The Fascinated God

SUSAN, WOMAN OF FAITH

Susan may have come a long way by this time or she may be thoroughly confused.  She possibly began with a belief in a creator god who is in charge of everything that happens in the universe since its creation from nothing at the word of god; a god who manages the lives and experiences of each of its creatures, theoretically for their own good, but often in rather strange ways;  who can be petitioned to intervene or to change god's mind about things that are happening in our lives;  who showed care and concern by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus;  and who is now accessible in the sacraments of the church in a quasi-magic manner.

Now she is presented with a god who had nothing to do with the coming-into-being of the universe; has no control over its physical evolution; and should not be petitioned in prayer to change the physical circumstances of her life because there is nothing god can directly do about them.  Her understanding of Jesus as the physical presence of god will have to be radically altered from the relatively simple “union of two natures” to a complex theory of transignification based on reality as defined by the laws of quantum mechanics.  And nothing, absolutely nothing, can be empirically proven, but is all a matter of faith.  For this the believers do not apologize for they are still convinced with as much certitude that there is a god as that there is a universe matching the description that their brain develops.  They have experienced sensory information and developed an understanding of their environment that works for them.  Presumably, since our brains are all about the same, our perception of the universe is about the same, though as we know from the effects of illness or injury to the brain, this is not universally true.  It is also true that different cultures may inspire its members to experience things differently than those in another culture.  Still, there is much about the universe that we do not perceive that is nevertheless true and much about the universe that we think we perceive that is not true.  It is all based on what has impacted us and what we have absorbed from these encounters.  This is true whether we are talking of the universe or of god since I conjecture that there is some means whereby god can be perceived by our consciousness.  This point of contact is so subtle and so tenuous and so liable to be misinterpreted by the still-primitive equipment inside our heads that it is a far cry from the god we thought we knew was obviously the ground and reason for all other being and whose presence can be experienced in a blade of grass.  Though we might wish for the god we used to have, after further inquiry we discover that the god we are “left with” is far greater and far more valuable to us than the god we lost.  The former faith inevitably led us to the contradiction of a god who loves and yet is ultimately responsible for the evil that we also experience in our lives.  There is nothing negative about the god that this reinvestigation leads us to.  While this god may seem rather puny and relatively impotent compared with the god who can stop or start a volcano, it turns out that, as the faith really always said, this god is effective in the one way which we really need.  We do not need to be protected from life and from the universe but to fulfill our role in it to the maximum, both individually and collectively.  This is precisely what god is interested in helping us to do, for the more we become, the more we learn, and the more god learns as well, as the parameters of “being” are expanded.  True, many die with little chance to grow, and no human dies perfect, but these things are not god’s will.  While the best of all possible worlds would be one in which god took this role of guide and counselor as well as the role of controller, fashioning a universe that fitted our needs, and in which everyone could develop all their potential, this is not what we have and we must live with it.  Still, with a god who is a sojourner with us, we can enjoy the journey as best the circumstances allow.  Further, and this is particularly important for those of us who are not fortunate enough to live a life formerly called “blessed”, there is still the hope/knowledge that god is in sympathy with us and is still/always in love with us and will make it possible to live a life worth living when this sometimes miserable but always potentially wonderful one is over.  Then we will live an existence that god does indeed create in “heaven,” the “reign of god,” the “new creation.”