What Good Is God?

Another good “Stone” column in the NY Times: a discussion between Gary Gutting, moderator of the series on philosophy, and Keith DeRose, professor of philosophy at Yale.¹ The discussion centers on the possibilities of “proving” that God does or does not exist and how that influences the positions we might take as believer, atheist, or agnostic. Indirectly, it seems to me the discussion deals with the issue of what good God is to us now. 

At times I like to imagine what going to church might have meant to a medieval peasant—it must have been a sensory feast! There may well have been beautiful music and incense, as well as the bread, the building itself and the decorations within it, the magic of the foreign language, the stories: what a pleasurable experience it must have been for people who had little else of sensory pleasure in their lives! The priests also would confirm that the world was ordered by a great being who would ultimately take care of us. It was another version of the feudal world in which most people lived—the lord of the manor or the leader of a religious organization giving purpose and structure to the lives of the many.

But it's also important to think about what God does for us today. After I read the Stone column I made two lists: one of positive things God does for us, and one of negative things God does for us. Before I go on, I need to say that I think God is entirely an abstract concept. As they say, the age of miracles is past. Certainly some people think they have physical experiences as a result of God's intervention into their lives, but the interpretation of these experiences is purely mental—a matter of belief and faith. Another person of another faith or of no faith could easily interpret such experiences quite differently. So, I see God as purely a concept, but the churches that celebrate God are of course quite real and tangible. It's the actual celebration of God in a physical church, with all the sensory beauty available there, that is the metaphorical experience of God. Let me widen my question, then--what good to us is God and church today?

In a parochial sense, God and church still seem to offer a lot. Yes, there is that beauty, and there is the consolation of tradition that the repetition in liturgy brings, and the greater ease that assurance from a religious figure brings to a person's life. For many, the church educates their children, marries them when they are mature, and buries them when they die. A church marks the importance of an individual life. A secular world doesn't offer us so much in the way of ritual to console us or help us celebrate at the significant moments in our lives. And for people who don't have the time or desire or ability to think for themselves, the church offers cradle to grave guidance, which many people appreciate. It offers a philosophy that helps individuals to deal with (or ignore) large philosophical questions. I don't see any reason why churches and the varieties of gods they espouse cannot continue at the parochial level to help people in their communities, even in our multicultural age.

On a wider, more philosophical level, I think a concept of a deity is necessary. Anselm's definition of God as “that, than which nothing greater can be conceived” seems to me to offer great value and meaning, philosophically. We humans are thinkers and wonderers; it is inevitable that we would want a high water mark, so to speak, to define for us what is best or most good. Many of us want such a figure to help us move closer toward that goodness in ourselves or in our communities. But in our increasingly multicultural era, we cannot ignore that people around the world have developed many different versions of this moral high water mark—and that those versions work for them, just as our version works for us. It seems clear to me, given the world knowledge we have now, that religion can be successful on a parochial level but no particular religion can be successful on a universal level. 

A Jesuit priest of the last century, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, struggled with this question for much of his life. (I am going to write more on his thoughts and writings in a later post.) Obviously, if a religion is going to be lasting, it has to aspire towards universality. Teilhard believed that all humans were in the process of evolving toward a unity of spiritual consciousness that he called the “omega point.” In a sense, he foresaw a spiritual version of the internet. But even he felt the need to root this universal consciousness in a particular religion—in Jesus Christ himself, in fact. In the end, what Teilhard saw was a unification of people in love for and aspiration toward Christ—in the end, not a universal vision.²

 

What do we see of religion today on a global (as opposed to parochial) scale? Here's where we run into problems. If particular religions are to maintain their identities, then they have to distinguish themselves from other religions via doctrine and liturgy—via their own sense of God. The result is that we suffer greatly from sectarianism on a global scale. Islamic militants are perhaps the most obvious and appalling version of sectarian religion right now, but even the very admirable Pope Francis has to insist that gays and women have no place in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. No one religion can embrace or speak for all people precisely because religion is necessarily sectarian.

