Question & Answer
Ed Branthaver, via the Internet, writes:
Question:
In November I will be 76 years old. I grew up in one of the historic Peace churches – the Church of the Brethren, which I attended from childhood through my adult years. The congregations I attended were conservative, but not of the “Literalist” bent. Even during my college years and beyond I was unable to understand the gospels. None of my considerable studies proved to be of significant help. Not until I accidentally found your book: Why Christianity Must Change or Die? did I find a ray of light and an individual who wrote in a fashion that I could understand. Since then, I have purchased almost everything you have written and I subscribe to your weekly e-messages. You have helped me immeasurably to make sense of what has been a mystery to me for a long time. Thank you.
In your article “Christ and the Body of Christ” in the 2000 issue of “The Once and Future Jesus,” you write “God is real for me, a mythical, indefinable presence which I can experience but never explain.” Further in THE FUTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION (“Beyond Theism but not Beyond God”) you identify God with the real and present “life force” in the universe (love). My very good friend, a former fundamentalist Christian turned atheist, claims that because you do not define God as a deity or Supreme Being, you are in fact an atheist (according to the dictionary definition) even though you said you could accept the label Christian Humanist. Could you explain to me and to my atheist friend how you can maintain your status as a Christian while at the same time meet the “dictionary definition” of an atheist?
Answer:
Dear Ed,
Thank you for your letter and congratulations on 76 years. I am happy to respond to your inquiry.
For me it is simple: the dictionary definition of the word “atheist” is wrong. An atheist is not literally one who says there is no God. An atheist is one who says there is no God who can be defined in theistic terms! That is a crucial difference. Theism is not God; Theism is a human definition of God, one which defines God as a “being, supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere outside the world and capable of invading human history in miraculous ways.” It is this theistic deity who died in the intellectual revolution that began with Copernicus and Galileo, who were the first to introduce us to the dimensions of space and, in the process, destroyed the idea of a three-tiered universe in which the theistic God was conceived. God’s dwelling place outside this world was simply removed.
Next the work of Isaac Newton showed us how the laws of the universe operated with such mathematical precision that the realm in which the theistic God was thought to operate began to shrink perceptibly. The things we once called miracles and magic are now explained without reference to supernatural causes. The weather and human sickness were both demystified and we understood the causes of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and drought on one side and coronary occlusions, strokes, cancer and infections on the other. The prayers for rain and for sickness, which grew out of a theistic definition of God, were dropped and replaced. Instead of praying for rain we now consult the meteorologists. Instead of asking God to heal us or our loved ones we turn to antibiotics, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
In time, Charles Darwin taught us about the origins of both the universe and life and his insights challenged the way Christians once postulated their primary way of telling the Christian story. That traditional story involved us in asserting that there was an original perfection, followed by a fall into sin, which then required the need for a rescuing act of redemption, which was presumably accomplished in Jesus. Jesus thus became the incarnation of the theistic deity. It was a fascinating way to tell the Jesus story, but it was quite pre-modern. That kind of religious language no longer translates into reality for us, but most Christians never learned that there was any other language that we could use. Freud and Einstein then added their unique insights to our expanding knowledge and all of these things together meant that the human definition of God that we call “theism” became irrelevant to our educated minds.
The question then is does God die when theism dies? I don’t think so. The theistic definition of God is a human construct and all human constructs ultimately die. It also means that, much more than we once thought, claims once believed to be absolutely necessary to religion, will also inevitably die. I refer to such irrational ideas as the concept of infallible Popes and inerrant scriptures and whether or not there is “one true faith” and “one true church.” It means we have to recognize that the human mind can never define or contain the ultimate mystery to which human beings refer when they say the word “God.” It means that our God language will become less concrete and more mystical. It will mean, inevitably, that we will be less certain and, shall I say, “vaguer” in the God language we use. It means that concepts like “Christian atheist” or “believing non-theist” will not be seen as oxymorons. Ultimately it means that the death of the theistic definition of God will not mean the death of God.
Today, theologians speak of God as a human symbol pointing to a reality that words cannot capture. They will say things like “God is dead” and still be drawn in worship. They look at Jesus, but not in the way that causes us to think that Jesus is related to God in the same way that Clark Kent is related to superman. Divinity becomes an aspect of humanity and is found in Jesus because his was a human life that escaped the boundaries of the human and thus reflected and channeled the reality of God to us and for us. It is a fermenting, frightening, creative time in the theological world. A new explanation is underway. I believe I can experience God, but I can no longer define God in theistic terms. That makes me a non-theist believer, but not one who denies the reality of God. I pursue God inside the parameters of Christianity because that has always been my doorway, but not because I am convinced it is the only doorway. This makes me a Christian by my definition, but I do not believe Christianity itself can contain the wonder of God and my journey will always lead me beyond the boundaries of Christianity. Into what I do not yet know, but it will be a step into a new dimension of reality for which I do not have words. Christianity has always been evolving. This will simply be the next, but not the last stage in that evolution. I claim my role in this evolution, specifically as a Christian.
This kind of radical reformation of our faith story has happened before, but perhaps in not so total a way. Christianity was born in a Jewish world and then had to translate itself into a Platonic-thinking Greek world in order to survive. A man named Augustine, the bishop of Hippo did that for us in the Fourth century. When Aristotle’s thought replaced Plato’s in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the dominant way of perceiving truth then Western theology once more had to adapt. Christianity did so by translating itself anew into Aristotelian terms. A man named Thomas Aquinas did that for us. When the age of the Enlightenment emerged, there was a great need for Christianity to be translated into the categories of new scientific learning and into the emerging new humanism. The Protestant Reformation sought to accomplish that. The jury is still out on how successful that was. Today, the knowledge on which the modern world is based, both its intellectual knowledge and its technological knowledge, cries out for what I have called “A New Christianity for a New World.” Developing that “New Christianity” is an ongoing work in progress.
There are some who believe that Christianity will die if it has to change and adapt and so they resist change and entrench themselves in the formulas of yesterday. We call them fundamentalists and they come in both a Catholic and Protestant variety. There are also some who think that Christianity in none of its forms will ever be able to live in this modern world and so they abandon it altogether. We call them secular humanists.
I call myself “A Believer in Exile.” Both words are important. I am a believer. God is infinitely real to me even though I cannot define that reality. I am also in exile from the traditional understanding of my religious past. I will never abandon my Christian roots, but I do see Christianity as an evolving force and I want to be part of that evolution.
So I gather with my community of faith in worship each week. I sing the hymns that reflect our journey through history. I listen to and pray prayers that are still largely addressed to a theistic understanding of God. I listen to sermons that help me explore a new interior reality. I participate in educational activities that force me into a dialogue between faith and knowledge. In my own way, I see my life as a journey into the mystery of God. In that journey, I am not able to pursue or even to contemplate that journey’s end, but I believe I walk in God and with God and that God lives in me and through me. Perhaps I am delusional, but I don’t think so. Perhaps God is the journey and not the destination.
It is from this perspective that I write not only my books, but this weekly column and because so many seem to be willing to walk with me, I never feel that I walk alone.
Thank you for your letter.
John Shelby Spong
