Introduction
In my ongoing quest to de-Christianise my mind I regularly watch Dan McClellan on YouTube. I am especially interested in claims he responds to, and which reflect how incoherent ideas about the Christian God are. This isn’t a criticism of the believers, just my response to my efforts to make sense of what is claimed. I have also been recently reading Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and Dan’s YHWH’s Divine Images A Cognitive Approach.
I think we share confused and confusing notions of ‘god’ that necessitate the articulation of a definition before any useful conversation might be had.
Below I want to reflect on my own efforts to make sense.
How many versions of God can there be?
Here are, for me, a few discrete notions about what ‘god’ is:
- The ‘God of nature’
- The deists’ notion of God.
- The polytheists’ idea of gods.
- The esoteric idea of The One/All.
- The Christian conception of their God.
I am not trying to offer a definitive definition, or any definition for that matter. I want only to observe that these ideas exist and may be variously thought to be mutually exclusive or connected and related – depending on your theological orientation.
From the above 1, 2, and 4 have clear connections – and with an aspect of the Christian God [5]. Polytheists [3] share the idea of an overarching divinity. So, all 5 notions have something in common – there is a singular absolute being.
But humans, being humans, interpret that foundational ‘truth’ in myriad ways that reflect a specific history, circumstance, or culture. This is fine. This is what aught to happen. Problems arise, however, when some seek to impose their version upon others as an objective and singular truth.
While there is general assent [with the exception of materialists] that there is a singular divine reality, some assert their interpretation is the only valid one. This kind of conceit is fine if it is kept in-house. I think it’s a fair thing to say that while we are free to conceive our own notion of the divine, asserting it is an objective truth that may be imposed on other is both psychologically immature and aggressive.
This speaks to a state of immaturity which demands that what is true for an individual – person or community of believers – must be true for all others. This is rather like the materialist mindset which insists that something is true and real only if it can be confirmed by others. What we are doing is defining our relationship with the divine, not defining deity itself. Relationships are inherently subjective.
Obviously, we must specify what it is that we are in relationship with, but this is different from seeing it as an ‘objective’ thing apart which we can define. Any agency with which we have an intimate or personal relationship evokes very different terms of description. Efforts at objective definition will be made by those so disposed, but they don’t get to have the definitive word, no matter how much they fancy they ought.
We don’t need to conform to a theologically crafted notion of deity, unless doing so is a condition of membership of a faith community. Such communities have inherent and natural imperatives, and demands for conformity are fine.
In one respect requiring conformity is reasonable mindset at a tribal level where conformity is crucial to ensure survival, if not thriving. In our contemporary societies we still have mandatory conformity demands but at a level that seeks to assure that a large, complex and diverse community can peacefully function. We need conformity in such as traffic laws for what I hope are evident reasons.
We used to have demands for conformity in clothing styles and hair length, among other things. Now we mostly don’t. As a culture we are shedding what seem to be unnecessary demands for conformity. True, this is a contested area in some areas as what constitutes proper expression of our individuality is still being negotiated.
We are, I think, well past the time when demanding conformity with religious beliefs is useful, necessary, or tolerable at a societal r cultural level. However, because our collective level of psychological maturity is not uniform there will be those who may earnestly, and even strenuously disagree.
We have a variety of ways to imagine the divine, but it’s a good thing to remember that while there seems to be an agreement about one ultimate divine reality how we conceive of it, according to our needs and capabilities, is a matter of our own choice.
In effect, we cannot ‘know’ God in a manner that renders that knowledge shared and agreed upon without the assent of others. To some such assent might be thought foolish or conceited by their lights. So be it. We will conceive and believe as we need, and it is not for those who are not us to presume to know better.
Our relationship with any entity reflects or expresses our psychological needs. I don’t distinguish between psychological needs and spiritual needs. Spiritual is yet another word that is confused and confusing. At our core, as humans, we are driven by the need for human-to-human relationships, and then human-to-environment [physical and psychical] needs, and finally human-to-divine relationships. For me it’s all on a spectrum.
We necessarily use categories to help us think and communicate, but the categories and the words we use to talk about them are our creations. They are not attributes of the ideas we engage with. As we evolve our understanding, we must adapt our ideas and language.
I understand what is meant when folks say they are ‘spiritual but not ‘religious’, but ‘religious’ does not have only one meaning. The statement is nonsensical outside the context in which it may be uttered. What does it mean to be ‘spiritual’ and what does it mean to be ‘religious’? Meanings can capture our minds and imaginations when we think they are inherently bonded to the word.
We are, I believe, naturally seeking freedom to form the best relationships we can.
Many gods?
Assuming there is agreement on there being one absolute divinity it is fair to wonder whether there may be lesser deities. Monotheism as a system among the varieties of religious forms isn’t widespread, and it’s really only its tyranny that has led it such a high degree of support across the world.
Our culture has approached the subject of polytheism from a perspective dominated by monotheism. Consequently, we have been conditioned to think of polytheism as a naive or primitive way of thinking. This is like our take on animism.
