The Artist's Version, "The Eye of God." *2
No! Actually I can't be a Deist because I don’t believe that God stepped aside after the creation and watched from his/her/its lofty perch without interference in human affairs. Actually, I believe that God is everywhere and in everything including each one of us, which makes me more of a Gnostic, thus an anachronism. If God be in all things including each person, then "He" can't help but participate in our affairs. The Bible says, “God knoweth all things,” 1 John, chapter 3, verse 20. First Corinthian, chapter 2, verse 10, and I paraphrase, states that God perceives all things, which is not quite the same as being in all things. However, I quote Ephesians, Chapter 4, verse 6, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” At the same time, the Catholic Church and its entire varied offspring have placed the emphasis on God being out there somewhere, and that we human beings are flawed and must constantly beg for “His” help and forgiveness for our shortcomings.
I make no claim that we are God, or that any of us are perfect. NOT CLOSE! What I do claim is that we can find God inside, as well as outside, if we search deep and hard enough, sorting and sifting through all the junk of our constructed personhood. Which, by the way, brings me to this fundamentalist notion that human sperm, and/or eggs fertilized or not are persons. ABSOLUTELY NOT! Personhood is constructed by our parents and our culture, beginning the moment of our birth. I use passive tense on purpose because, in the beginning we are closest to God before our parents give us a name and start building the person we will become. We will again be closest to God upon death, when we give up our constructed personhood. My personal belief, and it borders on “faith” is that I am made of star stuff, a piece of God’s actual creation, and that deep inside that physical thing - hidden below the socially constructed self - is the kernel (the spiritual seed) of God that I was born with. However, that seed has absolutely nothing to do with my socially constructed person! At the same time that seed is so much more than my person precisely because it is a part of God. We should all have a reverence for that kernel in all things. Thus those persons and human institutions that claim a reverence for human sperm, eggs, and fetuses though they have no problem destroying other living things (including any part of our living planet) have committed the egregious sin of destroying part of God. Thus, I believe that each living human being / person must make his/her own decision in each life or death instance, that no other human, human institution and/or government has the right to make that decision!
I wish that I could say that like a deist, I have reasoned these things intellectually based on my observation of nature. But, I cannot. Yes, some of it is based on logical thought, many hours devoted to careful thinking about the nature of the world, this universe in which I find myself, and God. However, some is intuitive, based in meditation and prayer. SO, I've woven the two threads together, reasoned logic, the warp thread and intuition, the weft. The fabric created contains the revelation that God is in everything including my very own physical body. That does not make me, or you, God. It does make us an intentional part of his/her/its creation. I purposefully describe God as male, female, and neuter because “He” is more than God the father. The church’s insistence upon anthropomorphizing God as “the father” is too limiting. God is so much more than “the heavenly father.” Symbolically “He” is the Holly Family; father, son (Jesus, the Christ), daughter, and mother. Beyond that, as I've been maintaining in this blog entry, God is in all of nature, the earth, the heavens, and beyond. Thus, I know that God is infinite, and "He" is also part of every human being.
Notes
* My thoughts here lead to another question. Can I still be Christian but reason and believe as I do? Ah, I've found the topic for a future blog entry.
*2 The Design on the dollar bill, is meant to be the eye of providence. The "all seeing eye of God" was part of the design created by John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson for our dollar bill. They based their idea on the Ancient Egyptian eye of Horace, which I think is kind of cool. Anyone who misinterprets the eye of God as a symbol of the devil demonstrates that the devil lives in their head, not on our dollar bill.
2 comments:
Actually, John, you sound more like a panentheist than a gnostic. Matthew Fox and others in his school of thought made panentheism quite prominent in theological discussion about 20 years ago. The RC church eventually forced him out, so he moved to being an Episcopalian priest. The last I heard, he was still writing and teaching Creation Spirituality. I've always found his writing to be a bit convoluted and obtuse, but the concepts he developed have inspired numerous others. So I would say, yes, where your meditations have taken you is still well within the bounds of Christianity, though not as the majority of US Christians practice it.
I'm assuming that you mean United States Christians, not (lower case) us Christians. Thanks for the information, Marian. I will look up both panentheism and Matthew Fox to see if he is more obtuse and convoluted than am I. :)
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