Part 3 of many.
I suppose I've never really believed... no, scratch that, I've been moving away in the past 15 years from the idea of God as a superhuman being. And toward the idea of God as fundamentally other.
"Well, John, nobody really believes God is just a omnipotent, invisible dude. Of course God is other. He's God!"
Okay. Then what IS God? I mean, if not a personality-laden being with chemical processes interacting synergetically with conscious thought, then what? (And you can drop the "He" from God anytime you like. You yourself don't even believe God is male. So lose the self-deception already.)
I land, straight from that unsolvable question, into Taoism, where the unsolvable nature of the Tao is a given. And I feel at home. From the Tao Te Ching:
"The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done."
"Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready."
And then, from Hua Hu Ching, ostensibly Lao Tzu's other book:
"How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way."
Back to the Tao Te Ching, for the kicker:
"The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want."
I sense the objections coming.
"You've been watching too much Star Wars, John. A Force-like being doesn't care for us, doesn't become incarnate, doesn't even create the world! You're not a heathen... you're a pagan!"
Calm down. I'm a Christian. Jesus is a mysterious guy whose history is grossly incomplete, but I strive to follow what he said, as best as I can tell that he actually said it. You forget that the Gospels are more like a "Greatest Hits of Christ" performed by a cover band, rather than a live recording of J. C. and the Disciples.
And in case you haven't read the Old Testament, there are some timeless stories that illustrate the nature of a very complex and unpredictable God, and some downright wisdom in places. (Not in Leviticus, that's pretty much man-made legalistic drivel.)
Anyway, it is hard to find better scripture than in the Bible. The God laid out in those 66 books is caring, just, loving, involved, and a little tricky. It's a revolutionary concept if you pause to contemplate it.
But if you mean that I eschew the Bible as a complete revelation of God, yes, I'm a frickin' pagan. And there's only so much description of God as "He" that I can take. And of God as Weathermaster Extraordinaire. And as Selective Healer of Cancers. And as Do-Not-Collect-Heaven-Do-Not-Pass-Go-Proceed-Directly-To-Hell Guy.
Once those ideas of God are out the window, and they do tend to happen in that order, I'm left with a stranger, weirder God than I can ever find discussed in mainstream or evangelical churches.
Fortunately, the Tao is there to catch me. Or I fall into it, and it catches me by not catching me.
While I make no claims to be a Christian, and I am not sure much of the time if I still believe in God I do preserve me own definition of God, if only to be able to say to my conservative parents that I do still believe. My definition is that for me God is whatever interconnects everything in the Universe. You may see this as God, as compassion, as the Tao, as sincronicity or merely physics.
ReplyDeleteI like where you are going with this and for me this piece is evidence of deep soul searching and a challenging personal journey not watching too much Star Wars. :)
Thanks. At times I feel like I've got to be the most arrogant human to walk the earth, if I think I have a right to define God. So I find great solace in defining God by not strictly defining God.
ReplyDeleteMy evangelical friends will no doubt tell me anyway that I'm kind of crazy to try and define God on my terms; I mean, shoot, that's what the revelation contained within Bible is for, right? They are often unable to accept the idea that maybe the Bible is exactly that - people's efforts to define and draw near to God. (Not that I'm putting my half-baked ideas alongside Paul's fully baked ones.)
Toaism is an interesting philosophy, but intensely conservative. It presumes value in the present, in symbiosis, in nature, in the preservation of that which "works" in the present. Toaism is highly individualistic, and presumes that internal welfare is sufficient to address social welfare. Extravagant efforts to help the poor, to feed the hungry, to cure cancer...these are offenses to the Tao. Taoists should grow vegetables, move seamlessly with the seasons and the environment, and oppose strong government, taxation, etc.
ReplyDeletePlayfully prodding you...this doesn't seem consistent with the rest of your blog.
Especially the Mariner posts. :)