I find it helpful to think of spirituality as a stream of water running through time and place and the different religious sects as cups that are dipped into the water and presented to the people. Some religions, such as the Society of Friends (Quakers) are very simple and try to offer the water (the spirit) to people with very little mediation--in a simple clear cup, so to speak. Other religions, like the Roman Catholic Church, scoop up the water in cups made of precious metals encrusted with many jewels—cups that are kept under lock and key when not in use because they are so precious and must be protected from the masses. To my mind, a lot of spirituality is lost in that effort because all we can see is the surface, the doctrine and the liturgy; the water inside, the spirituality, is virtually lost. (I am employing a metaphor here, of course.)

Globally, it often seems as if each religion is insisting “Our cup is the one true cup!” with the result that what we share in common (the water, the spirituality) is practically forgotten. Religion on a global scale thus often perpetuates hatred, violence, war, a divisive mentality in general—us vs. them thinking that simply cannot result in a conscious or spiritual unity of people. Science can unite people, because we are all creatures of this earth and this universe, and that is what science studies. Religion can not unite us, because it arises from and reflects deep cultural differences. Even more now than earlier in human history, religion is necessarily divisive. Many medieval European peasants didn't know there was more than one God or one religion in human cultures, other than the religion Christianity developed from; they probably knew little of the world beyond their own parish. They knew there was “one true faith” and had little reason to doubt it, because their knowledge of the world was so limited.

Now we have a vast knowledge of the world and the many religions that have developed within it. The use of God and religion to people has changed as a result, necessarily. Islamic terrorists can have and have had a great impact on us, even though their lands of cultural origin and their religion are so different from ours. We have to pay attention to them, even if only defensively. The emerging great populations of the world, in India and China, have very different religious beliefs (or nonbeliefs) from us, but they will greatly affect the economy of the world that we live in. We have to pay attention to them and respect them as they are. God and religion are still important to individuals and communities, sometimes even to nations that know little of multiculturalism. But God and religion cannot be deciding factors globally—except to the extent that we accept the God and religions (or the lack thereof) of other people to be as valid to them as ours is to us. As William Carlos Williams reminds us, we can come to know and sympathize with each other based on a respect for the importance of the local to all of us, even though the local is not the same for all of us.³ Our respect for the local wherever it may be found can become universal, but any particular manifestation of the local cannot become universal—that would simply be an imposition on others, not respect. (We tried that during the colonial period, and the result was great pain and suffering.)  The universal has to be an acceptance of and respect for the equal value of local customs and beliefs throughout the world.

Metaphorically, the abstract concept of God has to be rooted in the physical reality of a church—and as long as there is balance between the abstract and the concrete (or local), that experience is metaphorically healthy. But when any one church, any one physical reality attempts to claim a perfect understanding of the abstract concept of God, the healthy metaphorical balance is lost. Religion is necessarily parochial. Once we accept that, we can accept that there are many ways of understanding whatever God means to people, that there are many different kinds of cups being dipped into the stream of spirituality. Then we can live together and maybe make some progress toward unity.

1http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/why-take-a-stance-on-god/?emc=eta1

2Some will argue that the Roman Catholic (ie, universal) Church is essentially universal in its outlook, given that people around the world subscribe to its doctrines. But one need only think of all the Protestant sects that have broken from the Roman church, not to mention the orthodox and entirely non-Christian religions, in order to appreciate the impossibility of true universality. Even now, with Pope Francis working toward a more open and inviting church, many of the more conservative Catholics are concerned about the future of the church. Some are protesting that Francis does not mean what he says. If Francis persists, will the more conservative Catholics break away?

3 “If I succeed in keeping myself objective enough, sensual enough, I can produce the factors, the concretions of materials by which others shall understand and so be led to use—that they may the better see, touch, taste, enjoy--their own world differing as it may from mine. By mine, they, different, can be discovered to be the same as I, and, thrown into contrast, will see the implications of a general enjoyment through me. That is what is meant by the universality of the local. From me where I stand to them where they stand in their here and now—where I cannot be—I do in spite of that arrive! through their work which complements my own, each sensually local.” From William Carlos Williams, “Against the Weather,” in Selected Essays (NY: New Directions, 1969), pp. 197-98.