Thoughts about God, deconstruction, and other weird thoughts

If Horses could draw, they would draw their gods like horses.--Xenophanes of Colophon.

 Of course, he was deriding the Greek polytheism. Our conception of God depends on our conception of ourselves. Our relationship with God depends on how we relate to ourselves. We cannot, though it is always emphasized, as I perceive it, create a purely "doctrinal biblical" relationship with God; there's always subjectivity.

I don’t know why, but every day, every damned day, the thought of God kept nagging me. I don’t mean to be blasphemous or sacrilegious or sacrilegiously blasphemous or even an anti-Christ but there’s something irresistibly nagging and itchy, mentally itchy, about the thought of God. It’s like the patches of dandruff on my head that my hand kept scratching and flaking even though the dandruff has long been cured, temporarily, that is. (Why do dandruffs keep coming back?)

Not my dandruff, just a random picture I downloaded from the net. There's an itch in all of us to try to grasp existential and metaphysical (wow, don't know these word myself but they do sound good) things. To go beyond the unknowable. Either the itch is  drowned or suppressed by dogmatism and legalism or the itch is entertained by exploring the itch (I don't know if I'm making any sense here) and uncovering the flakes little by little.

I grew up in a Christian family who was once a Roman Catholic then was converted to Southern Baptist. And the family’s, especially my, conception of God has always been what I would call an orthodox (again the word may not mean correct or right, it may just simply mean “what the majority accepts as true”) conception of God. God is almighty; God is omnipresent; God is omniscient; God is perfect. If you are good, God will answer your prayer; but, if you have been bad, God will not listen to you. Then there’s the Trinity, hierarchy of Angels. The doctrine about the afterlife: heaven and hell, or we may add purgatory. And other logical, supra-logical and counter intuitive stuff that ordinary human beings would just call WTF.

(What is That For?!)

When I started exploring a little theology (dangerous, should have kept myself away),  fancy theological-philosophical stuff like theodicy, justification,  sin, ethics etc. popped up which made theology a more or less an armchair discipline i.e more of a philosophical enterprise, and, as is known; philosophers have one tool for doing philosophy, the armchair.

Philosophers have one method of doing their thing: sitting down and thinking. They have no laboratories, no  test tubes, flask, rulers....they do everything in their heads. Their thought experiments produced profound results and world changing,  paradigm shifting ideas; and their butts, I'm sure, produced humongous callouses.

One thing about theology is that, well for me, it started in my head a chain of events…a sort of…not really doubting, but a deconstruction of God and other heavenly stuff. Deconstruction is simply questioning assumptions; as the word implies, it means taking things or assumptions apart to see if the assertions are true, or if they make sense, or if they show identity; or sometimes, by deconstruction, we may arrive at conclusions that words are just words referring to words predicated on words. In search for meaning, by deconstructing, we may find at least a modicum of truth or sense in the endless peeling of the onion skin, to speak of.

What's behind every question?

Of course, there are people who are afraid of this kind of activity. They are afraid; they are afraid of what’s at the center of the onion—nothing but skin, everything is but layers of skin.

Guess this photo is for sale. Anyway, we should not be afraid of exploring the question of God. We should not even be afraid of deconstructing our idea God. Children do it all the time and it sure does not affect God in anyway at all. Our awe and wander should of God should not be boxed and encapsulated with doctrines and dogmatism. All these things, dogmas and doctrines, are relative formulations based on the the word of God. And these things do change as each age have different  challenges that faces them. Heck, there are medieval doctrines that would not be acceptable today and there are doctrines today that would be heretical to the medieval mind. Example for our generation is gender equality, environmental issues...But there are core doctrine or dogmas that do not change. Nothing wrong with doctrines or dogma or even tradition, they are good; they help. But they also confine...

Child: Where do flowers came from?

Adult: They came from plants.

Child: Where do plants came from?

Adult: They came from seeds?

Child: Where do seeds came from?

Adult: They came from fruits?

Child: Where do fruits came from?

Adult: They came from trees?

Child: Where do trees came from?

Adult: God made them.

Here’s where things get a little fuzzy-wuzzy and where we adults simply prayed about  not encountering.

Child: Who made God?

Adult: God has always existed.

Of course, we would rather have the child ask about Bible characters, Bible doctrines, Bible promises, Bible commandments…But children are more profound than that. They are not still. I mean their thinking is not yet confined to Biblical doctrines or dogma. So, the question continues…

Child: Who made God?

Adult: God was never created. He is, was, and will be.

Child: Who made God?

Of course, I know the answer to that question. God is.

The questions continue:

Child: Who made God?

Most adults give up because they dare not tackle the question of God because its taboo. But for a child, nothing is taboo. This is a child deconstructing God, or our conception of God for us.

Children ask what is God, where God came from, who created God and not who God is. This is the first fundamental theological question or the starting point of a theological exploration that we all (or most) encounter as a child.

Most religion based their beliefs in God or Gods or Deities on revelations like holy books, nature, dreams, visions or other hmmm....levels of "inspired" revelation. Of course, the best way to preserve this beliefs is to codify them and pronounce divine inspiration on these codified belief whether it be written down or memorized oral traditions. 

Anyway, where am I, so, it is understandable why it is necessary for some people to do their own exploring about God. Honest labor, I should say. But these explorations and the conclusions they came up did not sit well with orthodoxy so many of these ideas or conception about were either banned, exhumed, burned; their authors killed, anathemized, anathemized and killed and burned, or ..well, they were removed from existence because their views about God do not sit well with organized religion, tithing and love gifts.

Anyway, a thought entered my mind...Its just painful to realize that he Bible promises to answer all our questions about the mysteries of God and life only when we die. I do admire philosophers for their courage to look into these things, these mysteries...

 Of course, we all should humble ourselves before God. After reading this, you may now begin to doubt my mental heath or my spiritual health. This is my faith:

I believe in the God revealed in the Holy Bible.

I believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

I believe in God's grace and in God's justice.

I believe that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin mother, lived as human being, preached God's kingdom and healed people, died for me and mys sins and because of this, I am saved.

I believe Jesus is God incarnate.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the fellowship of all Christians.

I believe that heaven is spending eternity with God. 

I believe hell is spending eternity apart from God.

I believe in prayers and I submit myself to Christian disciplines...except excommunication.

Not that much systematic theology in here...but I believe my Faith is pretty solid.

I also believe that God gave us the mind and the freedom to explore, think and just let our meander once in a while into the unknowable.