I want to suggest a contrary way of thinking. Polytheism is subtle and sophisticated for several reasons. First all polytheists acknowledge a single overarching divinity. Second, they manage how to conceive of divine presence in their reality by breaking it all down into conceptual sub-units. This is a bit like how a government is organised into departments and other agencies. It is simply necessary to step down from ‘the all’ into the many.
The monotheistic faiths do this too – but in cunning ways. First, they switch between the One and their tribal god conception – a kind of polytheism of just one in effect. Second, they invest divine powers in sub-agents. The Christians are good at this. They have a trinity, which is really only one. The Catholics have Jesus, Mary and saints – all of which are invested with numinous power from God. They also invented Satan/Lucifer. What Christianity has is an assembly of agents justified by painfully tortured theology. And then, of course, there are angels and archangels. We can have a whole hierarchical community – an ecosystem of divine actors and agents.
Polytheism is a terminology that isn’t helpful because we use the same word to denote the overarching divinity and the subordinate deities. The distinction rests on whether the word commences with an upper or lower case g. That’s a bit like calling all government departments and agencies governments. Its just confusing, especially if the majority of us don’t think they exist in the first place.
We don’t have accessible useful descriptions of what a god is. My Oxford Dictionary app says a god is “a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes”. That’s useless as well as misleading. How we might define what a god depends entirely on what metaphysical guesses we have made about reality.
For example, I subscribe to the Hermetic ‘As above, so below’ notion of a holographic cosmic structure. I can’t say it is true, only that it is a presently useful way of thinking for me. If I use the notion that consciousness is the foundation of reality, I can imagine that a god is a large organisation of consciousness expressed as an intent or will to act – a being of distinct attributes who may interact with other similar beings who, as a group, have a shared intent.
In the context of a holographic model, how might humans imagine gods? Pretty much as we have – as families or communities. It is said that the Hindu tradition has up to 330 million gods/goddesses. That’s 330 million expressions of the overarching divinity and it can seem like a lot if you approach the idea with fixed mind set. Its not like 330 million Thors. It could be 330 million spirits in the natural and human world. We don’t have a rule that says beyond this scale you are a god, and below it you are a spirit. Imprecision rules – and that doesn’t matter unless you are the ideas of gods seriously.
I developed my affection for animism because it made sense of my direct experiences. Once again animism is an unsatisfactory term coloured by Christianity and materialism. I quit practicing ritual magick not because I didn’t think there weren’t gods to be invoked but because I struggled to come up with a good reason for invoking them. I think there’s a lot of nonsense uttered about us having the power to summon gods. When we do excite a reaction it probably another agency helpfully playing along. How would we know?
The people we call animists are also often polytheists. They scaled up the multiplicity of spirits all the way. They know something from their direct experiences, and it is only when we break the habit of thinking them ‘primitive’, at the very dawn of ‘reason’, that the complexity and subtlety of their way of knowing can be explored.
It is certainly true that monotheism and materialism have delivered the extraordinary things in the world we have – to our peril, many might fear. Animistic polytheism had its own problems of corruption and distortion in the cultures where it flourished, but we do need to recall that it laid the foundations of our civilisation. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were hardly slack in reason, rationality or science.
Thinking it all through
For a long time, I had an aversion to saying ‘God’ because it triggered in me deeply adverse reactions lingering from my rejection of Christianity. I have come to accept the word as describing a sense of overarching divinity and nothing more. When I think of Christianity now it is in terms of their god, which doesn’t, to me, merit the big G. It’s not a sentiment I would impose upon a Christian because I am not into disrespecting their faith. I keep my critique to discussions where they are unlikely to be present in any case.
I have been working through how I think about animism and polytheism, steadily altering the ideas that have dominated both themes. Its not just about changing ideas, but sentiments. We must be open minded and open hearted. Intellect without imagination is hobbled and sterile. The materialist myth that science has progressed by reason alone has been starkly and repeatedly refuted and debunked. But the myth persists.
I like the idea of gods. I don’t like the language because it ties us to categorisations that are framed in Christian and materialistic terms. I just don’t feel able to come up with new language yet. We are steeped in a mindset that has dominated our culture for centuries. It has controlled and hobbled how we think. I still find myself snared in its web of inferences. I feel forced to use the language of the oppressor because there is no alternative that can be shared.
I don’t like the idea of talking ‘God’ because its too high level. These days we must see God as the author of billions of galaxies – and who knows how many more. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea that ‘he’ chats with any human directly. I am cool with the idea that ‘he’ has legitimate agents – delegates if you will – who convey genuine divine wisdom. It is unlikely that any are gods, and that’s a good thing. I encountered a ‘god force’ a long time ago and it was harrowing. I can’t explain what a ‘god force’ is. That is how it was described to me.
