I Wanna Hold God’s Hand - ?
“Yeah God’s/Got that somethin’/I think you’ll understand . . .”
The Beatles, I Wanna Hold God’s Hand, 1963 – first draft
Atheist readers, please bear with me; you’re included below even if you don’t really believe that this was the original lyric from the first draft of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
A theme that comes up from time to time both here and on other religion blogs is the distinction between a personal God and God as pointed to by contemplative or “mystical” traditions (not crazy about that word, but don’t want to digress).
But is the distinction truly meaningful?
In meditation or contemplative prayer, the experience certainly isn’t “impersonal.” It doesn’t feel cold. There’s no sense, say, of waiting at a divine deli counter with God indifferently having you take a number to stand at the back of the line. Rather, it’s an immense experience, more than can be described – the opposite of feeling left out or dehumanized.
For those who conceive of God in personal terms, isn’t this conception more of a helpful image than a matter of literally seeing God as human? Even if God (in Christianity as the Father or for that matter as the Son) has a human dimension, isn’t that which makes God God – the Father and the Son and not the father and son – something that transcends humanness? Furthermore, isn’t this “something” likely to be along the lines of what mystics try to suggest with other sorts of language?
Now consider an atheist looking up at the stars and experiencing awe in the face of what he or she understands as nature or being-itself. The atheist is amazed at nature’s immensity and how such a vast force ended up briefly washing her up on time’s changing shoreline to feel such things.
How much of a stretch is it to capitalize Being in this experience?
Should we really distinguish among a personal God as given names by Christianity and other religions; the ineffable God of mysticism; and Being-Itself as the atheist responds to it? If so, what’s the critical distinction?
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing – but doesn’t it mean everything if it does?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . . A Being by any other name would be the same?
The Beatles, I Wanna Hold God’s Hand, 1963 – first draft
Atheist readers, please bear with me; you’re included below even if you don’t really believe that this was the original lyric from the first draft of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
A theme that comes up from time to time both here and on other religion blogs is the distinction between a personal God and God as pointed to by contemplative or “mystical” traditions (not crazy about that word, but don’t want to digress).
But is the distinction truly meaningful?
In meditation or contemplative prayer, the experience certainly isn’t “impersonal.” It doesn’t feel cold. There’s no sense, say, of waiting at a divine deli counter with God indifferently having you take a number to stand at the back of the line. Rather, it’s an immense experience, more than can be described – the opposite of feeling left out or dehumanized.
For those who conceive of God in personal terms, isn’t this conception more of a helpful image than a matter of literally seeing God as human? Even if God (in Christianity as the Father or for that matter as the Son) has a human dimension, isn’t that which makes God God – the Father and the Son and not the father and son – something that transcends humanness? Furthermore, isn’t this “something” likely to be along the lines of what mystics try to suggest with other sorts of language?
Now consider an atheist looking up at the stars and experiencing awe in the face of what he or she understands as nature or being-itself. The atheist is amazed at nature’s immensity and how such a vast force ended up briefly washing her up on time’s changing shoreline to feel such things.
How much of a stretch is it to capitalize Being in this experience?
Should we really distinguish among a personal God as given names by Christianity and other religions; the ineffable God of mysticism; and Being-Itself as the atheist responds to it? If so, what’s the critical distinction?
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing – but doesn’t it mean everything if it does?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . . A Being by any other name would be the same?
Posted by Paul at 2:15 PM Permalink
34 Comments:
As I write this, it seems to me that my biggest problem with this whole "god thing" is that humans are too busy defining how big, how engaged in our lives, what the cult requirements are for belonging to the club and of course, the big bonus question, "what next?" What if god/nature were utterly indifferent to our small selves? What if the question isn't 'do you believe in god?' but - 'does god believe in/notice you?'
I could as easily imagine a god literally rolling on the (ground? firmament?) in laughter at the mere notion that he/she/it is even paying attention to what we do.
Do we notice the action of one small bee in a hive? In Plato's time it was thought that the gods were quite likely to punish entire villages for the misbehavior of individuals. Like if a bee stings you, you crush the hive. That is certainly the flavor of doom that is most congruent with nature-as-god. So it seems to me that the framework - human form/personality? or natures combination of obliviousness and thundering response? (cut one sacred tree, nature doesn't notice. cut all the sacred trees and wrath of nature is global warming. definatly more aligned with punishment of the village.
