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15. Dealing with GOD
God is a perfectly good word, but a word that is often hijacked from its main purpose of pointing toward something that is quite mysterious.
When we use this word, we have to recognize that it is a human creation. Not necessarily what the word refers to, but the word itself. As with all language, the word “God” was developed by humans to communicate with each other. It was not developed by God for humans to use, but by humans to use to speak with one another. But this business of human communication is a very messy process. We often misunderstand each other when talking about the simplest things—thinking someone is saying one thing when they believe they are saying something entirely different. So with a topic as emotionally and psychically charged as talking about our religious and spiritual beliefs, it is no wonder that there is much miscommunication and much misunderstanding. This is perhaps more true with the word “God” than any other word.
If you ask people what they mean by “God,” you quickly discover that there are thousands, perhaps millions of different ways people understand this word, and that almost every person has a different set of images, thoughts, and feelings associated with it. And of course “God” is a word in only one language. Almost every language has a word, or several words, which have some relationship to this English word, such as Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, the Tao, Zeus, Great Spirit, Brahman, Prime Mover, Buddha Nature, and so forth. But do we really know what people who use these words mean when they use them? Would we not have to get inside their belief systems, really understand each one, before we could begin to understand what each person meant by the use of these words?
The fact that there are so many different meanings for the word does not prove one way or the other whether something exists to which the word refers. But it does strongly suggest that our human attempts to “capture,” to contain with our language whatever might stand behind the word can never be completely successful. A small child might cry “Mommy,” and that child will have a concept as to what they mean when they use the word “Mommy.” But the child’s image in no way captures all of the reality of the person to whom they are referring. The child is not mature enough or advanced enough to understand the complex set of characteristics, moods, desires, beliefs, character, and so forth that make up the whole person.
In just this way, whatever there might be that is larger than us, transcendent to our human experience, is not something that we are going to be able to completely understand, let alone nail down in a precise definition of a single word. This is not a problem, however, except insofar as we have the hubris, the arrogance to think that we have captured God in “our” word. Only then do we begin to get in trouble with ourselves—by limiting the possibility of a larger and more complete understanding of this word, and that to which it might refer, as our lives unfold.
And this arrogance is definitely one way we create enormous trouble with others. By insisting that only “our” concepts are right, we humans often create conflict, division, hatred, and even war with those who have a different concept from our own. For thousands of years, we have disagreed, argued, and fought over the nature and definition of this word “God.” So after all these centuries of attempting to persuade each other—and failing that, fighting with each other over our ever-changing definitions—what progress have we made? What has been gained by this conflict? Are we any closer to a general agreement on the meaning of this word than we have ever been? Have all these years of argument and strife led to clarity, or truth? Has it improved our lives in any way?
So Many Different Meanings
One of the reasons this problem is so intractable is that there are so many different meanings that people are intermixing when they use the word God with each other. A few of them:
God is the being who created the world and looks over it, knowing everything that happens in it, and sometimes directly intervening to affect what is happening.
God is Love. There is a force, a field, an energy at the heart of existence that is not random, nor evil, nor cynical, nor cruel—but which is “acting throughout the world by gentle persuasion toward love.”
God is an illusion, a creation of the human imagination, a delusionary attempt to escape from our fear of death.
God is the being who created the world—setting it in motion. Inherent in that creation were certain laws, immutable and unchangeable, which now govern it’s functioning. Having set the world on its course and having fixed these laws in place, however, God does not now intervene to change the functioning of these laws.
God is everything. There is nothing but God. Everything you see and touch and hear and smell and taste is God. Every creature and every particle is part of God.
God is the evolutionary impulse in all beings, which keeps manifesting on this earth as ever-greater complexity and ever-greater spiritual development.
God is the ultimate judge who has certain rules that we must live by. If we do not live by these rules, God will punish us, perhaps in this lifetime—but most certainly when this life is over.
God is the ultimate force or power, and this ultimate power gave our tribe, our nation, or our people its beliefs, its rights, and its land—and no one has a right to question what God bestowed upon us.
God is a being who came to earth to offer love and forgiveness to all of humankind.
God is a force or field that wants us to be fulfilled in this life, that wants us to have all the good things we desire. All that we have to do is ask—and have faith that we will get the things we want—and they will be given to us.
God is a presence that is in all beings. God is not out there, but in here (metaphorically, in the human heart.)
