The God Conundrum

Anyone out there in the blogosphere had their days interrupted by the mosquito-like buzzing that Jehovah's Witnesses recently? I did today.

Aside: This is not some tyrannical rant about people telling me their beliefs. If you want that, simply tune in Fox and watch the O'Reilly Factor. No, seriously. End Aside.

The point of this, as you may have been told from the above "aside," is not to demonize people for foisting their beliefs off on me, but rather to try to foist mine off on you. You see, as they talked to me more and more, I realized two distinct things. First, that they didn't really sound like they had thought too deeply about the things they were talking about; and second, that they sounded an awful lot like other people who had talked to me about the exact same things. I include, in this bunch, most theologians with whom I have talked, including my priests growing up. It is, simply put, drivel.

So. What is faith? Other than a good buzzword come election season, that is? Any one? If you said it is the belief that God, or whatever, exists even though you can't see Him/Her/It, you aren't wrong, but you are miles away from right. I've spent some time thinking about religion, God, faith, and what-have-you recently, and, although you may not believe it, I have found my answer in Nietzsche. The good man, god-hater though he was, defined what language is for us in his essay "On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense;" namely, a series of metaphors with which we can describe an object. For example, the screen that you see in front of you has nothing about it that makes it a screen, but rather simply the label that we attach to it. We say that it is a screen, therefore it is a screen. The same is true about every thing. I say that I read books, therefore I read books. If I say that I read rollercoasters, and you agree that I read rollercoasters, then I read rollercoasters.

What does this have to do with God? Well, directly, nothing yet, but when one thinks about this, one will realize that because objects do not exist in the manner we are comfortable thinking about them (remember, that even images are metaphors, therefore pictures are also metaphorical, not only language, as is touch and sound.) reality does not exist in the manner we are comfortable with, it only does because we say and believe that it does. A rock can just as easily fall up when I drop it as down, it only differs in which way I perceive it to go. There is just as much nothing about the direction "up" that makes it "up," as there is about a "screen" that makes it a "screen." There is a true object that exists to these words, but because of how metaphorical our reality is (i.e. perceived through metaphor), we will forever be unfamiliar with what the true object is.

What about the word "God." What does that one mean? I mean it, this is an honest question, you have to define what God is. I hope that you can't do it, because if you can, you're either lying or a Baptist. Our conception of God is forever going to fall short, as our conception of any object falls short, but on a far grander scale. If God exists, in whatever version you want Him to (I'm going to use the words "God," and "Him" here so I don't have to add further disclaimer to nonChristians. It's simply shorter than "Allah," "Buddha," et al. Very sorry.), he does so in a manner that we will never slightly comprehend. I'm reminded of Book Four of Paradise Lost here, as Milton fallaciously tries to reconcile to himself what a divine conversation between God and angels would be like, and God sees the future and decrees that although Man will Fall, he will also be Redeemed. By believing in a unilateral God like this, (that is, one who is all-powerful, all-existent, and all-knowing) that God limits Himself. If God knows what will happen in the future, then He also knows what His reaction to the future will be, therefore limiting his own power. God cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing at the same time, for it presents a logical conundrum as evidenced.

So: what does this mean? Nothing really. I'm serious here, it means nothing. First it means that God cannot exist logically if He is these aforementioned things. But if God exists, He does it outside of the realm of our understanding. There is nothing to say that he exists in a fashion in which knowledge, power, or existence are even available. By caricaturing God into this petty Zeus-like image, perched in his lofty throne in the clouds, we demean what God is more than any heretic. That's what faith is. It is the belief in the one thing that is truly and forever incomprehensible to Man. By this here, God must both exist, and not exist. It simply depends on the subject on whether or not they say he does.