The God Disillusion

Yesterday was a very good day. My good friend Owen came down from Roanoke (or rather up) to spend time with me. Spending time – isn’t that such a fitting analogy? It is as if we’re on an income stream, and we are deciding second by second where the money is going. Some people waste money. Lots of people waste time. But deep thoughts aside for a second, Owen did indeed spend time with me. He invested time into me, and continues to do so. That is why I consider him a good friend. Well, one of many reasons.

Yesterday in small group, we had a very interesting discussion involving future events, what happens in the event of death, and other rather interesting specimens of discussion. I felt right at home at the small group bible study. If you recall, I used to feel rather out of place and alienated at bible studies. These dudes are really good guys. Especially Kevin, Seth, and Matt Light. In these men I saw a genuine interest in me and who I was as a person. And they were men. They are men that are open and vulnerable with each other. They share their imperfections and insecurities. But far from being a collective self-pity session, these men encourage each other, lift up one another’s spirits, and help set and reset each other to living a more Godly life.

I’ll touch on that for a second. What does it mean to be Godly? By definition, it means to be like God. Christians believe in one God. Triune yet one. Soul, mind, and body perhaps applied in extra-dimensional infiniteness, where it is hard to differentiate the parts. I am one person, but yet am body, and soul. Arguably more parts (soul and body + spirit, mind, etc.) Perhaps three. Whatever your theology, I am parts, but I am also one. God, in his infiniteness, exists in a form that is practically beyond me to fully understand. And here I take leave.

But God has attributes. How can something infinite be bound to possess a finite attribute? It is only when the attribute itself also becomes infinite. When God loves, he loves with an infinite love. When God hates, he does so with an infinite and righteous and (quite by definition) Godly hate. God is said to be slow to anger. Would it be logical to say that he is infinitely slow to anger? As in never having anger? No, but rather that WHEN God is slow to anger he does so with infinite slowness to anger.

Notice the “when God is.” In our limited reasoning, it might seem logical to say that if God ever hated, then his hating is a constant that persists all through time. In other words, that if God possesses infinite hatred, then the transfer from infinite to space-time as we know it renders this hatred as being readily expressed at all times. But, maybe it is more like this: a spectator gazing into a dazzling and expressive painting, feeling varying emotions when each color splashes on his senses. If the entirety of space-time where like a motionless painting to God, he could, quite apart from space-time, have varying emotional reactions and feelings toward the painting. But this continues to limit God, and confine him to our understanding. Here I withdraw.

I believe that God has made some of his attributes known to us. He is loving, and would logically want to do so. But wait, it is illogical for him to do so. If God is good and so rightly above us, he has every right to abandon us into the dust of the galaxy and leave us on our “merry” way. Here the deist has some sort of foothold. But the deist is not someone I want as my best friend, because he would follow the religion of abandonment. That doesn’t seem so nice to me. If humans by nature are bad, and I have good reason to believe that we are, then we need some means of help outside of ourselves to, at the very least, restore us to faithful and healthy relations with one another. Then, perhaps, we would be indebted to God, who was in the position to help us out. But the problem is that God would never logically help us out.

It is like giving the deeds to everything that you own in your last will, on your deathbed, without hope of reconciliation, to a former friend who betrayed you and turned his back on everything that you held dear about the relationship. Maybe that friend is doing just fine on his own. That is all and good. As humans, we are doing just fine on our own. But what of the injured relationship? In some fit of a last-ditched attempt to procure a compulsory bond between friends at the very end, I give my old friend everything that I had in life.

If the benefactor in the previous example is in the right, God is infinitely more. By definition, God is perfect, as the existence of imperfection proves that there is something out there that lives up to the standard. If not, the standard would not exist. But okay, let’s at least assume for a second God is perfect. In the previous example, the friend abandoned the benefactor. We have done more so to God, because we completely broke off contact. We booted ourselves from the garden. We chose to drive our cars and live in pretty houses and manage our own lives, apart from any connection to the source of life. Ironically, we are attached, even now, to incubators, to God’s lifeline, as God’s power resides in creation, in matter. The energy that sprung life into motion was God’s energy. Those who breathe threats against the “empty heavens” are using the air God created. We are using the very life source that we claim to control. We are mapping out our journey along on a single-rail system. We only cannot see the rail. Because we do not know what has been predetermined, it is as if (from our perspective) we are not predetermined at all, and choose our fates. Haha, silly humans.

But we have cut the phone cord. We are even now denying the existence of the spiritual realm. What was obvious to humans in the past is not so apparent now. Naturalism is the way to knowledge. Humanism is the way to morals and happiness. Deism is the way to justify the necessary and logical existence of God, and eastern mysticism is the attempt to explain the very prevalent spiritual realm and additionally turn a profit by making the human being the god of gods. Meanwhile, God is placed under every other conceivable priority in life – one’s job, one’s marriage, one’s church even. One’s emotional needs, one’s sexual needs, one’s physical needs. Too much need in a certain area of life implies an imbalance. Too much priority on a single thing in life is obsession. Strangely enough, when the priority is placed in the right place – on God, then things start to align a little and make more sense. I say this from personal experience. Life now has essential (not manufactured or contrived) meaning. Relationships are fulfilling, difficult, and get to the heart of things. Godliness is openness. Hiding is not from God. And hiding is exactly what humans are doing to God, their maker and lover, and very source of life.

