better ideas?
Wayne Irwin commented, “As the mythologist Joseph Campbell observed: Some of us are theists and some of us are atheists. One is not better than the other. Each simply utilizes a different metaphor for contemplating the mystery that is beyond the reach of human conceptualization.”
Laurna Tallman had some longer thoughts: “Images in art are deceptive and misleading, which is why the Israelites banned images of God, even after they had developed writing. I imagine there was something psychologically fitting about leaving out the vowels in all of their writing, not just the letters for the name of God, as those are the sounds of music and praise.”
Laurna offered some anecdotes about feeling a presence through music and speech. Then she challenged my comment: "The good will receive their reward, the bad will receive their punishment. Except that it doesn’t seem to happen. Not in this life, anyway."
That is not a true statement. The good sometimes receive their reward and the bad sometimes receive their punishment. The tremendous effort recorded in both Old and New Testaments is to find the principles that would make those cause and effect relationships more consistently obtainable…
“And why couldn't God BE the Big Bang?”
She ended, “It helps me to exercise a few neurons on a morning like this. Thank you!”
Steve Roney questioned the same statement as Laurna: “You seem to be arbitrarily ruling out the possibility of an afterlife; yet this is exactly what Christianity posits. It is the point at issue; you have not addressed it, but simply assumed it is not so.”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
The lectionary calls for Psalm 105 for this coming Sunday, but I paraphrased it two weeks ago. So I’m going with the alternate reading, Psalm 85:8-13.
8 In the depths of the storm, I doubted you.
I doubted me.
I doubted everything.
I despaired.
I thought I would die.
9 But you saved me, in spite of my stupidity.
10 The storm is over now.
11 Clear skies stretch ahead of me;
warm winds press me on, like a helping hand in the small of my back.
12 Indeed, you are good to me.
One day like this makes my misery tolerable.
13 Thank you, God.
I am no longer at the mercy of the elements.
I can set a safe course to my destination,
following your directions.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
· Ralph Milton’s most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
· Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
· Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
· Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
· Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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