If God doesn't exist, do we still need to believe in "God"?

I love to get free books. One of the benefits of being an active churchless blogger is getting review copies of books in the "spiritual but not religious" genre. 

I'm about a third of the way through Galen Guengerich's "God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age." I like the title, and I''m liking the book -- though this isn't really a review, since I've still got most of the book to read.

Today I reached one of Galen Guengerich's core theses in the "What's Divine" chapter (he's the senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan). 

A central premise of this book, and perhaps its most controversial and counterintuitive claim, is that God is not supernatural, and yet belief in God is necessary. Ironically, both atheists and traditional religionists agree about the nature of God; they disagree only about whether this God does or does not exist. For my part, I agree with the atheists that God is not supernatural, yet I agree with the advocates of traditional religion that belief in God is necessary.

Hmmmm.

My first reaction when I read this was, Good luck making that argument. It's tough to make a case for a "God" who/that isn't supernatural. 

I've looked into pantheism, and it's less appealing (to me) variant, panentheism. Pantheism basically says that the universe is God, while panentheism posits that God interpenetrates the universe while extending beyond it.

When Guengerich said he agrees that God is not supernatural, yet belief in God is necessary, I thought "he's a pantheist." This would have been disappointing, because I've never understood why the concept of "God" needs to be added to the concept of "universe" if the two are identical.

Sure, its easy to say that God is everything there is.

But how is this different from saying the universe/cosmos is everything there is? Likewise, I could say God is love. Which, if God isn't anything supernatural or distinct from the universe, seems to be no different from saying love is love.

Thus the problem with pantheism is that it doesn't add anything to our understanding of reality other than calling the universe by another name: God.

Good writer and smart thinker that he is, I hoped Guengerich wouldn't take this easy philosophical way out in his attempt to salvage a belief in God while rejecting supernaturalism. Though I've got quite a few chapters left to read, it's looking like he has come up with a fresh way of looking upon a scientifically-defensible notion of God.

Because a few pages further on, I came to this:

For reasons that will become apparent in the next chapter, I believe this experience of being extensively connected to the universe and utterly dependent on it is an absolutely necessary aspect of a fulfilling human life. It also provides a foundation for the experience I'm referring to when I use the word "God." God is the experience of being connected to all that is -- all that is present, as well as all that is past and all that is possible.

When people ask me whether I believe God exists, my answer is yes. I believe God exists in a way similar to the way beauty exists, but not in the way a person or an apple exists. An apple is a physical object that can be weighed and measured.

...God, by contrast, is an experience, akin to our experience of beauty. Beauty itself never appears to us, but we find the idea necessary to account for our delight in the symmetry and form of certain objects and experiences: sunsets, symphonies, and sculptures by Degas. While different in many other respects, beauty and God are both qualities of our experience.

OK. This is a different take on pantheism. Rather than focusing on the objective existence of everything there is, the universe/cosmos, Guengerich seems to be emphasizing the subjective experience of everything there is, including its past, present, and future manifestations. 

When I look up into the night sky while on a dog walk around our neighborhood's lake, and marvel at how mysteriously vast the universe is, along with the mysterious ability of conscious beings like me to marvel at it, seemingly I'm experiencing Guengerich's God.

I'm still skeptical about what is gained from calling my experience "God." I'm sure Guengerich will do his best to convince me why this is necessary or desirable in his book's remaining chapters.

Comments

[Tom]

Brian, a very timely and interesting post :-)

When I look up into the night sky while on a dog walk around our neighborhood's lake, and marvel at how mysteriously vast the universe is, along with the mysterious ability of conscious beings like me to marvel at it, seemingly I'm experiencing Guengerich's God.

I don't know if you're experiencing Guengerich's God, but I do know (in my own experience) you have to distinguish between marvelling 'at' and marvelling 'with'. 'At' implies a safe distance, whereas what I call a divine experience has a kind of visceral sense of involvement.

I'd also point out, again in my own experience, it's not necessary to link the divine with 'marvelling'. In fact it might be easier to spot it in everyday experiences where there are no expectations at all of such greatness.

For what it's worth, here's my take on it. Ordinary experience, for most people, most of the time, has the character of being partial i.e. each moment is some minor part of the whole play of life. The divine experience, on the other hand, is that whatever you are witnessing *is* the whole thing. It's as if the essential part of the universe has made itself known in the moment, or that you've become aware of something you've been overlooking.

Now I'm sure there is nothing measurably different about the world in this state and there is no reason to believe miracles are happening. However there is a definite sense of the miraculous, which is opening up a fresh and authentic way of looking at things. It can also clear out old thoughts, irritations, anxieties and so forth. Hence I say the distinguishing feature of it is the transformative power.

Now despite these positives, my rational mind will know something here does not fit my usual world view. And I might feel thrown into the world and no longer at a safe distance. My privacy might feel invaded. So there is a temptation to shrug off the experience, and return to a remote perspective I feel more comfortable with.

But assuming I don't entirely reject it, how do I describe it? I have to accept that something vast and unique was present and that it was spiritually meaningful. Those could be reasons for the use of a word like God.

BTW Does this also explain panentheism? We can define God as the cosmos (pantheism), but then there is this business of appearing in its parts as well. That seems something extra.

[cc]

"The divine experience, on the other hand, is that whatever you are witnessing *is* the whole thing. It's as if the essential part of the universe has made itself known in the moment, or that you've become aware of something you've been overlooking."

Yeah, sounds divine, but talking about it sounds tacky, not to mention preachy. Anyone can conjure this delusion and feel smugly convinced they're experiencing "the whole thing", but the "something you've been overlooking" is that it's what the brain is doing for itself, not something divinely granted.

Self-hypnosis is a wonderful thing because it doesn't require drugs, and marveling with it is delightful, but it's what the brain does to compensate for what it cannot do.

[Tom]

Anyone can conjure this delusion and feel smugly convinced they're experiencing "the whole thing"

You're calling *me* smug?!!! ;-)

Careful with that petard.

[yowzah]

"God" 'exists' (for the sake of relative communication) but cannot be found or known in any relative sort of way because God is not in any relative sort of way.

How can a fish find itself? Or a bear? Or you? Whatever would find the fish or the bear or you would not be the fish or the bear or you because what would be seen is an objectification of what is functioning as fish, bear, you and calling it 'me'. (fish, bear, you). But the objectification is not 'you'.

"God" might say:

I am not subject to space. Therefore I know no 'where'.
I am not subject to time. Therefore I know no 'when'.
What space-time is I am, and nothing finite pertains to me.

Being nowhere I am every 'where', being everywhere I am no 'where'.
For I am neither any 'where' nor no 'where'.
Neither inside nor outside any thing or no thing.
Neither above nor below, before nor after, at either side of any or no thing.

I do not belong to anything that is perceptible or knowable, since perceiving and knowing is what I am.
I am not beyond here or there, within or without, because they too are what I am.

I am not extended in space, I am not developed in time.. all of these are my manifestations...all of these are conceptual images of what I am.. because it is my absence, my absolute absence, which renders concepts conceivable.

I am ubiquitous as both absence and presence since, as I, I am neither present nor absent.

I can never be known as an object in mind because I am what is knowing, and even 'mind' is my object.

--W.W.W.

Now do 'you' see? Of course not. Because if you do, you don't. There is no 'you' to see because only 'I' am, I who cannot be found objectively.

Just see.

and don't try too hard.

[Manmeet Singh]

Lovely article!
loved those lines "...God, by contrast, is an experience"
I have felt like this many times while contemplating