Part five of the series: What do you mean by God?
Susan Beaver is a student minister at Grand River United on Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve.
I have tried to summarize the other articles, but that approach wouldn’t feel appropriate for Susan Beaver’s contribution. It is narrative and a meditation. It would be better served if kept in that spirit and tradition.
My two questions that frame this series might not fit so well here, but I do wish to ask anyway:
1. What do you think of this description of God? Is this a useful description for God today? Is this meaningful for you?
2. What does this mean for the Bible? Would the Bible be an authority-text under such an understanding of God? Would the Bible have to be edited? (and by Bible I’m willing to mean more generally ‘sacred texts’.)
What do you think?
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Source article (scroll down to Susan Beaver).
Hmm. My comment to this is probably similar to a lot of descriptions of god. Is God love? Even in strictly Christian tradition while indubitably also true (1 John 4:8), it certainly cannot be the whole story. Just look at Paul’s endless worries about love and sin, condemnation and salvation.
Of course other traditions have a very different view on this. Not for nothing the basic Islamic profession of faith is not “God is Love” but “God is Great”.
Do you know Yann Martels brilliant book “Life of Pi”? In it the main character as a boy secretly becomes a devout Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. The story of his conversion to all three major religions and how he characterizes each in comparison, and how they each give him something worthwhile is one of my favourite pieces of writing.
I like the story Ms. Beaver tells, and I have no problem believing her. od (or something) can speak to those willing to listen. Well, He has spoken to me in the past, several times, and it is very, very hard to believe that it was just a part of myself, or mild temporal love epilepsy, or schizophrenia. (Though I admit, if it is, I would be the last person to be able to say so. Nature of the beast and all that.) I mean, of course He would use something physical, a part of myself, cultural memes already embedded in my mind, neurological mechanisms and whatnot to do so, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t something behind it. When I read a post or a comment from you I don’t insist that it was only electrons in this computer, only photons being emitted from this monitor that caused the meaning within your writing, would I?
Anyway, so I can believe that Ms. Beaver recieved a message of love from somewhere, and I can believe that, as the old woman said, that message was God (though it is gramatically unclear if the message would be from God or if the very message already was God itself). But either there must be more Gods ruling over other aspects of the world, or this message of love cannot be all God is.
I think I grow impatient with this God is Love stuff, because, well, we know that already, right? It’s been said, fine. But it’s being over-sold. As a con-man one knows that it is better to under-sell, to let the mark come to his own conclusion. This is off-putting.
What I want to hear from all these God-peddlers is what else is God?
Some try the Judge of Sinners spiel, but frankly, it is little convincing. Not cuz I don’t want it to be true – I certainly would have a LOT to answer for. And there was a time I was convinced that eventually I would have. Hell, that I already was paying. But seriously, it simply doesn’t hold up. If you’ve been around in the world a bit you can plainly see that no moral code has been built either into the world itself nor into human nature. I don’t just mean that peeps everywhere do evil with impunity. No, mostly I mean that peeps everywhere regard so utterly different things as “good”, and obviously do feel that with all of their conscience, that our inner ear – that very organ that Ms. Beaver heard the message of love with – obviously is not atuned to any one moral code.
God may be love. And he pretty obviously is no moral guardian. But what else is he? And, moreover, what is he not, i.e. how is He defined (from finis – border), how is He distinct from the amoral, uncaring, unthinking, chaos of the Scientist’s physical universe? Because if that is all He is, well, why the hell call Him God?
Life of Pi is remarkable! The triple conversion story is a great breakthrough for those that think spiritual labels are concrete or exclusive. There is so much stretchiness and malleability in our beliefs and thoughts.
The love thing. You know, I’m with you in so many ways. Bruce Sanguin equated love with gravity in one of his books – the force that binds all the universe together type of kyfe. He is trying to put an evolutionary spin on Christianity. I want to applaud his efforts for changing the religion, but the gravity = love thing is a dangerous metaphor at best, and not even wrong, to use a scientist’s insult. I mean, if we consider entropy, what does that say about God = love then? Yea, we need to go further and ask “what else?”, as you say.
Beaver’s story was the only one so far that spoke to me because it seemed to tap a personal experience, and a personal implication for her to act a certain way — something of a theme for my site, after all. But it was her feeling of gratitude that intrigued me most, and I’m going to explore that a little more in the weeks to come.
Yea, love is a kind of default explanation that doesn’t really explain much, does it. And In some ways, there is nothing morally superior to what people often do for love, or when in love.
btw, God-peddlers — good one. I might want to build on that phrase. Oh wait… am I a God-peddler? I need to think about my own role here a bit….