Oft' times I've wondered, especially when younger, if it could be true that justice might finally prevail. That the good would live and prosper and the bad would be justly punished and suffer the consequences of the actions they brought upon themselves. I would imagine that by some good and deep force the people who trafficked children into slavery and abuse might somehow die in the night and be gone from this Earth. That the suicide-bombers who strapped explosives on their bodies so that innocents are torn to shreds might sleepwalk out to the desert and blow themselves up, alone. That the rapers of men and women might just cease to be able to breathe in the act of their atrocity and be gone forever. That the drug dealers who poison the unknowing might somehow find the needle in their own arm being plunged by some mysterious force. Oft' times I've wondered if this might be able to occur and provide some solace to the world and bring a little ease of suffering. Might all the terrorist with guns clutched to their breasts before the morning raid on the school bus just have their hearts stop beating for 10 minutes and spare all the families of the children passengers their great grief the next day. Oft' times I've wondered how much a better God I would be than the one of my childhood catechism instruction, if I were given the power of the supposed God for just one day. Oft' times I've wondered. Thus began the rebuilding of my God.
What tools do we use to examine the God we seek? Where do we start? Each of us has the responsibility to rebuild that God and use all available resources. To the artist I suppose the resources might be color, or words, or notes, and combinations of these. To the gardener it might be the act of growing and discovering the wonder of the life being altered by the actions of the planting and harvesting. To the mathematician it may be the discovery of the sequences in the order of prime numbers and the placement, or lack thereof, in the intervals between the primes. To the physicist, like me, it might be the realization that the universe has laws that seem to fit together very nicely. Not only that, but when they fit together they create other structures that allow for a deeper understanding of how things work. Not in a simple way, but in a way that allows the universe to help define itself.
I think that each one of us has points of opportunity in which we are able to recognize insights into how the universe works. No matter what your approach, the road upon which we all seem to travel is one in which we expose and reveal the ever deepening layers of wonder inherent in this magical place. So it almost does not seem to matter what toolbox you pick up. It can be genetics, it can be English, it can be mountain climbing, and it can be cooking. The variety and innate complexity is always available to seek your personal God.
Now is the time where we accept and receive resources that support the work of the Fellowship. Please pay attention to the music. I believe it asks a special question for each of us who may be seeking, and building a God.
Does God think? Does this eternal being wake in the morning and say, "Another day, another dollar"? Is there a thought process that takes place? If there is, what does that mean? Does it mean that God could change the world with a new idea? "Hey, everybody should have a cool drink of water today. Yeah, that's what I want." Or does it mean, "Well there are 26,245 babies today that need milk and all they have are mothers who are starving. So the mother's breasts are dry. Should I feed the mothers well enough so they can make milk to stop their babies from screaming from hunger, or should I let the babies just die, then I would not have to think about the babies or the mothers. And what about the 21,263 woman and girls who will give birth today in those poor, poor countries? What should I do about them? Should I take care of them? Maybe I should have stopped the men from taking the girls and women in the first place and taken control of this thing from the very start? Or maybe I should take a vacation. Pluto sounds good."
I thought a lot about the babies. It seemed to me that if there was a god that could think and control things that the babies should be a big concern and at the top of the list. Personally, I had always been exposed to the wonders of this life. I had never been even partially hungry. Never been thirsty, or too hot or too cold. Yet babies, who had never had the opportunity to offend, had to suffer the pains of devastating hunger, arid thirst, and sores that cannot and will not be healed or fixed. In my mind there was no way a thinking god could justify bringing these beings into existence and letting that happen.
One of two things had to be true. There was no justice, or there was no thinking god. I had been very observant about things. I trusted my senses to a very high degree. I noted that when things fell to the ground, unless there was provision for a soft landing, there was a hard landing. Every time. Every time. It did not matter what was falling. It did not matter how much the falling object was valued or cared for. If the provisions for a soft landing were in place, a soft landing occurred. If not, the landing was harsh. Every time. Every time.
To me, this implied a sense of inherent justice. Not in the sense that someone cared and then it happened, but in the sense that nature took its course, independently of what was thought by anyone. Also, it implied that there was no malice in the process that influenced the outcome. What happened, happened because of the way things were or because of how they were set up to be. These things killed for me the possibility of a thinking god. Therefore any god that might exist had to be subject to the laws of physics or be a thinking god. That is a God that could decide what would happen, and that would mean there was no justice.
