Apparently, Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who heroically leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, was not a religious man. His son, Robert Ellsberg, a Christian author and publisher, tried to explain his spiritual beliefs to his father by saying, “I do not believe in the God you don’t believe in.” While I’m sure my perspective differs from Robert’s, I find that sentiment very relatable.
I identified as an atheist for a long time. I recall, during my freshman year at Saint Michael’s College, arguing late into the night with my devout friends about the existence of God. For me, what’s known in theological circles as the problem of evil clearly showed there was no all powerful, all knowing, and all good divine being. Frankly, I was scornful of my friends’ heartfelt views.
My emphasis on the political importance of atheism faded. However, I retained this basic outlook for approximately a decade and a half. Given these circumstances, I feel I should be a little bit more precise in explaining what I mean when I talk about God as a reality. I still don’t believe in the common Christian understanding of the divine as an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being.
In my panentheistic view, God is an impersonal force undergirding and extending beyond the universe. The divine is all truth, all beauty and all goodness. It’s eternal. Frequently, God is hard to recognize amidst the pervasive evil surrounding us. This reflects a degree of divine absence — of God net yet having fully encompassed the material realm. But there remain traces of the divine in everything.
My mother identifies as a Christian, however, her favorite spiritual author is the Hindu perennialist Eknath Easwaran. He’s subsequently had a deep influence on my thinking. One of the aspects of his work which I most appreciate is how he differentiates between the culturally-specific metaphors we use to talk about God from the underlying divine reality, that is universally experienced.
Again, I believe God is more accurately described as a force. The divine is not a being. It’s not male or female. The only way we can argue humans are made in God’s image is in their greater potential to comprehend and live in accordance with the divine will of peace. In secular philosophy, expressing the same idea, we’d call humans ‘moral agents’ and animals ‘moral patients.’
Even to speak of a divine will is metaphorical. God does not have desires. The divine is a benevolent force which we must seek to align ourselves with. To the extent we try to align ourselves with what is good, which is eternal, those aspects of ourselves become eternal as well. Due to my background, I’m most fond of Christian ideas of the afterlife, but they’re metaphors too.
Of course, we’re all limited in our ability to truly perceive what is good. That’s why I believe what matters is our earnest intention to align ourselves with God. As a result, animals and other so-called ‘moral patients’ earn immortality to the degree they choose love and selflessness within their more circumscribed understanding of right and wrong. Their standard is different.
Circling back to the problem of evil, even though God is not a being, we can say, in a certain sense, the divine is all powerful, all knowing and all good — because God is in everything. All power, all knowledge, and all goodness originate from the divine. In our efforts to align ourselves with God, we are trying to become divine agents, helping in our small way to build a caring, peaceful universe.
Reading this, you might assume I’m opposed to talking about God in a metaphorical way, but that’s not the case. I think it’s a practical necessity. As Easwaran notes, it would be difficult to devote oneself to an impersonal boyfriend or girlfriend and so it can be with the divine. We can get in trouble, though, I think, when we forget or don’t realize the ways we talk about God are metaphorical.