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This sermon was delivered by David L. Graham on January 4, 2004.

Some “If-Thens”, and “Whys” and “Therefores” of God

by
David L. Graham

© January 4, 2004

It is patently the case that we UUs are far less - or not-at-all -
concerned with the characteristics of the particular view of “God” held by
our fellow UUs than we are with the principles to which they collectively
and individually attempt to adhere through the course of their lives.
Nontheless, the spiritual path our fellows have traveled on their way to UU
seems always to be of interest

Some of our fellowship retain the anthropomorphic, “all knowing, all
powerful, and loving” God of their previous religious tradition and, admit
it or not, would rather eschew intellectual debate thereupon.

At the other end of the spectrum some have eliminated the word “God” from
their spiritual vocabulary, as well as have some the concepts of “faith,”
religion,” “worship,” “prayer,” “soul,” and other terms redolent of their
early - and now discarded - religious training. Yet they live lives
clearly inspired by adherence to a beneficent ethical code, the character of
which in itself inspires awe of its “worthiness”. Their “non-religious”
moral ethic often is, however, the modern embodiment of the principles
espoused by a certain son of a Nazarene carpenter, by Siddhartha Gautama,
and by Lao Tsu, and by other great teachers through history. I’m
continually amazed at the fervor with which some of these folk strongly
embrace the sobriquet “atheist.” But I’ll admit that my failure to believe
that there is truly such-a-thing is my problem, not theirs.

And so, in the spirit of full disclosure, here’s my story. It’ll help
explain the attitude - the definite attitude - in fact the several definite
attitudes - with which I’ve traveled my spiritual journey from early
adolescent scepticism, thru cynicism and frank, intellectually disgusted
disbelief, to finally developing and embracing a personal awareness of, and
a relationship with God.

Until about the age of ten I was blissfully untouched by religious
education (save for coloring Presbyterian bible story books at the church
of my great aunt whom I visited for a few weeks every summer). Somewhere
near the time of turning ten I embarrassed my parents - in public - with my
ignorance of things biblical. My Mom’s comment to some friends that “It’s
been the same since Cain killed Abel” elicited from me “Is that the “Mister
Cain, Tracer of Lost Persons ” we listen to on Friday nights ? Never mind
that I mistook Cain for the then famous “Mr. Keane.” A look passed between
between my parents, and a sigh. That look... and that sigh, I knew,
spelled trouble!

Sunday school! Several years of it! During which I was dropped off at
and picked up from the local church each Sunday. And when my Confirmation
Sunday rolled around I told my folks that there wasn’t any regular Sunday
School on that day, so couldn’t we all go for a picnic? And I was
relieved that they weren’t all that upsert when they discovered later what
had actually taken the place of “regular Sunday School” that day of the
picnic.

But I didn’t give up on religion. Kept tryin”...mightily... to get my mind
around some of the truly incredible things I was asked to believe - was told
I had to believe, had to “take-on-faith” - “...if I knew what was good for
me.”

A few problematic considerations, however, about religion (meaning the God
and Christianity I’d been taught about) continued to nag and repeatedly
presented themselves - as they continue to today - for analysis in light
of claims made by “believers” for the nature of God.

An all-knowing God?
An all-powerful God?
And a truly loving God?
And all these at the same time?

O.K. Let’s see ‘bout that....

How could that concatenation of Godly qualities possibly square with such
occurrances as:
•the Inquisition,
•Hitler’s murder of the Jews (the term “Holocaust” was not yet used),
•the massacres at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee,
•Pol Pot’s Killing Fields,
•the Firebombing of Dresden,
•distribution of smallpox blankets to the Mandan,
•slavery, then segregation, and Jim Crow,
•self-rightious murderous acts of the I.R.A. and of the Ulster Constabulary,
•the Mi Lai massacre,
•Saddam Hussein’s fatal gassing of the Kurds
•the seemingly endless chain of retributive killings of Palastinians by
Israelis - and vice-versa - as an apparently incidental consequence of
western governments’ attempts to assure reliable access to petroleum,
•the massacre at Glen Coe,
•the attacks of 9/11
•the Rape of Peiking,
•the Death Penalty,
•and innumerable so-called “Acts of God” such as: the annual loss of
thousands in the monsoon floods in Bangladesh, and the recent deaths of
30.000- plus in earthquake-wracked City of Bam in Iran,
.....and....
•uncounted and uncountable lingering, painful deaths of sufferers of
diseases and injuries in legion,

....and this horrid paucity of “Peace on Earth”...???

