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Does God really exist? How can anyone ever know simply by thinking about it? No. God does not exist. God is. There is a big difference between existing and being. "Existing" so strongly implies a way of being--a way of being that "stands outside itself." The Latin behind the word "ex-sistence" tends to signify a being of a certain kind: complex and, well, somewhat foreign to itself. Regular folks, as well as philosophers and theologians, get themselves into traps by thinking that the meanings for existence and being are practically identical. But God is not a "secret treasure" hidden from our gaze that is to be sought in some special corner of being. God does not exist in the world. God is...in the world and not in the world--both. God's be-ing transcends (is radically other than) any and all existence and worlds. Nor is it best to think of God as Being Itself, Susistent Being (ipsum esse subsistens), even though Thomas Aquinas and many others have put it that way. It has some merit to think of God as subsisting, but every created person also subsists. And to say God is subsistent esse (be-ing) is unwittingly to imply a bit of pantheism, as though God were the only being that is in and through itself. God is better said to be Being Unlimited ("unlimitedly subsistent")--infinite Being. God does not "stand" or "subsist" at all--except as a necessary crutch for our limping minds that are partly, but most significantly, the result of an originative fall or plunge from God-giftedness. God is, simply and without limits [and, as Christians claim, three Persons in one infinite nature]. God is reality unlimited--absolutely infinite perfection of Being and Personhood. So, we really do not experience God. We know the Being of God. We know the being of God along with our knowing of the being of anything or anyone. The problem is that we might not know we are knowing the Being of God. "Proving the existence of God," as it was often called in the past, is rather a matter of coming to know, for sure, that we know God is. If we were alert, we would not even question whether God is. The big wonder might be whether reality is both limited and unlimited, or whether reality can be both limited (as it most obviously is) and unlimited (as might not be so obvious, at first). And so the question about God might be phrased: whether unlimited Being really is. [Pantheists do not really believe in unlimited Being since they think that limited beings are part of "unlimited being." (We are "part" of God or vice versa.) And there is no way that a being can be unlimited and consist--at least partly--in limited parts. If one would hold that God has three parts: the Father Person, the Word Person, and the Holy Spirit Person that might be reasonable...granted that they are using the word parts with a non-quantitative, non-finite meaning. They would be referring to three Persons who are infinitely Themselves and each of Whom is not identical to, but equal in essence with, the Other two. The three Persons of God are thus three "parts" of Infinite Identity, three infinite "parts" of infinite Being.] What do you think? Can reality or being be unlimited? Can there be more to reality than a fixed set of entities that interact with one another? Can there be a ground or condition for any set of entities--however few or multitudinous--that is ultimately responsible for all these limited entities being what they are and for their being-at-all and is in no way a "part" of them? Let's put it another way. Can anything be at all the giver of its own be-ing? We can see that person-beings are able to receive or not to receive their own beings by the very attitude they adopt to reality. I can fail to receive and appreciate that I am and who I am. Indeed I find myself quite weak in doing so, even when I try my best. But no being is able to gift itself to be "out of nothing." Such a being would have to "be before it is"--even were the gifting of being done at the same moment as the receiving of it. This gifter being would still have to be prior in being--not necessarily in time--to the gifted one. So the giver of being, absolutely, would be other than the gifted one, the receiver. Now if all of the actual limited beings--as individuals and as a totality--are not able to give themselves to be-at-all, then the only reasonable inference is that they really are because they were gifted to be by a Being who simply is and freely bestows a share in be-ing on each of those who are limitedly who they are. These gift-beings (creatures) are limitedly being, i.e., they need not ever be. But they are and are perfect, limited beings--not imperfect ones, unless they freely make themselves so, by an originative failure of their own. There is nothing imperfect about being limited, though every imperfection is a limitation. (So many philosophers make the mistake of confusing being limited with being imperfect. They thereby disparage the Being of God, who is thought to create creatures as imperfect beings. But there is nothing imperfect about a limited being being limited--a being not able to be God.) There can be only one absolute Giver-kind of being--infinite, unlimited being! If we do not acknowledge that, we conduct ourselves, deliberately or unwittingly, in an absurd way relative to ourselves and all others. And many folks would prefer to do that than have to admit that they are not the source and center of their very own being...it's too humbling. And we are proud...at least by ordinary inclination. What have we done just now? We have simply looked into the be-ing activity of each one of us--singly, and as a whole. We have then recognized that each and every being is unable to explain why it is at all. Add zero explanation to zero explanation. Keep on adding this way a finite number of times or an "infinite" number of times--which is really an indefinite number, not infinite--and you still get the answer: zero. No explanation for why anything is at all. Only when we are humble enough to realize that we really ARE, and are not nothing, but "could have been nothing," are we able to affirm the truth that there is a Giver Being who simply is...and is infinitely, unlimitedly Being. This Being or God does not give being to Self. There may be giving and receiving within a being that is, but to think of a being as its own creator is contradictory, absolutely speaking. Nonetheless, this Being, the Divine Selfhood, is-- and is absolutely free to be and be Self. Giving-Receiving, Not Causing-Effecting We are not using the traditional cause-effect language here. That language is good, and is somewhat implied here. But so often people think of cause in an inadequate way. They think a cause is anything that something else (an effect) depends upon for its being or its coming to be. But that is the kind of cause that applies to reality that is limited. Beings that are limited and fallen are causes and effects in the way of dependency. But in the act of creation of the whole of created being "out of nothing," God--the unlimited reality who is--gives the creature being, without any "strings attached" as it were. The "effect"--the created person--is and is who he or she is as independent in being-with-God. Not independent of God or from God; but independent with God. God creates originatively, "out of nothing," only perfect persons, who are not dependent, yet would not be without the gift of creation. That we are obviously imperfect persons as we are now means that we--the absolute receivers of that be-ing gift did our receiving badly. Until we get out from under the perennial "blame chain" (we blame Adam, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and the serpent blames God), we are going to be trapped into thinking that creation--in our case, at least--was an imperfect act of God. No wonder we ask whether God exists. We do whatever we can unconsciously to cover for our bad reception of be-ing. We treat God so badly in our thoughts and reasons, so that we "blame" God for "not existing" when God does not exist but is--and is-ing is the very act we are still refusing to do in our own case, at least to do well. We continue to decline responsibility for the way our being is when we are the ones receiving this absolute gift of be-ing--not God. Once we realize our now unconscious complicity in hiding the obvious be-ing of God in us and among us, we can begin to spend our energies on being grateful for being-at-all and for the God who gifted us to be. The God who is. For now, being-with-you....Robert Notes to Go So much more could be be said. You can find a much fuller treatment of the meaning of God and creation by reading Affirming Our Freedom in God: The Untold Story of Creation. It's a new view of the world's beginning and of our relationship of freedom in God. ******** |
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