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Night, it was,
Your arms reached out, holding me,
Pulling me to yourself, I fell asleep
Only, in time, to awaken, my face against your breast,
So close was I drawn to you,
I could no longer see your face.
Only then did I know the knowledge
longings born of my faith had led me to.
The door of the sanctuary swung open,
I saw altars everywhere, and everyone
aglow with the light of this Love.
Religion bowed low,
Surrendering itself
to you.
-Brian K. Wilcox
God is one, unoriginate, incomprehensible, possessing completely the total potentiality of being, altogether excluding notions of when and how, inaccessible to all, and not to be known through any natural image by any creature.
—Early Orthodox Theologian, Maximus the Confessor (580-662)
An atheist and theist had been arguing about the existence of God. They approached a spiritual Teacher. The atheist said, “Teacher, am I not right that one cannot prove the existence of God?” The Teacher replied, “I do not believe in God.” Stunned, the theist spoke to the Teacher, “Sir, since you are a noted spiritual Teacher, you must believe in God.” Replied the Teacher, “My friend, I do.” The atheist said, “Sir, but you just said you do not believe in God.” “Right,” replied the Teacher.
The path of meditation and contemplation, as well as the abuse and misuse of the word “God,” has led me to be less attached and comfortable with the word “God.” Frankly, I do not mean by “God” what it seems many in my own faith mean, as well as what some other persons in other faiths mean. Indeed, many both inside and outside the Church have trivialized the word “God.” And, when one experiences deep communion and, then, union with Reality, the word “God” is seen to be only one of many valid ways of referring to the One.
Kabbalah Teacher and Rabbi David Aaron writes, in Endless Light, a striking statement. He observes that he often shocks his students by saying that, even though he is a rabbi, he does not believe in “God.” “I don’t believe in God, but what I believe in, I call God,” relates Aaron.
There are two common problems with God-talk. First, “God” is imaged as simply another big person like us, usually above us. So, persons pray to this localized-in-heaven reality and think of and image “Him” or “Her” as having boundaries like our body. This shows up in singing and speaking of a throne in heaven with God, like a big Man, sitting on it. Second, “God” is seen as the creator of reality and, we think, therefore, other to reality. Most Christians see “God” and reality as separate. This leads persons to reject truths that do not fit a view of “God,” which is always their view of God, rather than persons adjusting their view of God to emerging insights into reality, or Reality.
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So, I return to Aaron’s comment that “what I believe in, I call God.” This comports with his observation that “the search for truth is really all about trying to find the best words to describe our experience of what is.” He relates that when he hugs his son or feels embraced by the sun, he knows what he knows experientially, and the experience cannot be described in words. So, “That’s why I say I don’t believe in ‘God.’ ‘God’ is just a word.” Rather, writes Aaron, “I believe in what is. I believe in the reality I experience.”
Once an atheist told a spiritual Teacher, after hearing him speak, “Sir, prove the existence of God, and I will believe in Him.” Replied the Teacher, “Friend, then you shall never believe. First, God is not a Him; second, God does not exists.” Spoke the atheist, “Okay, I can accept God is not a Him, for God would not be a person like you or me. But, how can you, a believer in God, say God does not exists?” “God,” replied the Teacher, “does not exist, God is existence.”
God, not being “God,” manifests through Nature and through diverse religious systems. Again, I refer to my own Christian tradition and Maximus the Confessor:
… God is breath, and the breath of the wind is shared by all;
nothing shuts it in, nothing holds it prisoner.
Therefore, any religion or religious system, regardless, is idolatrous to the extent it seeks to contain the Freedom of the One within its rituals, words, teachings, and community.
If such a writing as this seems heretical to some, it is heretical only to those who are fearful of accepting that God is much more than “God” and that true faith leads us to leap beyond religion into the wonderment of falling in Love with Mystery—a Mystery that is manifesting through the ordinariness in which we live daily.
This orthodox teaching of the incomprehensibility of the Divine is not a threat to religion. Rather, it is a means of religion to transcend its own limitation and more wholly experience the One many refer to as “God.” Indeed, again quoting an early orthodox theologian, Gregory of Nyssa (c. 337-395):
No matter how long you might stay at the spring, you would always be beginning to see the water. For the water never stops flowing, and it is always beginning to bubble up again. It is the same with one who fixes his gaze on the infinite beauty of God. It is constantly being discovered anew, and it is always seen as something new and strange in comparison with what the mind has always understood. And as God continues to reveal himself, man continues to wonder…
Ultimately, God does not fit in the assumptions of either atheism or theism. Why? One reason is that both treat God as a being, a thing among other things, when God is Being; is Be-ing.
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
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