I'm not even sure I'm coherent here. must go think.
if "being" is defined as one's basic or essential nature I guess life itself could be called a being, but in a definition that presupposes a self (as in one's self), or, "as organism: a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently" (wordnet.princeton.edu/), then I would say a being is an independent part of life (making life itself not a "being," but capable of supporting beings). It seems the moment we decide in favor of a personal God, he/she/it takes on the properties of what we think of as a being like us (i.e. hands to hold, a sympathetic heart, and an understanding (if sometimes unfathomable) thought process. I cannot wrap my mind around a "being" capable of producing what we call life or the known universe; it would be far beyond any definition I have of a being. I fare better thinking of nature as indifferent to anything but going on anyway it can. That there are patterns to that coping isn't a surprise.
"So it seems to me that the framework - god in human form/personality? or natures combination of obliviousness and thundering response - really does matter.
(Nature's response: cut one sacred tree, nature doesn't notice/care. cut all the sacred trees and the wrath of nature is global warming. This is definitely more aligned with punishment of the village, than it is with a personal response of a personal god.)
I have a problem with the term "wrath of nature" though, because it is again a mood, an anger that is all too human.
Perhaps nature really doesn't care whether the earth is fragrant, fecund and fertile - and is just as happy with the harsh climate on Mars. If all of these possibilities are different faces of nature, why would nature care that we like the green, moist personna more than the red, dry one?
Indifference: You mention the idea of nature as indifferent. I think many people would see this as major - whether a person believes that the largest context or Context in which we find ourselves is indifferent to or affirming of our best impulses and aspirations. Is a Godless, or, so to speak, deity-free nature, being, or reality, necessarily an indifferent one? Would it be the same sort of indifference that people often have for others or some other kind of indifference?
I think this is basically what you’re wondering about in your second comment…
Punishment: God as punisher, with hell as the ultimate punishment - certainly this would represent a distinctively human-like characteristic. It seems to me that within Christianity, punishment-God finds favor among some Christians but not others, so this is a real distinction in how God is conceived.
But how essential, I wonder? The urge to punish seems to me to be a very human thing. Do those who favor a punishing God see their God's desire to strike back in retribution as central to his divinity?
Thanks for striking out in some important directions with your comment.
PAULINE: I see what you mean about how lives, beings, or selves that are a part of life or being itself could well make poor analogues to that more comprehensive totality or process. Still, some analogies – like “coping” – often seem to strike people as more or less plausible...
REDHOG: You zoned right in on an aspect of my own perspective with your comment - so apparently I wasn't simply asking a question like I thought I was and told Hayden above!
Yes, I've suggested that awe is an important religious or spiritual experience.
VISHESH: Do you mean that words have no meaning? Little meaning? But what else can I put on my blog, I haven't learned how to do the picture thing, lol!
Indifferent nature doesn't imply that there aren't 'right' ways to behave, doesn't imply that being in rhythm with nature, in tune, isn't the goal. It just removes the human characteristics, including the obsession with planning and designing.
life doesn't have to be planned to be - that belief seems to me to be way too much influenced by the limitations of science, and the limitations of our own minds.
Consider a writing analogy. If all authors believed their work would only be worth writing (legitimate) after it was picked up by a major publisher, then we would not be blessed with many classics today. Yet many people tell themselves they don't have a publishing contract so they aren't really writers. (Hogwash!) A person is a writer because he or she thinks this is the case not because someone else decides. Self-confidence or fear define us if we choose, invite contracts and opportunities into our lives or blind us to infinite possibilities.
In a nutshell, each thought we generate is an invitation to recognize the fears we harbour. We have choices to live our lives in ways that permit us to work through our insecurities and prove destructive echos from our ego wrong.
Keshi.
HAYDEN: Me too. To me the notion of a God so extremely human as to have an ego problem doesn’t make sense at any level. I’m with you on the “planning” too. I think that preconceived notions and plans are pretty much the opposite of creativity. To me, the world looks like a genuine creation and not a pre-fab construction. To look at it in biblical terms, God created the world, he didn’t manufacture it.
The Bible also says God rested on the seventh day. Maybe it’s still the seventh day in God-time and God’s expecting us to participate in the process…
LIARA: I think I commented on the state of publishing today in your thread. My statement was factual; the changes in book publishing over the last several decades are well known by people involved with the industry and easily researched. There’s inner reality but there’s also social reality.
On many fronts, social realities in the US have come to reflect the fact that doing everything possible to maximize short term profits, even at the expense of the quality of products and services delivered, is what it’s all about today for many of those with the most power and control and whose influence has extended to government such that government has relinquished more and more of its regulatory responsibilities over the last 30 years. How heath insurance corporations limit citizen access to health care and how energy interests keep the US from leading on the environment are two prominent examples.
An overly externalized view of the problems we face is a distortion of reality, but so is an overly internalized view.
KESHI: I wasn’t clear on his meaning. What did you take it to be?
We feel, think, sense, become aware of something in our environment and try, as best we can, at times to share it through language. Because it has meaning to us. And maybe it will have like meaning to another. Sometimes we seek validation of an experience. Sometimes it's more forceful. I think the conversation about God is like that.