Looking at this list, and realizing that it could be much longer, is it any wonder that when we talk to each other about “God,” there is so much disagreement, anger, and frustration—and that disagreements about the meaning of this word have led to wars, ruptured churches, embattled communities—have caused splits, schisms, murders, broken families, and various other disastrous events. And these disagreements have been going on for thousands of years—not just between different religions, but also between groups within each religious tradition. For instance, the various sects and denominations within each religion have different understandings about this word—that’s one of the main reasons different sects and denominations exist.
It is also fascinating to realize that within the different sects and denominations around the world, the way people understand and use this word is often quite different from the way it was understood a 100 years ago, or 500 years ago—within the same denominations. (Many scholars have explored this, such as Karen Armstrong in A History of God, Jack Miles in God: A Biography, and Jaroslav Pelikan in Jesus Through the Centuries.) And these differences of definition extend right down to the present. Simply go into any church or synagogue or ashram or temple or mosque today and ask five people for their images and understandings about God. Talk to each person for a while—away from their friends and religious leaders—and you will most likely get five very different images and descriptions.
Bringing the point down to your own experience, consider whether you have the same understanding today as to what the word God means as you did when you were five years old, or twelve, or seventeen, or twenty-five, or fifty, or . . . But if your understanding has changed, might it not change again? When will you stop learning and growing in understanding, especially in relation to this most important topic? Do you really believe that there comes a moment when you have it exactly right, that you have completely captured God, or God’s non-existence, with your understanding?
You might at times have moments of strong faith, but do you not also have moments of doubt concerning your understandings? Many highly esteemed saints and sages of every spiritual tradition report that, during the course of their lives, they have had periods of great doubt, as well as having experienced dramatic changes in the nature of their understanding of God. Or you might be a skeptic, but do you not have moments of doubt as to whether your skepticism is really the truth—moments when you wonder whether there just might be something beyond what you think you know?
Or consider even whether you have exactly the same understanding of who or what God might be from day to day or week to week. Are your views so fixed and rigid that they do not vary with different moods and varying mind states? Such variance has certainly been true for many of the wisest of us through the ages. Examining it closely, is your view of God exactly the same when you are mad, as it is when you look up at a vast star-filled sky on a glorious night? Do you think about God in exactly the same way when reading a scientific treatise as you do during those more mysterious moments—such as experiencing the birth of a child, or feeling tenderness toward someone you love? Is your idea of God the same when you are feeling guilty about something, versus when you are walking peacefully in nature? Is your view of God the same when you have lost a loved one, versus when someone you care about has been cured from a disease or saved from injury?
The crucial point here is that different people, different groups at different points in their history, the same person at different times in their lives, and even each person in different mood states has different views about the meaning of the word God. And this is natural and normal. It does raise the question as to which understanding or definition is “right,” but this is not a problem as long we can hold our views with humility and wonder, and continue to open to an ever greater understanding of what the truth might be as we grow in wisdom and stature throughout our lives. Problems arise primarily when someone decides that he or she has “the truth,” and that all those who see things differently are “wrong.”
As a mental exercise, imagine for a moment two different people: 1) a person who has strong faith in God, and spends a significant amount of time in prayer and meditation each day, yet who is humble, accepting of the views of others, tolerant of differences of opinion, and generous and loving toward those with different views and opinions, versus 2) someone who is a “believer” within the same faith system, but who is arrogant and narcissistic, believes that he or she has “the truth,” thinks everyone else is flat wrong, and spends a great deal of time telling others what they should believe. Which person seems wiser, or more spiritual—closer to God?
Or consider these two examples: 1) a person who has wrestled with questions of faith and belief, and has come at this moment in life to a place where there is nothing he or she can affirm with any conviction, but who realizes that this can change, and is therefore respectful of those who have strongly held beliefs—and who also remains open to the possibility of new understandings and beliefs, versus 2) someone who asserts that there is no basis for belief in anything transcendent to the material realm—rigidly holding that this is the only possibility—and proclaiming (or at least implying) that anyone with any other view is “deluded” or “ignorant” or “stupid.” Which seems the wiser of these two persons?
At this point, it might be well to note that all of these definitions about God have to do with our human perspective—that they all have to do with how this word relates to us. This leads to the thought that all of these definitions are human creations—projections of our hopes, our fears, our longings, our needs. This does not necessarily mean that what lies behind these definitions is a human creation, but that our thoughts about this “Transcendent Other” are human creations. Not being able to make “God” fit into our minds, we start using the word God to rationalize or justify our wants and ambitions and desires. We start using the word “God” to serve our very human purposes. We mold God in our image, rather than trying to mold ourselves to understand whatever is larger or greater than our human minds can grasp.
