How I believe

 

Some metaphysical speculations...

If God exists, he must be a consciousness of *some* kind. This seems to be true by definition. If you believe in God, presumably you do believe in a cosmic consciousness of some sort. What else could "God" possibly even mean, apart from this? If you believe in a non-conscious cosmic force, that´s not "God", even if the force is "supernatural" in character. Let´s say it can make things disappear in the blink of an eye, or make them appear out of thin air. If it´s a force acting in a non-conscious manner, it can´t properly be called "God", except in a metaphorical sense. (If you could learn to manipulate this force, maybe you would become a god of sorts!) However, this doesn´t mean that God´s consciousness must be even remotely similar to our own. Our consciousness (the only one we have direct experience of) isn´t just a waking, willing consciousness. It also consists of a subconscious, a dream consciousness, and if mystics are to be believed, a mystical consciousness. Add to that the nervous system which automatically controls our bodies without us having to think about it. There must also be different kinds of consciousness in nature. Compare, say, chimps or whales with, say, insects or worms. Some scientists claim that plants have a consciousness! And what about larger systems, such as the biosphere? Perhaps there are aspects of God´s consciousness which can be characterized as "waking, willing consciousness", but many other aspects may be subconscious or simply beyond our capacity for understanding. 

Is God personal, then? I think it depends very much on the definition of "personal". If personal means the same thing as some kind of consciousness, then I suppose God is personal. However, God can´t be "personal" in the same sense as a human person is personal - and the human person is the only person we have direct experience of. God is infinite spirit while still being gendered, exists outside time and space while still pervading all of creation, and he is moreover "three persons in one", yet all three persons are infinite spirit, present everywhere simultaneously, etc etc. This doesn´t seem to make much sense. Note also that this infinite spirit-personal-god can take the form of impersonal bread and wine, but also incarnate as a human being! The only persons we have experience with are limited in space and time, indeed this seems to be a necessary condition of being a personal being - otherwise, what could "person" even mean? It feels more meaningful to call God "supra-personal" (a joker might propose "trans-personal"). He is a consciousness unbound by the limits of personality. 

We could imagine God to have two metaphysical poles or consist of two metaphysical principles. One of them is a creative power that separates objects from each other. The other is a power that seeks to bring objects together. The first pole appears to us as "freedom", the second as "unity". When freedom and unity are in balance, this could be seen by us as "love" or "solidarity". Other living creatures might see freedom/unity differently. 

But where does evil and suffering come from?  I admit that I don´t really know. From a purely "gut level" existential viewpoint, I look upon evil as a distinct substance, absolutely opposing the good. (Think Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism). However, this strict dualism makes no metaphysical sense (no dualism does, despite our gut level instincts), since good and evil wouldn´t be able to exist side by side inside the same universe, had they been completely distinct substances. But if they both belong to the same universe, they belong to God´s universe, and must both somehow relate to God. The most likely explanation is that evil is a distortion of freedom and/or unity. If the highest goal of all monads is participation in God´s love, every turn away from this could be seen as "sinful" and hence ultimately evil. 

But, as already indicated, it´s really impossible to know any of this for sure. We could easily imagine other intelligent creatures seeing "the two metaphysical poles of God" in an entirely different light, and how do we know how *God* sees them, anyway? Most of the divine might look as an eternal night to us humans, since we can´t comprehend God´s overmind, or even his subconscious or his "nervous system"...

If we speculate even more, we could even theorize that the "gods" of various human religions are more or less powerful "heavenly" beings, but they are not God, but rather what some religions would refer to as angels. This is also compatible with Neoplatonism and standard polytheism. Perhaps the god of merciful love many religions long for is just one of many gods in a vast pluriverse? He certainly doesn´t seem to be in charge "down below" at the moment! 

Which brings me to my next speculation: what if God´s purposes are so alien to us, that we simply can´t understand them? Our spiritual-cosmic evolution to better men (and women), or angelic beings perhaps, might be part of a much larger picture, just as, say, the evolution of worms to social insects. From a divine perspective, one might not be that much more important than the other. Maybe both are part of the famed 84,000 dharmas of skillful means to lure the monads back to the Godhead they once emerged from...