Are such expected to be permitted by an “All-knowing, All-powerful, and
All-loving” God ?

(Yeah; it’s a rhetorical question)

I discovered that my calling attention to the glaring inconsistencies
between the occurances listed above with the claims made about the nature of
God by innumerable fervent “believers” is often answered, and answered with
amazing confidence, with what I have come to term “The Cosmic Cop-out.”

The Cosmic Cop-Out is abbreviated (for mnemonic purposes) thusly: “G. W. I.
M. W.” (pronounced Gwim-wuh). The pronouncement itself seems always to be
delivered with a characteristic forward thrust and slight tilt of the head.
And with eyes ever-so-slightly narrowed... and staring deeply into mine.
One eyebrow is invariably raised - as, often, is one hand raised...with an
extended index finger for more solemn emphasis ...and delivered in as
profound and reverent a manner as the speaker can muster : “God works in
mysterious ways !”

You say you’ve got trouble understanding those “mysterious ways ?” Well,
here’s wutcha do !
You must remember the first corollary of GWIMW ! To wit:

“ T. I. T. T. L. I. P.” (Delivered, I might add, in much the same manner
as is GWIMW). Y’say y’still don’t understand those “...mysterious ways...?
Y’got to “Take it to the Lord in Prayer”

O.K... seein’z it came up, let’s talk about “prayer”.

I’ll have to admit to having a serious problem with statements such as:
“So many died! But I came out of it (war...9/11...a burning
house...whatever...) unscathed! I prayed (every day... every night... or
every moment...whatever...) and I am here because of the power of prayer!
My prayers were answered.”
Sorry, Gang; I find that sort of claim to be blasphemy of the first water!

The very idea that a God who could, with such caprice, answer my fervent
prayer and yet disregard or turn a deaf ear to the tens of thousands and
millions of other equally fervent prayers of other believers is
unmittigated, blatant chutzpah! Is such a God worthy of adulation and
worship as omniscient, omnipotent... and loving?

Again, the question is rhetorical!

Prayer, as it was taught to me, and as I came to observe, seemed to
promote a passivity and fatalistic acceptance of events that might have been
avoided or averted by personal, responsible action . But often they weren’t
avoided or averted - and when I would have the temerity to ask “why” I was
repeatedly assured by the “believer” that: “It wasn’t God’s will !”

D.G. “Why not ?”

Believer “G.W.I.M.W. !!!”

D.G. “But I don’t understand...”

Believer “T.I.T.T.L.I.P. !!!”

D.G. “But I prayed on it and STILL don’t under...”

Believer: “ Then it’s not God’s Will that that you should understand!
Perhaps some day ... maybe when you’re older...”

The tautological fallacy of “circular reasoning” fairly leaps to mind!

O.K., let’s talk about invoking “God’s will”, shall we?

It often seems to me to be an attempt to glaze “Que sera, sera” or that
nonce abomination of ennui “what-everrr” with a patina of piety. While in
the Middle East I would, each evening, remind Ali, the driver assigned to
me, to be sure to pick me up at 7:30 the next morning. Ali would
invariably respond: “Of course! 7:30 ! Insh Allah !“ “Insh Allah ?”
Well, I found out that’s Arabic for: “God willin’ ...and the creeks don’t
rise...”, or.... “I’ll be there ... if I don’t get home too late tonight
.....AND ... if my alarm goes off in the morning...”

I’ll admit that during my teaching career I would, not infrequently, invoke
God’s will. When, during a class, a student posed a question that was
unanswerable at the current level of knowledge on the subject I’d respond
with “You’ve asked the last question.... and you’ll know it’s the “...last
question...” because the answer is... “That’s the way God want’s it!””
They knew they’d get naught further out of me - or out of anyone else - on
the matter. A few years ago I was presenting a paper at a professional
meeting. I always welcome questions during my talks, and sure enough, a
series of sequential, follow-up questions wound down to “the last “why” and
I voiced my usual “That’s the way God want’s it!” At that point, from the
back of the darkened auditorium, a voice called out “In ‘67 you used that
same response about five questions back ! I guess God’s gotten smarter, eh
?” (It was one of my Iowa State students from 25 years before...)

