Today I publish a letter written in the aftermath of my efforts in composing the just recently blog published The Quest for Completion. This letter was a way for me to deal with my own agnosticism as I clocked between the faith of my parents and the opposites theism and atheism. I hope it will be a resource for those who want to bridge gaps in their understanding of the human condition. The Author.
An Epistle to Non-Believers I Deem My Brothers and Sisters in Ultimate Reality
My Dear Brothers and Sisters:
No one gets a free pass on doing the right thing because of how one answers the faith question. The moral complexity of this world is not reducible by answering the faith question. To the contrary, one who is absolved by society of wrongdoing is not to be absolved by one's own standard of high moral conduct. If I wish to have the courage necessary to live a life guided by a standard of high moral conduct, I have to accept the consequences of my conduct or failure to act if acting was required.
Likewise, I argue that the faith question when answered in the affirmative increases moral complexity because it necessarily results in the predicaments created by the highest standard of moral conduct, a standard that could be voided by disbelief. So how does one get one's arms around the threefold question which is from a limited human vantage point better avoided then intelligently answered: (1) Is there god: (2) is there a personhood in this god; and (3) is this God compassionate? I know the answer to these questions is personal.
I have taken a position on the faith question and act as one who has faith. I do not berate you for your disbelief in a loving God, or more especially your disbelief in God. More strongly, I have fellow feeling for atheists and deists who struggle with right conduct and commiserate with them. Likewise, I abhor true believers who do not struggle with doing the right thing but absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their conduct (hand-washing of a different order than nihilists hand-washing).
As a human I arrive at my faith through an appreciation of my human condition. My position is clear: I am incomplete by design and completed only by design by my acceptance and reliance on a loving and compassionate God for all that is lacking in my human condition. I realize that my posture is not universally accepted by others. I am sure that some others even say that my faith is not relevant. Obviously, they can not speak for me about my view of ultimate reality and relevance (my view being faith based).
We each decide for ourselves a response to our condition. Perhaps by design freedom to believe is requisite to belief. Significantly, I find contradictory the notion that the outcome of ultimate personal happiness is bestowed on believers and withheld from non-believers and find such a conclusion inconsistent with the basic belief in a loving compassionate God. More subtlely, I find it conclusive that acting in concert with a loving compassionate God is the very essence and definition of human happiness (such non-believers being beneficial children of God who in fact are in allegiance with the loving compassionate God who without having said so have acted so).
Relevance by definition is essentially about moral consequence of action or inaction. Human ethical conduct has everything to do with what is required of us to survive, thrive, and prevail as a species (and on a more limited scale as individuals). Our time as a species in existence is limited just as is our individual existence. We all regardless of posture taken on the "God question" have this commonality and in the face of this commonality find objective relevance. Answering the God question will not for one moment remove from us the burden of individual and collective efforts to transcend our past failures and rise to ever higher standards and conduct, not if this commonality is trusted and relied on as truly relevant.
In my view the person who refuses to torture another living person or thing is governed by the objective relevance of doing the right thing. He or she may lose his or her political or military position or chance at promotion, but that is an acceptable outcome compared to condoning or participating in torture for any reason. Objective relevance required that this person be self-governed. The same is true in corporate life by employees and shareholders, and failure to so act is an endorsement of what is wrong with corporate America but especially international corporate practices.
Is my belief in a loving, compassionate God, a flinch? Do I want an escape hatch which takes me as a human off the hot seat? Is an atheist not more courageous for his or her want of flinch? In writing out what I believe I find that this flinch (if that is what it is) is really about my quest for completion in something outside of myself. An atheist or theist is really not making the leap to something relevant outside of himself or herself except on the same ground as myself, the ethical ground. The only way in which we differ is in our conclusions on the God question. I tend to personalize the other which is outside of myself, outside of the human condition, while a theist or atheist does not because the leap of faith is not deemed relevant either to personal success or ethical conduct.