Capturing God in Our Concepts
Of course, these problems with the word God have not stopped countless individuals and groups throughout human history from asserting that they have the one "right" understanding, the one right definition of God. But consider again, have all these assertions brought us any closer to agreement about, or to an understanding of this word? I think it is safe to answer this question with an emphatic NO—the disagreements today are just as intense, just as angry, just as difficult as they have ever been. In fact, in modern times the arguments have become even more complex and intense with those who believe that there is no such thing as God joining the fray.
If we really take in the results of all these years of quarreling and strife, if we look clear-eyed at the bitter consequences of thousands of years of disagreement, what lessons might be learned?
For those who are “believers”
For those in the camp who believe that there is a Transcendent Dimension, it would be valuable to consider the incredible hubris involved in thinking that any human conception, any human image can capture the Transcendent in words. If God is not a creation of the human imagination, then can’t God act, or not act, in any way God wants—without first checking in with our human belief systems, without checking to see what we think is “appropriate” for God to do or not do? If you think you have captured God in your beliefs, aren’t you trying to limit and control God?
To assert that your beliefs about God are “right” is to say that a particular human concept is right. It is not an assertion about God, but about your idea—and the words with which you choose to convey that idea. It is an assertion about yourself—not about God—for your idea is not God, nor can God be limited or controlled by your idea. If we are deeply honest with ourselves, will we not recognize that most of our assertions about God are attempts to convince others that God believes as we do, rather than doing the much harder work of trying to “know,” with humility in our hearts, whatever there is that is beyond our human conceptions?
In fact, a good argument could be made that putting one’s limited “concept” in place of God is idolatry—for it is making an idol of the human mind’s creation, and putting it on the throne in place of God. Is this why humility is such an important teaching in so many traditions, and perhaps why Paul counseled in his letter to the Corinthians (II 3:6) that in understanding the new teachings, his listeners were to be concerned “not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life?” The necessity for humility in dealing with our concepts in relation to the Transcendent was certainly what W. MacNeile Dixon had in mind when he said: “The theologians of all ages and races have formed an image of God after their own fancies, and nothing could be more improbable than that He represents in the least particular their conception.”
That our human concepts do not capture whatever the Transcendent might be in no way suggests that there is not some force, or power, or being, or energy, or field, or presence that might exist beyond our concepts—and to which they refer. It suggests only that when we form our concepts, we do so with our human minds, and whatever might lie beyond our concepts is not captured or contained by them, cannot be pinned down by them, can never limit that to which they refer—just as the five-year-old child’s conception of “Momma” cannot limit or contain the full reality of the mother.
For those who are skeptics
For those in the camp who doubt the existence of anything transcendent, it would be valuable to recognize that just because we cannot pin down or agree on a definition of God, that in no way suggests that something Transcendent does not exist—any more than an inability to pin down a definition of Love, or Honor, or Justice, or Truth suggests that those things do not exist.
Nor does the fact that there is no definitive proof of the existence of the Transcendent prove anything. Most of the things upon which our lives are based are constructed on the scaffolding of ideas and constructs for which there is no proof. Is there any “proof” that you are not imagining many of the things you think you see? Is there any proof that you are not dreaming right now? Is there any proof that you are not insane? Is there any proof that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that actions will have consequences? We constantly act, live our lives, within working models of reality about which we have no final “proof.” This is certainly true of science, which is based upon theories about reality—theories which have changed radically throughout the centuries, and which keep changing. Just because there is no “proof” that the world started with a big bang, or that the speed of light has always been constant, or that gravity acts on all objects universally, does not mean that these ideas are not true.
The above are of course some of the most crucial assumptions of science—theories that form a working model from which we proceed to answer many other questions. But they are only theories, of which there is no final proof. Very useful theories, and ones that have a certain amount of evidence to support them—but no absolute and final proof. Which leads us to the radical difference between proof and evidence.
