Supposing that the-one-god does "exist," does he have a position on his existence? Is the fact of his existence important to him? Does he insist upon it?
What sort of a character is this? What would we think of him if—having deprived himself of the appearance of all divine qualities so that we thought him an ordinary man—he wanted to argue with us that, yes, in fact, he does exist, and that this is of utmost importance to him. What would we think of anyone who did this?
But if the-one-god doesn’t care if he "exists," why should anyone else give a shit? Isn’t the partisan who insists on the-one-god’s existence like a child who insists on the playground that he isn’t an orphan?
I’m having difficulty reconciling this post with your prior one. You seem to be arguing against both theism and atheism.
Would it help to redefine the One God as that which is so much larger than ourselves that it is beyond the human capacity to comprehend? This, I think, is a more accurate description of the Jewish and Muslim apprehension of the One God than the “Big Guy in the Sky” God, and it is consistent with James Carroll’s comments in your other post. (Carroll, BTW, is still a practicing Catholic as far as I know; he left the priesthood but not the church.)
Narrow, literalist Christians do (foolishly, IMHO) try to project their confining apprehensions and human definitions onto the ineffable One God. Atheists are right to reject this narrow caricature, but by the same token, Bishop Spong is wrong to define “theism” as a belief system that affirms only this narrow apprehension, and to declare all theism therefore invalid. The Jewish and Mulsim apprehensions of an indefinable God, like the apprehension of a good chunk of Christianity, fall outside the scope of the narrow “theism” that Spong rejects, but they are certainly well within the scope of “theism”, properly defined.
To answer your specific question, I don’t think the existence of “God” matters nearly as much to God as to us, and I don’t think the existence of God matters nearly as much to us as what we apprehend and/or define as God. Even the most hard-bitten anti-theistic logical positivists hold to a set of absolute propositions that, for them, serves the role of “God”. It’s merely a different apprehension of God than the Big Guy in the Sky whose existence they deny.
Exactly! We seemed to be trapped in the (mono)theistic paradigm: either you believe in the-one-god or you don’t. But those aren’t the only two options by any means. I think this is part of what Carroll’s column gets at.
Yes, I agree on the Carroll point. But I think the baggage that goes with the word “God™” will short circuit that effort. (Part of why I avoid capitalization.) (And I’ll make the change re: Carroll.)
But while the ineffability of the-one-god is a large part of Jewish and Muslim traditions, they can also make the-one-god quite effable. The Ninety-Nine Names and the many Yahwist and Deuteronomic narratives make the-one-god quite knowable.
As far as Spong goes, while there was a time in my life when I found his writings liberating, now I’m not nearly as impressed with him as he seems to be. This goes for his definition of theism too.
But I think it’s crucial to recognize that the ineffable god that Carroll talks about is a minority tradition, often limited to a tradition’s few mystics. While it may be a “theism,” it isn’t Theism™.
Which, to return to your first point, is why I say: neither a theist nor an atheist be.
Jason’s post on myth (particularly the Karen Armstrong quote on the “ontological gulf” and the false division between supernatural and natural) helps fill out my point some.
Have you seen the movie “what the *&!# do we know?” and if so, what did you think of it?
No, meant to see that one but mised it.
It’s on DVD now. I watched it last night. You can get it at Blockbuster. I thought it was beautiful and amazing and inspiring, but that was before I read some of the critism of the film that portrays it a new age cult propoganda piece: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html … which sucks. So, now I’m not sure what I think. I’d be curious to hear your reaction if you ever see it.
er, that anonymous comment was from me.