A Rational Belief

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

This book presents a contemporary model of spiritual reality, a New Theism, that owes more to modern science and rational deduction than to revelation and traditional religious authority. It invites agnostics and atheists to rethink their positions, given the probability that the God in whom they do not believe, and the religious models they reject, are as far removed from actual spiritual reality as the first chapter of Genesis is from the modern theories of the Big Bang and biological evolution.

It aims to encourage believers from the traditional faiths to update their beliefs and to discard redundant and divisive dogma, in order to combine their spiritual power most effectively in the struggle against evil.

I have tried to be concise: readers who are most likely to be influenced by this book are unlikely to favour a repetitious ‘softly, softly’ approach, when matters of great urgency and importance are involved. Chapter 1 is an introduction; in the first instance, anyone who wishes to discover whether the New Theist model is a platform that supports his or her own spiritual needs and aspirations may omit it.

Literary purists may deplore disjointed paragraphs, and an excessive or inconsistent use of punctuation: these result from the editing, ordering and pasting together of the random products of fifteen years of musing and meditation on matters of spiritual importance. The book is not a literary work, nor a continuous narrative. Its only style is message.

CHAPTER 1

‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’

John 8:32

If you are on a hilltop far from the lights of town, looking up at the stars in the night sky, it may well seem unlikely to you, as you stand in awe of the distant glory of the firmament, that what we human beings do now on this small planet Earth significantly affects the destiny of the universe. From our limited human perspective it does seem unlikely, yet it is the truth, and nothing can be of more significance to you than understanding why this is so. That is what this book is about.

The universe in which we live is vast beyond our imagining, its only limits space and time themselves. Within those ultimate bounds are countless galaxies, each one made up of many millions of stars and enfolded by great clouds of lightless dust. The existence of mysterious ‘dark matter’ with a mass exceeding everything that can be seen with our telescopes is also suspected, yet the volume of space is so great that it seems almost empty. Men and women who are aware that this virtually infinite universe lies just beyond our human horizon respond to that knowledge in a variety of ways. If they find the idea uncomfortable and disquieting, they may choose to ignore it; others turn their backs on it because they feel it has no relevance to human affairs. Conversely, persons who see it as an exciting challenge and who elect to study its physical nature may come to believe that it is human affairs that are of little real importance. These responses are misconceived: human affairs and the wider universe are inseparably important.

The universe our instruments detect is a substantialised expression of the existence of God, i.e. the response of physical reality to the Eternal Truth that encompasses the nature and being of God – and also of Man: a Truth that affords us so little perceptual and conceptual purchase that present human language cannot formulate it precisely, even in thought. Our scientific description of fundamental physical reality can be expressed only in mathematical terms, and this is just one facet of the Truth. Because we do not comprehend the spiritual totality, when we think about and discuss such matters we need a conceptual model with which to work. The conceptual model that Westerners are most likely to be aware of is Christianity, which is used as a basis for discussion and example in this book. Adherents of other faiths must forgive this. This book will develop a more general and less idiosyncratic schema, termed ‘New Theism’ to distinguish it from existing monotheistic models. This chapter will explain why this new approach is needed.

Why do people need to ‘think about and discuss’ spiritual reality at all? The answer – ‘to defeat evil and save the world’ – may look as if it is taken from a comic strip or a computer game, but it refers to you and the real life you lead. Ignorance and indifference are two of the most powerful weapons in evil’s arsenal. Your defence and your means of positive resistance start here.

The primary motivational premise of New Theism is this: only if the majority of men and women come to believe – and to behave as if they believe – that they exist to serve God’s Purpose will catastrophe be averted for humankind, for life on Earth, and possibly for the entire universe. If you do not accept this premise, your own life will inevitably lack the meaning and significance that is the privilege of every spiritually aware human being. Yet because it is such ‘good news’ that our human existence actually makes sense when seen in terms of a larger Divine purpose, you would be justified in questioning its validity merely on the grounds that it seems too good to be true. And not only on those grounds: one of the aims of this book is to dispel any doubts you might have, whatever their basis, in the hope that you will choose to become an agent of God’s Purpose yourself. You will need to read more of the book to discover what New Theism understands by ‘God’s Purpose’ – what a Christian might term ‘personal salvation’, and ‘establishing God’s Kingdom on Earth’, refer to the human means by which that Purpose is to be achieved, and are not to be seen as an end in themselves.

Four thousand million years of biological evolution have taken place on this planet in order to bring into existence the imperfect spiritual beings that we are at present. If you deny your spirit its destiny in God, your own share in that relentless aeons-long struggle for biological progress will be wasted, and your life will be wasted now. Your life is your chance to seek God and to find Him, immeasurably enriching your life-experience in the process. And if you do not find God while you live, you will not find Him when you die. Surely no rational spiritually aware person – the Faustus legend notwithstanding – would knowingly renounce his or her eternal inheritance, even for a lifetime of worldly power and pleasure? Of course, most people who deny the relevance or importance of God in their lives are not making such a choice: they are likely to be less than contented with their worldly existence, hence they are losing out both in this life and in whatever waits for us beyond it. Not that New Theism can offer you any secure hope of a heavenly paradise after death; precise and reliable information regarding the nature of the afterlife is lacking. In any case, if we do not follow the advice of St. Ignatius of Loyola: ‘To give and not to count the cost;…to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will’, then we are not doing His will at all. What New Theism does promise you is that you can experience God’s presence in this life, and that you can make effective use of spiritual power, through prayer, to directly influence the future. This will be discussed in later chapters.