I realize I had an uncomfortable experience stemming from a particular upbringing that has caused me now to distance myself from that faith more or less lately.
So I think where we can differ is how specific terms resonate to us. Yet underlying this to many may be a shared thread. I respect also that it may not. And maybe through words we'll know the difference or connections. Maybe that is why we created blogs (smiles).
We need to anthropomorphise God because at our present state of development we are the measure of all things.
We're the benchmark.
CARRIE: Love figures prominently in all major religious traditions, and I see it as the cornerstone of spiritual life.
While I think we're called to lives of love - and unless we're going in that direction we're going the wrong way - I wouldn't personally feel confident about 100% identifying God with love. Love isn't the only powerful and transformative spiritual experience that we can have simply as human beings.
DONN: Good point, and I think it speaks well to Carrie's comment. That tendency to equate God with love is a natural given that when we love, we're at our best.
As an adult, about to turn 60, I have come to realize over the years that not only is the Catholic Church way off base on so many things, but that the Catholic Church would have you believe He is exclusively for Catholics and no one else. That is certainly what they taught in Catholic Schools.
My sense now is that God is in everything and everyone, sometimes difficult to understand with some human beings, but that God is such a massive presence, none of us can comprehend the greatness of His existence. So how can He not be a part of everything?
My apologies for my lack of understanding the philosophy of it all.
Love,
Suzy
... all the splendid loveliness of the natural world is everywhere attended - and indeed preserved - by death. All life feeds on life ..... So then, what sort of God should a purely "natural" theology invite us to see? ...
Only with a personal God can there be love and relationship, I think. But you don't have to see God as "human-like" to see him as personal - the thing that makes him personal is the responciveness, the interaction, the love. The stars are awesome and beautiful, and though you may love them, you can't interact with them.
I thank you for the comments on my blog (I responded). I agree with you many changes have unfolded in the publishing industry. Short-term profit is a key motivation of most publishers and especially better-known ones. Some take risks, but as you suggest, a marketing platform is useful for anyone with the hope to share some kind of message.
Its worth noting profit is not always the primary motivation for writers to get work published. It makes sense to reflect on reasons why writers seek an audience. We seek attention and desire to be heard, but why? What kind of intention is this desire grounded in? Does an author have a receptive audience already? Are they waiting for a book? Does the author have mulitple manuscripts and is simply waiting for "the right one?"
Some people associate best-selling potential with legitimacy and don't feel worthy or like "real authors" until a royalty cheque pays at least the bills. The self-publishing industry, e-books and other options now enable people to reach audiences and let the market decide what comes naturally. Teachers and professors are an example of writers who aim to provide materials to students. Sometimes text books evolve into other projects. Making money is good, but it may be a bonus.
CRYSTAL: Do we know enough about the nature of all-nature to be able to distinguish nature from God? Even where God is conceived in personal terms, there would be no God apart from transcendence of human nature.
And while nature as we can see it through microscopes and telescopes appears non-affirming of our human lives, both individually and collectively - if you don't count the fact that it supports us in being here... do we already know the extent of all nature? Has science already grasped the fullness of the biggest picture to know that it does not ultimately affirm us?
If there is One in whom we live and move and have our being, how do we know whether to call that one God or Nature? Would it make a difference?
Btw, I appreciate your perspective on a personal God very much. The fact that this has come up now and them in going back and forth with you is, I'm pretty sure, mainly what led to this post...!
LIARA: Yes, there are many different reasons that people have for writing and many different types of outlets for writing. I'd expect that most people in a particular field or subject area who have given serious thought and attention to their work want to see it published so that it has a chance to contribute to contemporary discourse in their area of interest.
SAGE, lol - that sure sounds like Twain. Wish that guy could have lived at least a few hundred years. I think we could have used a lot more of his remarks. Unfortunately the rumors of his death are no longer so greatly exaggerated...
The time has come.
I am here to bring judgment to the living and the dead. The harvest is ripe.
The Faithful Witness
Duke
DUKE: Darn - bad timing with that revelation I just made about me and Angie...
Crystal said this. "But you don't have to see God as "human-like" to see him as personal - the thing that makes him personal is the responciveness, the interaction, the love. The stars are awesome and beautiful, and though you may love them, you can't interact with them."
Her comment caught my attention because I've tried to understand the idea that God interacts w/ us. What I don't understand is this. When you say you interact w/ God, just what exactly are you interacting with? What is the object of your interactions?
I understand going to the woods having a peaceful experience (or even getting lost and having a bad experience). There you've interacted with nature, ie trees, rocks, birds, etc. Then when I try to understand what an interaction w/ God means I'm left confused.
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