Does “God” Have to be a Being?

If we stop thinking of God as a being, do we have to stop using the term “God”? Some people who call themselves atheists take this position. See for example, a thoughtful comment by James Tracy. Is he right?

It is possible to use words the way we want, of course, since we make up the definitions. However, I agree with Tracy that it distorts language and leads to confusion if we start defining “dog” to mean cat. However, defining God in some other way than an anthropomorphic being is a more complicated proposition. Even though the majority of persons have used the term that way for thousands of years, there are still good reasons for using the term God more broadly.

First, many important philosophers and theologians have described conceptions of God that are very different from the traditional one. Aristotle’s God was something like pure thought contemplating itself. Spinoza’s God was nature. Hegel’s God was the Absolute, which was something like an ultimate idea to which he believed history moves. Paul Tillich sometimes described God as the “ground of being” and the “ultimate concern.” Some mystical traditions have refused to describe God in concrete terms on the grounds that such a description invariably imposes limits on what is limitless. Instead, they find it possible only to say what God is not. None of these individuals would characterize themselves as atheists. We would be closing ourselves off from these valuable perspectives if we decided not to consider their conceptions of God.

Second, and even more importantly, using the term “God” more broadly than the conception of God described in the Old Testament preserves a tradition – perhaps the most important tradition we have – and creates a link among all those who participate in this tradition. This link is both an historic one and an ideological one. It provides a way for us to share in the beliefs and values of those who have gone before us, as far back as our pre-scientific ancestors who wrote the Old Testament and even earlier. It also provides a way for humans who do not think of God as a being to share in the tradition of those who do.

A Christian conservative, an Islamic mystic in the Suffi tradition, a scientist who (like Einstein) adopts Spinoza’s conception of God, and those (like me) who think of God as the spirit of love in the world all share one fundamental idea. We believe that there is something that is ultimately and supremely important in the universe. We believe there is a sacred dimension to life. By refusing to discard the term “God,” we have a way of sharing in that idea and communicating about it. In the long run, I believe we should contribute to the preservation of this tradition rather than let it fade away as science crushes old assumptions about what humans once attributed to the traditional conception of God.

Should Judges Have Empathy, Compassion or Neither One?

During the hearings on the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, there was an interesting debate over the role of “empathy” and “compassion” in decision-making by judges. In praising Sotomayor, President Obama commented that empathy and compassion are some of her strengths. In contrast, some conservative opponents argued that a judge who empathizes with others or has compassion for them her will ignore the law in favor of advancing her own agenda. For example, a recent column in American Thinker says: “What America needs right now is courage and mutual respect -- not empathy and sensitivity.”

Should judges have “empathy” or “compassion” and what is the difference between these two ideas anyway? Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “empathy” as the “projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better.” If you appear before a judge someday and have to explain your particular circumstances, would you want a judge who could mentally step into your shoes for a few minutes? I certainly would. The judge might still rule against you, send you to prison, deny you child custody, or take whatever action the law demanded. But one of the most frustrating, even infuriating, situations one can face is that those who have power over you do not understand your situation.

It is true that Supreme Court Justices don’t decide prison sentences or make rulings in child custody cases. They usually make purely “legal” rulings rather than decide facts. However, these legal rulings including far-reaching interpretations of the Constitution that must take into account real-world personal problems: Should a non-English speaker have a right to an interpreter in legal proceedings? Should the law require that the government provide an elevator to take a disabled person to an upper floor hearing? Should the law allow execution of a mentally disabled person? These and a thousand other cases require Supreme Court Justices to understand, as much as humanly possible, the effects of the law on individuals whose lives are very different from theirs. And, this requirement does not stop with the person who is a party before the court, for example, the defendant in a criminal case. It extends to the victims of a crime and their families, all those who might be affected significantly by a decision. It seems obvious that we want judges who understand the effects of their decisions on real people. Thus, President Obama was right that empathy is an important quality for judges, even Supreme Court Justices.

Although the word “compassion” can connote sympathy or pity, it can also mean a feeling of caring for others, even for those we do not know. In fact, it is the best word we have for genuine love of all other human beings. Should a Supreme Court Justice, or any judge, have compassion? Again, some conservatives say no. For example, Christopher Lasch in his book The Revolt of the Elites, says: “A misplaced compassion degrades both the victims, who are reduced to objects of pity, and their would-be benefactors, who find it easier to pity their fellow citizens than to hold them up to impersonal standards, attainment of which would entitle them to respect."

In The Uncertain Believer, I argue that compassion is the highest value in life. There are certainly many other worthy values, but none is as important or as central as this one. In fact, we can think of God as the central unifying idea that love of others is the highest value in life. The centrality of this value means that we should have compassion for others in whatever we do. That does not mean judges should twist the law because they “feel sorry” for someone who the law says should lose a case just as parents must discipline children whom they deeply love. Our professional, legal or moral obligation may be to send someone to prison, even to launch missiles on a terrorist camp. But in all cases, we should recognize that the people who are affected are human beings, not objects. The point is that the starting point for our basic approach to life should be compassion for others. That gives us a framework for living, from which we can carry out our responsibilities and live up to this highest value in life, or at least come as close as we can.

What if God Has Nothing to do with the Creation of the Universe?

Most of us were taught as children that God created the world in seven days. As we grew older, however, we learned about the age of the earth, evolution and the Big Bang, the primordial explosion of matter throughout the universe. The Big Bang probably occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the earth itself was formed about nine billion years later. Humans in the form of home sapiens developed perhaps 100,000 years ago. Consequently, if we think of “creation” as the history of the universe from the very beginning until the origin of the human species, it took billions of years, not seven days! How is it possible to reconcile these two radically different stories of how the universe was formed?

One way to reconcile the scientific account and the Biblical account is to interpret Genesis as a metaphorical account of creation. God still created the universe but He did so over an extremely long period. We could even look for passages in Genesis that seem consistent with this metaphorical explanation. For example, perhaps we could interpret Genesis 1:3 (“Let there be light and there was light”) as the Big Bang. We could interpret Genesis 1:27 (“God created man in his own image”) as God putting evolution in motion, knowing that the human species would come into existence billions of years later.

The problem with this approach is that it really doesn’t make any sense, does it? The authors of Genesis knew nothing about the how the universe was created. They were restating ancient legends in powerful, poetic language. Besides, would an omnipotent God really start with a fourteen billion year warm-up before getting to the main act? God as Creator is an idea developed by our pre-scientific ancestors who had no way of conceiving how the universe could be formed without a divine hand. Isaac Newton, probably the greatest scientist in history, knew nothing of the Big Bang, subatomic particles, black holes or quantum physics.

All that has changed. Scientists are steadily unraveling the mechanism and cause of the Big Bang by studying deep space and learning more about subatomic particles. For example, scientists at the Fermilab, one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the world, are trying to confirm the existence of a new subatomic particle, called the Higgs boson (or colloquially, the “God particle”) which may explain how all other particles are held together. Paradoxically perhaps, learning more about the behavior of subatomic particles may be the most promising path to understanding the vastness of the universe.

In The Uncertain Believer, I suggest a very different approach to reconciling the idea of God and creation: A modern conception of God has nothing to do with creation. Consequently, we can stop worrying about the role of God in the Big Bang or evolution and concentrate on a conception of God that provides a framework for living. That conception of God can have much greater meaning than the traditional God of the Bible by inspiring us to be as good as we can be. That leads to another paradox: Conceiving of a God that does not have the power to create the universe can lead to a God that has a much more powerful influence in our lives.