More likely, when people say ‘God’ spoke to them they are referring to either a helping spirit agency or they have misattributed their own earnest internal dialogue. The latter is more likely. I don’t think ‘God’ talks to humans, and if gods do, I have no reason to imagine it is frequent, or about mundane things. At my mother’s funeral after ‘party’ the place was overrun by Pentecostals. I had to flee and, as I left, I passed a faithful telling another how ‘God’ had come to him as he was brushing his teeth and said blah blah blah. No. That’s not real to me.
I think the divine is real for myriad reasons based on direct experience, not one of which had any association with any faith or tradition. I have had experiences which have affirmed the metaphysical dimension of reality in association with a few groups, but they haven’t been the major experiences. They have been unrelated to creed or community.
I have had the advantage of my experiences which have affirmed to me that there’s more going on than is evident to most of us. But that’s something that happens to us all when we have unique insider experiences. Mine just happen to include paranormal stuff. It has often been a plague, so please don’t imagine I feel any sense of privilege. I feel forced into these ruminations.
Because what we believe serves our psychological needs it is unimportant to others unless there is a harmony of needs. What we say we believe is either a fixed or mutable expression of how we are meeting our needs. We can be exploratory or affirming.
I assume there is an overarching divine unity which is beyond knowledge or description. It is, for me, the primal template from which the holistic universe expresses. It is grounded in what we call ‘consciousness’. That’s my metaphysical guess.
Beyond that I have had experiences which affirm the ideas of animism and the possibility of gods. That’s a fluid state of mind with no fixed ideas – other than the reasons for thinking as I do are valid. By that I mean I am satisfied that I have assessed my experiences with sufficient rigor so as to be comfortable they are real and valid. I don’t buy the argument that if an experience isn’t shared and can’t be verified its not real. That’s a set of criteria that apply to things relevant to shared ‘objective’ knowledge. It’s a fair rule for science, for instance.
I agree with those who say my position is vulnerable to error for a range of reasons. Uncertainty is inherent in how we seek to understand things. We are constantly revising scientific knowledge, frequently against the strenuous objections of proponents of ideas once held to be certain. It is well said that knowledge advances one funeral at a time.
We create our own narratives which we share in a community of like-minded members or employ them as instruments of individual self-directed inquiry (although it is likely we have hidden help). More of us are doing this these days.
Ultimately, however, how we behave matters more than what we believe. If we are psychologically healthy and mature, what others believe is unimportant to us – beyond being something of interest.
The aggressive and oppressive aren’t that way because of their religion. Their religion is that way because of them. The same is true of any shared beliefs, knowledge or values.
Conclusion
We have a choice. We can guess the divine is real or it is not. We could also be uncertain, pending evidence. I am not a believer. In fact, I am a genuine sceptic. I have been obliged by many experiences to acknowledge that there is what I call a metaphysical dimension to our reality. Neither science nor religion are presently able to provide a useful discourse to help me process what were often traumatic experiences. I found more useful stuff in occult and esoteric thought. However, that has tended not to be self-reflective enough.
I think there are gods who are, in the words of a non-physical teacher to me, ‘of the One, but not as the One’. He was entirely cool that gods were real, but his understanding was way beyond mine and he refused to offer more than tantalising breadcrumbs. He observed that his role was to teach me how to think, not tell me stuff. Thanks for that.
That was decades ago. On the subject of gods, he made it plain that they were not to be taken lightly. It wasn’t that they were inherently dangerous in terms of intent, just that their energy wasn’t something to be recklessly exposed to. I recall a similar injunction in the OT.
We mediate power, step it down, through agents. In past times this made sense. Depending on who you were, being brought into the presence of a king was special or dire. Far safer to be distant and deal only with an emissary who may have had royal power but was more approachable.
As we progress into the 21st century, ideas about who we are and where we are in the pecking order in the cosmos are being forcibly altered. I think the UFO/UAP phenomenon is edging toward a reckoning. Quantum science is unravelling our notions about reality. The human sciences are reframing our sense of identity. Technological developments have utterly disrupted just about everything to do with our physical lives. Oh, and we are stressing our physical organic reality to near breaking point.
The beliefs, practices, and traditions of the past can be a rich source of insight if we don’t look at them through the brash filters of our culture’s dominant discourses. We have definitely ‘progressed’ in many areas, but not in all. We are facing multiple crises which are a legacy of that dominant mindset. Softer eyes can see intimate connections and subtle wisdoms.
I have an aversion to looking backwards in the hope of finding something to rescue us. The idea that we should look back several millennia to ideas about divinity and stories about how to behave offends my sense who we are, and what we are capable of.
But from inside the prison of materialism and a faith that has decimated our awareness of the subtle and complex ways of knowing of our ancestors, we can be reminded about how to think elegantly – with heart and imagination. Theology and materialistic ‘science’ have napalmed the delicate ecosystem of spirit. New shoots of recovery are poking through the ruins. We can/must celebrate them and nurture them.
The need to re-imagine the divine is being pressed upon us. I don’t think discarding it is an option. It has accompanied us on our evolutionary path for many millennia. I don’t think it’s going away.