On Visiting a Nazi Concentration Camp

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 13 November 2014 2 Comments
Please login with your account to read this essay.
 

Question

After reading your moving and poetic answer in Q&A 9-25-14, to the question from Ed Branthaver: "Are you an atheist?” I couldn't help but revisit definitions of pantheism, theism, deism and atheism. In all your writings you show how supernatural theism has been utterly demolished by the rise of Western science, but you state that you continue to believe in God so you are not an atheist. You are very conscious to reflect modern human understanding and cite Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Freud and Einstein in describing your approach so that it resonates with educated people. Belief in a God by nature and reason, however, is deism and here I am reminded of perhaps George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two men of the Enlightenment. Then your beautiful phrase, "I believe I walk in God and with God and that God lives in me and through me," reminds me of Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Here I note a hint of pantheism there in that God is within us. You conclude that our God language must become less concrete and more mystical." So, as I grapple with everything you say, I still perceive deistic-pantheistic-mystical elements in your thinking. You have, however, characterized it differently, which I respect. All this aside, you believe in God. What I think many readers - and certainly this 46 year old active Episcopalian - would LOVE to hear from you is why you think God exists. I often wonder if you just skip over this in your effort to dissuade us of theism. Growing scientific understanding aside, at your core, what moves you to belief in God? What gives you that primal confidence in the existence of God in the midst of all these reductions or re-crafting of theological understanding?

Answer

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your letter. I find it of interest that I received more mail in response to my answer to Ed Branthaver (Q&A September 25, 2014) than any other recent writing. I often wonder what triggers this response, but the writers are so personal in their comments that it is difficult to isolate within their letters any pattern.

I wish I could satisfy one who calls himself a “46 year old active Episcopalian,” but I fear that the nature of theology makes that almost impossible. For example, your letter seeks to explain my point of view inside some categories of the past like deism, pantheism and mysticism. I can see the connections you make, but all of your categories are offered as alternatives for theism when in fact they are better described as variations of theism, so theism still stands at the heart of the debate. I, for example, would not accept deism or pantheism as a correct definition of my point of view. Mysticism would be more acceptable only because it is less capable of being defined.

I do not believe in God for any reason. For me believing in God is about believing in life, believing in love or even believing in air. I assume the reality of God and then seek to walk into the meaning of that assumption. When you ask me to state my reasons for believing that “God exists,“ I want to shout that existence itself is a category that makes sense only inside time and space and that God cannot be bound by such human constructs. I see and experience transcendence everywhere. I see the power of life being exhibited in every living thing. I see patterns in life that make sense only when life is viewed as a whole. I see people who have enormous capacities to love. I see consciousness skipping over barrier after barrier. I see relationships that call people into new levels of being. All of these things I see as the experience of the God, whom I cannot define, nor do I seek to do so. Every definition of God, every theism, pantheism, panentheism, deism and even atheism is the product of a human mind that cannot possibly embrace the dimension of the divine. To answer a question like “Does God exist?” is to pretend that I can enter the mind of God. Does my inability to define God mean that there is no God? I do not think so. Many, maybe most people seem to believe in God because they need for God to exist. I do not. I believe in God because God is. What kind of God? God knows, I do not. I think the theistic understanding of God is bankrupt. The problem is that most people seem unable to conceive of God except in theistic terms, so they cling to the bankruptcy of theism as “better than nothing.” I believe that we can let theism die, as it is now doing, and still continue to walk into the mystery of God. It would never occur to me to think that if the traditional definition of God dies, then God must also die.

In my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, New Jersey, I continue to hear theistic language in prayers, sermons, hymns and liturgy. I see them as human metaphors, which can never bind my spirit, but which point beyond themselves to a reality that in Paul’s words, we can see “only through a glass darkly.” What we must never do is to identify the metaphor with the reality. The metaphor will always die. The reality will never die. Human life is so constructed that we will always need a metaphor. Our human tendency is to literalize the metaphor. That will always guarantee its death.

So I shall remain a pilgrim, walking daily into the mystery of God. I will walk beyond all boundaries, beyond scripture and creeds, beyond doctrine and tradition, beyond Christianity itself. I will never confuse the pointer with the reality to which it points.

My stance frustrates many. It even angers some, which is always revelatory. Mine is the journey of a lifetime. I love to quote a retired bishop who said, “the older I get, the more deeply I believe, but the less beliefs I have.”

I hope this helps you understand. Thanks for writing.

John Shelby Spong

 

Comments

 

2 thoughts on “On Visiting a Nazi Concentration Camp

  1. WordPress › Error

    There has been a critical error on this website.

    Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.