So what is God to do with such a rebellious child? Vaporize him? That is clearly not the case, as our existence continues. Cast him away into the ruin of his own follies? That is a possibility, and one of the logical out-workings of Deism. That is also the rational route. But to standby, withhold destruction, in grace, but actually not standby, and actively pursue that which was lost, is unnatural. It is supernatural.

God goes a step further than the previous benefactor and gives us two things that are the most dear to him: his own life, and his own son. Okay, Jesus claimed to be God, so therefore God died for my sins. But the father is also God, and God gave his Son, Jesus, for me. Contradictory? Seemingly. But these attest to one of God’s most mind-squashing attributes – self-sacrificial love.

Without self-sacrificial love, the world would be a much darker place. To love someone else completely is to set their needs above your own. Without self-sacrificial love, perhaps our nation, perhaps the planet, perhaps human history would not exist. God has every right to wipe us out.

Yes God is triune in nature. That is another discussion. The Bible, along with the real world, is full of paradoxes. And reality is full of puzzle pieces that nearly fit but somehow never fully find their place. Science is full of theories and speculations, and the farther we delve into understanding our universe, the more baffled we are to wrap our brains around it. So, this seemingly contradicting out-of-the-box God seeks those, and is sought by those, who would be Godly. Like himself. Light seeks light. Good seeks good. A novel concept.

Pardon the sarcasm, if you please. So, does living Godly make someone a better person? Yes. Is that always in accordance with the human understanding of what “good” is? Probably not. What denotes living a Godly life? Being religious and uber-spiritual? Jesus railed predominantly against the religious authorities in place in his time. They sought to restrict people in their practice of worship and religious service. Jesus liberated, saying that those that had pure hearts were true worshippers indeed. The religious figures sought to condemn those who practiced especially apparent and blatant sins. Jesus told people to trust in him for the forgiveness of sins, and told them to “go and sin no more.” Having a pure heart and abstaining totally from sin are quite impossible from a human vantage point, so perhaps some divine intervention is in order?

Needing God’s help to live a Godly life, now that’s a new one. So, God is causing us NOT to sin? In a sense, controlling, restricting us? Yes, and we love it. If there is any restriction that comes from following moral guidelines, it is swallowed up in the freedom of being able now to live completely in love. One who drives the speed limit need never feel the nagging worry of being pulled over by the police officer. So are we puppets, hands and feet bound to move in accordance with the Great Puppeteer? It is unknown what method God uses to cause all things to occur in accordance with His sovereign Will. But it makes sense. When I look at history, (certainly predisposed now to view it from a Christian perspective), I see one common theme: futility. Kingdoms flourishing, and in the blink of an eye vanishing. Political machines, A-type personalities, Go-getters, all striving for their place in the books. Who cares? We care about the present, and how our mistakes will affect us, and how we can learn from history. But no-one sheds a tear for Napoleon anymore (as a person remembers a dead friend). Theodore Roosevelt, in his prime, moved some mountains. But how much eternal significance did his life carry?

Even from a naturalist perspective, this theme of futility carries through. But without the remedy offered by the Bible – that God somehow will make everything work out for good – the naturalist suffers. All of the good things the world has produced, what is the purpose? Continuing our mediocre and painful existence on the planet, and soon other worlds? Whoever says life is not pain has not lived. Whoever says do not cry has not seen a hospital bill that they cannot pay without selling their car. Whoever says love does not exist is not a dreamer. Whoever says that love is conditional has not experienced true love.

To live Godly is to live for a higher ideal. To live beyond oneself, attaining the unattainable, for the time being, but knowing that someday the goal will be at hand. To live Godly is to live connected. To live Godly is to love others. The greatest example of love is the infinite love shown in a finite window of time here on Earth through the life of Jesus. What greater love than a man to lay down his life for his friends? And what greater hate than to spurn the memory of someone who died in your stead? To believe that the need for light in your soul pales in comparison to the darkness spewed forth by the rest of the world?

Those who live Godly are perfecting themselves. They strive more and more each day to be like Jesus. That is what I am trying to do with my life. That is what more and more defines me as a person. I hope people will someday call me a Godly man. That is my heart’s desire.

My second is up. The pursuit of Godliness is not a vain thing, nor is it something to be taken lightly, as if it does not matter. A quote of a friend of mine has been going through my head all day – “one’s relationship with God is paramount.” I have failed miserably to convey my total thoughts. Good night.

Love is a clock

Here is a poem that I just wrote. It fails miserably to grasp the feelings that I am trying to convey. But such is the reality of articulating grand concepts. Notwithstanding;

For the time being
We clearly remain
Bones sing
Cymbals clang
And I will become
For what I was made
History repeats
Cycle pervades

Repeating for all
To see the set
The shrill design
In a night dim lit
Shadows from small flame
Sing about this game
History repeats
Knowledge deplete

Can you not see
Or rather feel
The stars at night
The maker's quill
Return at last
To the source of soul
The spiritual set
The cycle glow

Harmonious hum
Efficient machine
A key to a lock
Door shut for an age
For all that is naught
And not that is all
I'd rather give
Myself to the call

When we were made
In the eve of forethought
After infinite love
The world wrought
Can we achieve
Can we meet
History repeats
Eventually complete