I get asked now and then, \u201cPete, you\u2019re a reasonably intelligent guy, with a Ph.D. and everything. I want to be like you. But how is it that you still believe in God? On what basis is God still an option for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
God or not God?\u00a0I think about that question a lot.<\/p>\n
This won\u2019t be solved in a blog post, but here\u2019s basically where I am with all this \u201cbelieving in God\u201d business\u2014in under 800 words. Just don\u2019t mistake\u00a0this as an \u201cargument for God\u2019s existence.\u201d It\u2019s just where my thinking process is.<\/p>\n
First, note the way I phrased the staged questions above. I use the words \u201cintelligent\u201d and \u201cbasis.\u201d The question presumes that belief in God is something to be settled on the basis of intelligence, education, knowledge of facts, etc. Without discounting all those wonderful things, I do not think that the God question is settled this way.<\/p>\n
The western way of knowing privileges the observation and analysis\/testing\u00a0of\u00a0external evidence by knowledgable, experienced, and educated people who make arguments and defend them. I\u2019m all for that. I like the fruit of this way of knowing\u2014everything from electricity and medicine to electron-microscopes\u00a0and radio telescopes. I\u2019d rather live today in the western world than at any other time in human history. It\u2019s not utopia but I\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t think this way of knowing settles the\u00a0God question, since it presumes that God is an\u00a0element of the cosmos that occupies space and is\u00a0subject to observation and testing\u2014like a quasar, proton, or tectonic plates\u2014waiting to be discovered or discerned through methods by which we know the physical world.<\/p>\n
I believe that, if there is a Creator, this Higher Power is not a \u201cbeing\u201d that we can \u201cknow\u201d exclusively or primarily through this western way of knowing.\u00a0In other words, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in God because I see no evidence for God\u201d or \u201cI believe in God because the evidence proves it\u201d are both nonsensical claims for me.<\/p>\n
I realize that there is a long and rich history of discussion over difficult philosophical issues concerning the existence of God. I\u2019m not discounting the importance of thinking through these deep questions. My point is a rather modest one: the question of God\u2019s existence is not settled\u2014one way or the other\u2014on the basis of the kind of evidence-based knowledge that modern western culture (rightly) embraces to help us explain many, many things around us.<\/p>\n
That\u00a0just doesn\u2019t work for me.\u00a0As I see it, knowledge of\u00a0God accesses different ways of knowing.<\/p>\n
In fact, presuming that evidence-based knowledge is the only sure<\/em> way of knowing anything\u00a0worth knowing lies behind both the angst and the sense of certainty many feel about God\u2019s existence or non-existence.<\/p>\n Perhaps a\u00a0great offense to many of us in the modern world is that\u00a0God is not known in the way we are used to knowing many other things\u2014which is a hard pill to swallow if you\u2019re committed to evidence-based knowing as the only path forward.<\/p>\n A few years ago David Benner\u2019s Spirituality and the Awakening Self: The Sacred Journey of Transformation<\/a> In chapter 5 \u201cLearning from the Christian Mystics\u201d Benner discusses a knowledge of God that is \u201ctransrational\u201d and \u201ccontemplative.\u201d<\/p>\n Christian mysticism should . . . not be confused with experience. Instead, it should be understood as participation in the mystery of the transformational journey toward union with God in love. . . .\u00a0Mystics\u00a0are . . . much more defined by their longing than by their\u00a0experience. They long to know God\u2019s love and\u00a0thereby to be filled with the very fullness of God\u00a0<\/em>[Ephesians 3:17-19].<\/p>\n This sort of knowing is beyond reason, but it is not irrational. It is transrational. It is knowing of a different order. It is a form of knowing often described as contemplative. And this is the connection to mysticism. Contemplation is apprehension uncluttered by thought\u2014particularly preconception and analysis. It is based on direct and personal encounter.<\/em><\/p>\n When you know something by means of such encounter, you may not be able to express it verbally, at least not in a compelling, coherent, or exhaustive manner. But you do know that you know because your knowing has a depth and immediacy to it that is never present in simply knowing\u00a0about<\/span> things\u2014even merely knowing about<\/span> God.\u00a0<\/em>[pp. 75-76]\n<\/p>\n Rather, knowledge of God is described by terms like:<\/p>\n participation So that\u2019s where I am at this stage of my journey on the whole God thing. I\u2019m still working on it\u2014of course. And now my 800 words are up.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=158743296X\")
Thinking one can prove\u00a0or disprove the existence of God through rational analysis is to apply to God a wrong way of knowing.<\/h2>\n
longing
fullness
transrational
contemplative
apprehension uncluttered by thought
defying compelling verbal expression
depth
immediacy<\/p>\n