Another comment I still hear occassionally is ”There, but for the Grace of
God, go I.” Today, it seems to be taken to mean much the same as invoking
God’s (capricious) Will. However, the Calvinist teachings of my Sunday
School experience emphasized that the State of Grace was bestowed, in
secret, upon certain individuals by God long before their birth - maybe
as early as the beginning of time. These fortunate folk who received God’s
Grace were the “Chosen.” or “Select” Sadly, the lives others might lead
would have no effect upon their destinies as regards the salvation of their
souls.

Continuing to be vexed by the complex inconsistencies inherent in
attempting to extract reason from chaos in mid-twentieth Century
Christianity, I embarked upon a conversation with God himself. “O.K., God.
Just Who Are You?” (Allright. I’ll admit it. It was pretty much... well...
O.K. ..... completely....a one-way yet lengthy chat! )

“Are You really that tall, stern, old white guy in white robes with a
flowing white beard who lives above the sky”

“Are You truly as fickle, caprcious, and cruel as scripture makes You out to
be?. - I gotta tell ya, You seem definitely not to be of a nature anyone
would construe as “loving” Oh Yeah! You commanded the folks not to kill -
and then (within a few chapters) to go out and kill them Cannanites!
Yes, You did help the children o’Israel to escape Egypt thru the parted Red
Sea. (And that was a good, kind, loving thing.) But then was it really
necessary to lure all those pursuing Egyptians into the seabed and
then...sploosh? (Not a kind, loving thing, that!)

Did You really lay down the “Word” and “Law”, and intervene right down here
on Earth amongst us when deemed necessary - at least You seemed to have done
so up ‘til about 2,000 years ago... Where Y’been lately?

And I won’t belabor You further with my questions about Your omniscient,
omnipotent, and (putatively) “loving”nature- You’ve made it painfully
obvious to me for years that You’ld rather not discuss that topic.... !

How come, God, You imbue everyone at birth with “original sin” which must be
expiated by professed belief in the need for the blood sacrifice of that
good man Jesus of Nazareth (whom You claim as Your Son?) - and then You
allow only those whom You previously (and in secret) selected for “Grace”
to enter the Kingdom of Heaven anyway? And “to Hell” with the others who’d
followed your rules but didn’t realize You hadn’t “selected” them?

And then, God, there’s the Bible itself! You imbued us, at this stage of
our species’ evolution, with the capacity for reason and abstract
conceptualization, and then You “inspired” earthly beings to write Your
“Word” in the most incredibly obfuscatory manner such as to permit - nay,
demand - a multiplicity of possible interpretations thereof. This, of
course, permitted - no, again it demanded - internecine strife and violence
amongst believers differing only in their interpretations of Your “Word.”
Yet thru it all, You stand aside and let Your various denominational
minions claim that following their particular interpretation of your “Word”
is the only possible path to “salvation.”

And that bit about worshiping “...no other Gods before Me!” C’mon! Being
the only one, n’all... just who might be these“other Gods” You were talking
about ? Sort of full-of-ourself, aren’t we?
==============================

Well, about this stage of this very one-sided conversation with God it
occured to me that weekly attendance of a service in which I was required to
repeatedly profess belief in inane creeds that essentially restated and
affirmed all of the concepts that were so troubling to me was an exercise in
hypocrisy of which I should have long since have been ashamed and
embarassed. I could no longer profess credence in the incredible, the
irrational, and the anti-scientific precepts of Paulist X-ian doctrine and
the dogma of the Council of Nicea. And I wondered when and how and why the
basic teachings of Jesus had been subsumed by such a mass of arrant fantasy
and mythology.

Would that I had far earlier read the words of Joseph Priestly:
“It is contrary to the plainest rules of morality directly or virtually to
affirm what we do not believe to be true, and especially to do this
repeatedly and habitually.” (I shudder when I read those words! He had my
number, alright!)

At that point my attitude was “Well, , so much for the construct of an
anthropomorphic, loving, all powerful, all knowing, interactive,
prayer-answering, scripture-inspiring deity!

And then my first child was born. I marveled as I held my infant son that
I had ever given credence to the concept of “original sin.” And as that
burden fell away, so, quite logically, did the putative need for
intercessory salvation and the requirement to view Jesus as anyone other
than a man who happened, quite gloriously, to be the greatest exemplar of
an ethical, loving, and moral life.

So, the conversation having ceased thanks to total nonparticipation of one
of its expected participants, I had pretty well decided what God was not!

For more than 30 years I was estranged from organized religion. I did
and do read the bible - lost count of the times thru - and I’m still moved
by the profound, instructed by the historical, lightened by the humor -
mostly unintended - and I continue to be non-plussed and viscerally repelled
by the esoteric and fantastic.