At what point does it ever become necessary to pose the God question (which is not to say the question does not arise of its own accord)? The answer is when it is clear that it is of moral consequence that we must do so. I for one believe that the necessity arises when we humans struggle with doing the right thing. In many circumstances I have to act or omit to act with insight, and sometimes only with hope, that my choice is God centered, not self-centered. Personal honesty about exercising choice is made possible by the compassionate God standard. There is no place to hide for me if I do the self-centered thing at the expense of the God centered thing, the loving action. Moral necessity is a very low threshold indeed without the compassionate God standard (this being the crux of the matter).
If a deist or atheist diverges in his conduct because of his lack of belief in God, he is not spared the ethical burdens. If a deist diverges in his conduct because of his belief in a loving God, he may be spared the consequence of his conduct ultimately to be resolved in favor of mercy. One is bemused to learn that there is a way out for the believer in a personal god, but no way out for the atheist or the deist without a personal god. I suggest we not abandon our commonality. We are all in this boat together. Does the "flinch" deserve more attention?
I am going to turn this whole discussion on it head by saying the following: The relevance issue really is about the reality of the God question in essence being about our human condition which is finite and terminable. Ethics is a result of our awareness of our finite and terminable condition. What is infinite and interminable is beyond ethics, unless included in the infinite and interminable is its embodiment in a finite and terminable condition (which argues for the incarnation).
We humans confess “I do not believe in God” or to the contrary “I do believe in God.” However, humans can attempt abstaining by asking of the two basic postures: “What does it matter?” or a variation of this: "What should it matter?"
First, an atheist posits no god exists. Which seems fine as far as it goes. Since the God question is about existence, an atheist is saying God does not exist (or more subtlely so what if God does exist as it is of no consequence to the human condition). This will not do in the face of the opposite belief of the theist who posits God does exist (or more subtlely is of consequence to the human condition, or not). Clearly, reconciling these postures is an object of mental gymnastics.
“God is not in existence” is to say God is the origin of existence, the Creator. However, God is not confined to non-existence. So too God does not suffer the limitations of time and space. God is in time and space and is not limited by time and space. Paradoxically, God is not only in time and space. Creation or “the universe of what is” is limited by God and as all of science teaches is either known or knowable given sufficient time in which to study, analyze, and conclude. God on the other hand is not to be known by science except through the study of creation, or as otherwise God discloses knowledge of God to us. In the mere act of writing this tract, I am reasoning to the reconciliation of both “God is not in existence” and “if God is in existence God by definition can not be limited by existence.”
Obviously, the relevance of this is that our species has been gifted hope and insight and prospect of relationship with God. I for one believe that the call to moral conduct is quite simply the call to relationship with God. The predicate is God, the subject is God, and the object is God and we must fit ourselves into relationship with this super reality.
Hence, the God question even if not raised or positively answered is grappled with by each and every one of us each time we grasp that our action or inaction is our ethical dilemma. This is why I am so stirred by the atheist who struggles mightily with doing the right thing by self and neighbor or enemy. I see the hand of God moving over this person and more trust in our commonality is engendered. I want him or her to be relevant. Just as profoundly I want God if God there be, to be relevant. Choose life over death, choose love over hate, choose hope over despair, aspire to achieve oneness with God.
I have reached a conclusion that with an affirmative yes I am yet in the wilderness and only leave the wilderness one day because of the affirmation that there is a God and that God is a loving compassionate God. As I see it, God is the ultimate relevance (which is a far cry from saying God is relevant).
So, my brothers and sisters, join with me in hope that one day we all shall be one, even though in life we were denied unity because of the limitations of language and the individuality of our lives.
Sincerely,
Richard J. (Rick) Hilber
RJH. February 21, 2009; Saturday, February 21, 2009, rev.; Saturday, February 28, 2009, rev.; Sunday, March 01, 2009, rev.; Saturday, March 07, 2009.
© 2009 by Richard J. Hilber, all rights reserved.