The no justice part I could not give up, so I had to accept the no thinking God. So, let us look into who this god is anyway?
Think about the first time you formed an image of God.
Was it from your Mother or Father, a priest or minister, an aunt or uncle?
How did it fit into your life?
Were you happy with what you believed?
When did your God first change significantly?
When you fell in love?
When you did something really bad?
When someone you loved hurt you?
When someone you loved died?
Did you ever reject the image that was built all together?
Did you ever have trouble with the God you hoped for and the god who you knew?
Think about your God now, even if it is nothing.
So where do we go from here? There are several choices. We can ignore what has been said here and go with the traditional choices. The Father God. Standard model: All Powerful. Is everywhere at all times, can see all that you do. Loves you beyond you wildest imaginings. Cares for all you do at all times, unless you were bad and then you need to ask for forgiveness. I think most are familiar with this model. But there are other models. The Greek models are nice. Look pretty good, many to choose from for different occasions. Switching to Roman gods is certainly an option. But there are more. The pagan gods are less well defined and more natural, plus dancing is permitted and the laws of nature are well respected and are generally followed. American Indian gods are attractive with the animal gods and spirits that capture every mode and accent of creation of the modern beasts so well. They do not do so well with the prehistoric beasts though. Then there are the eastern religions with their gods that let us all become closer and closer to the beings that we aspire to be, and do it over and over until we get it right. Hawaiian and Alaskan, Polynesian, Aboriginal, Celtic, Indian, Muslim, Jewish, the list goes on and on and on and on. No lack of gods to pick from. And many so well defined.
Several years ago I talked, here, about the origins of consciousness and put forth that the need for religion may have resulted from the sudden emergence of the human ability to project events that will occur. In particular, emerging humans were able in a very short period of time to predict their own demise. However, they were completely biologically unprepared to deal with the fact that they had just realized that they were going to die.
This may have led to a crisis in our increasing ability to make decisions that control our environment and consequently compensation mechanisms were required to handle this new ability. Therefore, religion and the corresponding ability of the human race to allow for the continuance of their personal existence were instituted. This is nice and explains some things, but it does not address the current topic, which is "What kind of God makes sense for the human race?"
My son and I have discussed this topic on occasion, and he argues that God does not have to make sense. The concept of God addresses one aspect of human behavior and the concept of sense being made addresses the scientific aspect of human behavior. They may and can be addressed independently because one concept involves a faith and the other involves facts.
Lo and behold, I beg to differ. Although an argument can be made for my son's position, I choose to have enough faith in matter and the universe to allow fact and reality to incorporate enough intrinsic complexity to warrant an expression of faith in the existence of fact and faith in one entity. In addition, according to a recent understanding of Chaos Theory, their evolution and the methods involved in their evolution create a mystery that is infinite enough to allow the generation of sufficient complexity so that uncertain futures with infinite possibilities arise. For me, this allowed the spirit back into science and the laws of physics.
So, what does this mean? It means, to me, that Rene Descartes was wrong. The spirit and science of nature cannot be separated into the physical and the holy. They are intrinsically fused into the same nature, and cannot be reduced or simplified. The implications of this are enormous. It means that equations, regardless of their complexity, are not the limiting boundaries for the descriptions of the actions of nature. They are just approximate descriptions of one facet of the observation we are making. The actions of objects and waves within nature are always infinitely more complex than we can describe, regardless of the complexity of the description.
So, is God subject to the laws of physics? I believe so. And what does that mean to you? I believe that it means that the only thing that you can say about God is that the entity God is. And, that anything you say after that is not about God but about your journey in finding your God—Whether you may have found God in the equations of physics, in the plants growing in your garden, in the chemistry that makes up the genetic codes of life, in the love that you have discovered in your partner and children, in the great historic scriptures written long ago, or simply in the deep appreciation of everyday events as simple as the rain.
If you came here seeking a way, may a way be found. If you came here for the fellowship, may the fellowship offered here comfort you. If you came here to heal, may the salve offered here work to make you better. If you came here to find a religious home, may we be your family home. And if you came here seeking God; take your God home with you; that God is yours already.
Copyright © 2008 Rob Lieb. All Rights Reserved.