So, I muddled on with my personal, presumably solitary, unique, poorly
articulated, yet continually refining form of spirituality. With time,
cogitation, and by awareness of innumerable instances of revelation -
usually in nature, sometimes via scientific inquiry - I did come to
realizations of and about God that have served me well. So well, in fact,
that I can stand before you today and reveal, with full confidence...
.....in some general terms...
.....and in some more specific terms...

What God is !

(O.K... I heard that! Who muttered “such chutzpah ???)

Well...O.K....What God is:

God is the ultimate focus of one’s highest regard, most profound awe, and /
or greatest reverence. (my words)

I have also perceived an essence of basic truth in several statements out
of contemporary liberal theology. To wit:

“God is the force that sustains us and the Cosmos about us.”

“Our human nature does not separate us from God, but binds us to God, along
with the rest of the Cosmos.”

“God is the base of all ... the ground of all being...the essence of
existance !”

While I basically perceive a one-ness in agreement with these statements, I
can’t really get my mind around them and re-phrase what they actually
mean...

The feeling they give me is much akin to what I felt as a freshman at Penn
State in the fall of ‘57. When I should have been studying for a Chemistry
test, I got to reading William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” that had
been recommended to me by an upperclass English Lit major in my dormitory.
I’ll never forget the frisson of crystal awareness as Blake saw “...a world
in a grain of sand...” and “held infinity in the palm of ...” his hand...and
experienced “...eternity in an hour.”

So, to be a bit more specific:

The God of my ultimate awe, my most profound regard, and my infinite
reverence is the sum of the determinants of the features and limits of the
interrelationships of mass,.... energy,... time,...the speed of light, and
.... fortune. That’s right; “luck !” Einstein was wrong! God does
“...play dice....” The laws - the facts - of probability are as real and
immutible as is the speed of light in different media and its influence upon
the interrelationships among energy, and mass, and time.

All that is and all that occurs in the Cosmos - from collisions of galaxies
many thousands of light-years in diameter, and stellar novae, to an
irradiation-induced change in a miniscule DNA sequence, to the inertia of a
boulder, or of a sand grain, or of a puff of air - be these deemed positive
or negative in effect - they all devolve from God. From a God that is,
thus, evident and emanent in all aspects of existance, material and
temporal.

As such, every event thru the existance of the Cosmos, everything that ever
has, does, or ever will exist, every conceived notion - and the processes
involved in that notion’s conception - by whatever sentient being is doing
the conceiving - is evidence of and consequent upon the emanence of the God
of which I am in consummate awe.

God’s promise - obviously, as I’ve characterized God, a metaphorical promise
- is one of absolute reliability none-the-less. The promise is of the
potentialities - be they perceived as positive or negative - not of the
certainties of events thru eternity. And it is here that my personal
relationship with God reaches it most profound and sharpest focus. To the
extent that we can exercise conscience and reasoned, positively motivated
action, we can and do affect and effect some of God’s positive
potentialities in and for our neighborhood of the Cosmos.

Harry Meserve, of the 1st Unitarian Society of San Francisco, in 1954
expressed basically the same sentiment in a more elegant manner.

“Man is capable of growth and great nobility
and also capable of decay and great corruption.
The very bases of ultimate good permit evil.
We must understand this hard truth if we are to fully understand ourselves
and harness those forces
that promote the good and squelch the evil.”
=======================================

It is in these sorts of perceptions and flights of awareness that I most
clearly perceive God.

=============================================

And so it passed that .....
In 1999 Tanya and I decided Jeremy should have some religious education of a
cultural and historical nature beyond that which we felt we could provide in
the home; Neither of us wanted him to receive it in any of the churches
with which we were familiar. And so, we got all the way into the U’s in the
“Churches” section of the West Chester (PA) phone book before we hit
“Unitarian Universalist”. We looked up; eyes met, and we both shrugged in
acknowledgement of total ignorance of what “UU” was about, but we figured
we’d start there.

After one service and an after-church discussion group, I found a copy of
“A Chosen Faith” by Buehrens & Church in the West Chester Book and Music
Store. The words “Freedom, Reason, and Tolerance” figuratively leapt off
the cover and grabbed me! That evening, finishing the book, I thought:
“I’ll be damned.... (well... actually not) ... a Unitarian Universalist is
what I am ... and have long been !”

And I was so glad, then and now, to know that I am not alone!

And for that, and your kind attention, I do thank you all.