The monotheistic frame of reference that has its origin in the Bible gives Mankind an external perspective, which is essential to considerations of morality. Humanists may claim that other human beings have dignity and deserve respect just by virtue of their status as intelligent animals, but this presupposes that there are independent external standards by which such values can be assessed and humanists deny the existence of such standards. Humanistic (i.e. Godless) morality is thus logically restricted to self-interest and survival, and were we each to put ourselves first and ignore the needs of others the future survival of Mankind would seem somewhat less than secure. Our God Universe gives men and women a sublime purpose beyond individual survival, a transcendent purpose with the potential to unite us, something no cause set out in human terms can ever achieve. Sharing in God’s Purpose gives dignity to each one of us and at the same time teaches us humility and mutual respect, whereas, if we compare and judge one another only by mundane human values, we are inevitably subject to the evils of pride, envy, and disdain. The most optimistic and idealised view of Man, pursued as an ideological end in itself, cannot be more than a dead end. It is only when we acknowledge the existence and the significance of the incipient spiritual flame within us that we have any cause for optimism, and for hope. Incidentally, the fact that it is necessary for us to believe in a higher purpose is good evidence that such a purpose exists, as is its paradoxical message: survival depends on selflessness. To be self-referential and paradoxical is characteristic of spiritual truth – a point exemplified by this book.

Another good reason why we need to accept that reality has an underlying spiritual dynamic is that evil cannot be defeated unless we recognise that it is a spiritual force. So much time and so many physical resources are spent alleviating the suffering and hardship that are the legacy of evil, when spiritual resources, if properly organised, could be used more effectively against their cause. Curing the symptoms of evil does not cure the disease. When medical science brings certain diseases under control they are soon replaced by others, as we have discovered to our cost – not that physical disease itself is a contrivance of evil, but evil makes use of disease to hamper our spiritual progress. A good religious schema, informed by prayerful insight and intelligence, will identify and expose the mechanisms of spiritual evil (such as competition, self-interest, and the territorial imperative) and help us to find appropriate counter-measures. It will also diagnose those hardships that are not devices of evil and that need to be remedied in other ways.

A functional and lucid model of the God Universe yields so many benefits. As a manifestation of the Eternal Truth – even though it is weakened and distorted by the unavoidable limitations of human thought and language – it has great explanatory power. It has the potential to answer a wide range of essentially important questions, from ‘Was the universe created by God?’ to ‘Why do the innocent suffer?’: these also will be addressed in later chapters. The understanding it brings can help you make constructive use of your spiritual power. But perhaps it has its greatest significance for the individual as a response to the plea that the father of the child ‘possessed of an unclean spirit’ makes to Jesus in Mark’s gospel: ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief’. Understanding gives belief a secure foundation; belief underpinned only by enthusiasm is a house built on sand. Understanding is the vindication of faith. As spiritual beings, we are enabled by faith: we have no strength without it. Faith unites all the diverse elements of our experience that inform us of God. Faith is the key to the abundance of spiritual resources that God provides. Faith arms us against the assault of evil.

Men and women need faith in God today as much as they have ever done, but never before has faith been so difficult to sustain. An important factor contributing to this problem is that traditional religious models have become isolated as public awareness and acceptance (not necessarily understanding!) of descriptions of the universe given in purely scientific terms have increased. ‘Science’ has given us a new way of looking at things, a new kind of conceptual framework for reality that was unknown when the principal theistic models were formulated. This ‘scientific’ model has been assimilated into popular culture, and into secular ideologies such as communism and capitalism, but so far has been largely ignored by the mainstream monotheistic religions, to their considerable detriment. In the popular imagination, ‘science’ is now the oracle of the ultimate, when this was once the prerogative of religion. The credibility of religion has been eroded, thus undermining the only rational basis we can have for moral discipline.

The unfortunate consequences of a decline in faith in God are all too apparent in Western society at the beginning of the twenty-first century.They are made more unfortunate because to an extent they result from a misapprehension: that the discoveries of science add up to an explanation of reality, when science actually investigates what things are like and how they work. Science as a discipline is engaged in compiling a description of physical reality, and has not been concerned with the question of why things are as they are. Certainly, many statements about the what and how of reality that have been made in a religious context are, from a scientific viewpoint, justifiably seen as absurd. In addition, there have been many scientists who have told us that the question ‘Why?’ is irrelevant, unanswerable, or even meaningless, but in this regard a change is taking place. The more that is discovered about the nature of fundamental physical reality, the more it appears that the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ are inextricably linked. There has already been speculation in scientific articles about the rôle of ‘spiritual’ determinants such as intention and choice in the ‘physical’ universe.

In order to sustain spiritual understanding and faith, every age needs a religious schema that is compatible and consistent with the views people hold concerning the nature of reality, from the human condition to the workings of the cosmos. Centuries ago, when they began, the traditional monotheistic religions were up to date in that respect, but today they often appear anachronistic, even incongruous. New Theism is an attempt to present spiritual reality in contemporary terms, in the hope that this will open a way to faith for some whose path may be obstructed by intellectual objections and reservations. It might also open the eyes of some whose faith is blind, and thus help them to avoid the pitfalls of evil. God willing, it could form the basis of a religious paradigm for the twenty-first century – something for which there is an urgent need.

New Theism must take into account current interpretations of the results of scientific enquiry: in cosmology, quantum physics, and evolutionary biology, for example. These are not mere window dressing: they lead to new spiritual insights that more than justify such an approach. We can only properly understand Mankind if we see ourselves as part of the totality of ‘what is’. We all need to be sufficiently aware of contemporary scientific models of the universe to have a sense of perspective and proportion, and some idea of what may or may not be possible; remember that ignorance is one of the most potent weapons of evil. Because this book cannot