“Evidence” is a fact or a report or an experience that supports a point of view or theory. “Proof” is a body of evidence that irrefutably demonstrates the certainty of a point of view or theory. There is a great deal of evidence to support the above scientific theories. And there is a great deal of evidence to support the existence of something Transcendent to our everyday lives and experience. Throughout human history, in every culture and every age, millions of people have reported an experience of this Transcendent Domain. Often the best and brightest—the exemplars considered by their fellow beings the wisest and most advanced—have reported such experiences. To name only a few: Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed, Plato, Theresa of Avila, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Shankara—and of course many, many more. This is not proof of its existence—but it is evidence. Just as with the theories of science.
On the other hand, there is not one piece of evidence anywhere that the Transcendent does not exist. And there is certainly no proof. Many have claimed evidence that “seems” to show that the Transcendent Dimension does not exist. But what people mistake for “evidence” are occasions when someone sees that a particular belief by a person or a group about the Transcendent does not seem to be true. This of course has occurred many times. Many human beliefs about the Transcendent are not true, for all the reasons discussed above.
But human beliefs about the Transcendent are not the thing itself, so disproving one particular human belief in no way provides any evidence one way or the other about the existence or non-existence of the Transcendent itself. One theory about the nature of black holes might be proved wrong, but that does not mean that black holes do not exist—only that one particular theory about them is wrong.
In just this way, when a belief of one person or one group about the Transcendent proves untrue (for instance, the widely-held belief in the late 10th century that God would end the universe in the year 1000 A. D.), this has nothing at all to say about any other belief. A parallel example might be if someone claimed that science was not true on the basis of a demonstration that one scientist’s theorem was untrue. Disproving one person’s idea about science does not have anything to say about science itself. And it certainly does not have anything to say about the truth or falsehood of all other scientists, or their beliefs.
The Wisdom of Humility
So after thousands of years of conflict over “God,” and recognizing all the harm this has caused, might we not begin to approach this subject with a little more humility? Might not an attitude of respect for the beliefs and concepts of others have a greater chance of bringing us closer to wisdom and truth?
This is not to argue that we should not discus our beliefs with each other. Such discussion, carried on with an open heart and an open mind, might well lead to greater understanding and deeper wisdom. Nor is this to argue that those who feel they have developed wisdom and understanding about these important questions should not share what they have learned with others. But it is to argue that, especially with respect to this word “God,” the lessons of both history and logic—as well as the values of the heart—would suggest that we approach such discussion with humility rather than arrogance.
This is also not to argue that it is wrong to take a stand against a particular interpretation of God, or some group’s view of what is “right,” if in your view it is impinging negatively on your life, or the lives of those around you. Often human interpretations and concepts imposed on others can cause harm—so if such impositions start affecting you, you have every right to defend yourself, and to assert your beliefs and your point of view as your right. For example, when slave owners argued that God gave them the right to have slaves, it was completely valid to argue that this very human assertion was not valid and did not come from God. But this is an attack on a human idea about God, and really has nothing to do with God or the Transcendent Dimension.
And so it is with most of the things we have argued about through the centuries—we have been arguing about our very human concepts. If you believe that there is a Transcendent Dimension of some kind, you have every right to this belief, and no one can prove you wrong. But if you start to assert that others adopt your view, you have to formulate a human concept with which to convey what you believe. And this concept you have formulated is not the thing itself. Aren't all descriptions of the Divine human creations? So if you believe in your formulation, what you believe in is your human concept. And your assertions about it are about your human concept.
If you are skeptical about the existence of a Transcendent Dimension, you have every right to hold this view, and no one can prove you wrong. But you also have formulated a human concept in which you believe. And since there is no evidence that the Transcendent Dimension does not exist, believing in your concept is an act of faith. It might be right, but you cannot prove it to be right—so to “believe” it is an act of faith. Are not then, other, but different, acts of faith equally valid?
And whatever your current act of faith, whatever your current belief, isn’t it possible that some new experience or insight or interaction will lead to a change in your view? Why then is it important that others adopt your beliefs? Sharing what you have learned with a generosity of heart might bring value to another, but arguing or demanding or judging others will probably only lead to more of the distructive conflict we humans have so often brought to each other. Can we therefore learn to approach our beliefs with a clearer understanding of what they are—our human concepts—and therefore learn to hold them with a bit more humility? Would it not show more respect for the truth, as well as for whatever the Transcendent—if it does exist—might be, to approach our discussions about such important things with humility, with an open mind, and especially with an open heart?
Quote for Reflection
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong… my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side. ... - Abraham Lincoln
Knowing Beyond Words, John McQuiston II, page 1
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