Pronouns, God, and Laziness

Some of the things I do in church and services go unnoticed.

For example, I never use pronouns for God. I try very very hard to not say he, his, her, him, she etc.

Now, a basic reason for this is I am very, very sure that God is not a person. After all, that would be creating something in our own image - and it would be arrogant to think that of all life in the universe, the supreme form of life is just like me.

In reality, however, my reason is deeper and fundamentally different. It is not that I do not think God has genitalia. It is that I do not think God has agency. This is why I do not consider myself a theist.

A key portion of theism is the idea that "God interacts in the affairs of men" (to put it in the old fashioned sexist way) and most people see that and immediately get their hackles up about the idea of it being only "men"... while my hackles go up because of the idea of "interacts".

Again, my problem is deeper than the traditional surface problem.

Here is where it falls down for most people. If God pulls the strings why is there bad? Why do saints get cancer? Why are children abused? etc. etc. etc. Which in and of itself is a compelling argument against a God who controls everything?

But I suggest the original reason we dreamt up omnipotence (all powerfulness) was laziness, pure and simple. And not just wanting to sleep in laziness, but a deep-down flaw in human nature that makes us look for the easy way out of the hardest circumstances.

In other words, instead of doing the hard work of understanding reality and our place in it - we pass the buck and throw our hands into the air saying only God knows why things like this happen.

If you think that you do not pass the buck consider if these sorts of words have ever passed your lips - "God doesn't give us more than we can handle" "It will all become known when we get to heaven" "this must be according to God's plan" "Ours is not to reason why" "Leave it at the foot of the cross" or even "have faith"

Not only are these patently untrue statements - but they are cop-outs.

Hear me out, God is not a person who is doing things actively, God is a power that we can tap in to.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The problem with statements like the above is that we give up our agency and make it about whether or not God is going to do it.

I have seen some worst-case scenarios for this - a colleague who believed if God wanted us to get to the retreat then God would somehow figure out a way to fill the tank with Gas. (that way ended up being me paying for gas) or a parent who lets their child die because God must have willed it and medicine is for the unfaithful.

But on a less harsh tact, the problem could be as simple as saying that God must want me to be lonely or else someone would show up at my doorstep with flowers in hand.

It is part of us giving up on our own power and sitting back waiting for someone else to solve the problem. Only on a larger, global, supernatural scale.

So when I write prayers I carefully go through and take out the agency for God and put it back onto us. God grant us the grace to becomes, may we find the grace to... The love of God be with you becomes may God's love work through you. and things like that.

Because I firmly believe that Jesus and the boys who came to help us find spirituality were always about us realizing that the Kingdom of God was within us - that the power of God was within us... etc.

So back to God being the power we can tap into. Let us say that there is no old man in the sky, but let us look to that most visionary of spiritual authorities, George Lucas, who in the original Star Wars trilogy defined God as "The Force" a connection between all living things that we could tap into in order to be more fully who we were meant to be.

That is a god which makes sense. There IS God. It is, however you label it, force, goodness, love, universal harmony - some power base in and behind everything. It is there for us to tap into at any time. But it is not, of itself, doing anything.

So God did not give me cancer, nor did God take cancer away from me. Bad health decisions followed by good science did that. But what is more important is that me facing cancer with humour, empathy, warmth and grace was me tapping into God.

And the only way anyone could know God is by witnessing someone tapping into that strength.

When I view it this way everything falls into place. There is no reason God is or is not doing anything - life is random. How we react to life, however, is the real test of faith and the real place that God is present.

It is not just philosophically true, it makes sense on so many levels, including Jesus' teaching where he said things like when you take care of widows and orphans God is there.

So Marx was right - we use religion to pass the buck - but we do not have to.