Most would agree, I suspect, that in the realm of “knowledge” and “belief,” the most significant issue is the existence—or not—of a Supreme Being, an Ultimate Reality, God, or, in John Claypool’s attractive phrase, The Great Mystery. It makes sense to begin where I started in this series of posts—I may choose to “believe” and, in my best moments, I am inclined to do so—but I cannot “know” and, indeed, neither provides absolute certainty.

So where to begin? I will resist delving into the philosophical theistic arguments—the ontological, cosmological, teleological, moral arguments—which, if one is so inclined, one can “google” and find from relatively simple to highly detailed discussions of these traditional, rational, and, for many, historically persuasive cases for the existence of God. While I may “play off of them” from time to time, I want to approach this conversation from a more personal perspective, since all that I have said about my understanding of “knowing” and “believing” eventually comes down to experience.

I am a human person, all of whose experiences, concepts, and language are boundaried by space and time: everything is for me either here or there, then or now, and that is where I must start.  The “facts” that I think I know and what I choose to believe are human facts and beliefs and the packages in which they come to me are human packages. So even if I come to believe in the primacy and priority of a Supreme Being I shall have come to that from where I am, not from the perspective of the “Great Mystery.”

In recognizing that all of our thoughts of such a Reality are inadequate, it can be tempting to give up saying anything at all and there are times when I feel that way . . . and, perhaps, that is the dilemma I must live with. But, once again, I have to acknowledge an undeniable need and propensity to ruminate, explore, and test the boundaries of the belief systems that have been a part of my life.

From that point, one place to begin would be . . . at the “beginning.” I accept the consensus of the scientific community regarding the origin of the universe and the evolutionary development and continuity of life. While science need not, must not, use a Supreme Being as a hypothesis in its explorations, either the universe had no beginning—even the “Big Bang” had to “bang” Something—or it was initiated by a Supreme Being that had no beginning. I can choose between these alternatives but we are dealing with “the eternal” either way and, while I can say that, as a person whose experience is bounded by time and space, I cannot truly grasp the reality of eternal entities. So I can choose to believe that the natural world is “dependent,” not self-sufficient, and that the conclusions of science are the “ways of an Eternal Being” (by whatever name) that we have partially charted—I can choose to “believe” that, but I cannot “know.”

That said, another place to begin is at the level of human experience, the “linchpin” of my understanding of both knowing and believing. Earlier in my life and, although less frequently, in recent times, I have used the term “spiritual” to refer to experiences in my life and there is no doubt at all that human beings across human history have done so. Not to labor the “cosmic point,” but the natural world itself—in its massiveness, its splendor, its awesomness—has been for many persons the occasion of a “spiritual” experience.  Even traditional Christian theology speaks of the natural order as a source of “general” revelation. But whatever the source, such experiences have been for many either the basis or the confirmation of belief in the existence a Supreme Being.

I have experienced numerous moments in my life when I have been “touched” and overwhelmed

• by the beauty of nature, music, art;
• by intense feelings of satisfaction in an accomplishment;
• by a transformative moment of “becoming” someone else in a theatrical character;
• by the recurring ecstasy of a physical, emotional, loving “bond” in a personal relationship;
• by a “rapturous” connection with what I could only describe as an experience of “Something” beyond myself.

These human experiences seem inadequately described as mere biological responses or cranial synapses. Thus, while some may prefer other designations, I turn to the familiar term “spiritual,” which may be a metaphor . . . . or more than a metaphor.

Harry Emerson Fosdick—the subject, as I have mentioned before, of my doctoral dissertation—often argued that the persistence of any human function is dependent on a corresponding reality—hunger requires food, breathing requires air, etc.—and since out of the cosmos has come a human being too significant to find contentment without a spiritual interpretation of life, “there can be nothing in the effect that is not in the cause.” Thus, since mind and purpose and spiritual values have evolved from the universe, they must have been in the cosmos to begin with. So the argument goes.

Then what if, on the basis of whatever arguments or evidence I find persuasive, I choose to believe in God, by whatever name, metaphor or descriptor.  So what? What difference does it make?

Frederick Buechner makes a distinction between “believing” and “believing into.”

“Believing in God is a (mere) intellectual position. It need have (little) effect on your life. . . . Believing (into) God is less a position than a journey, less a realization than a relationship. . . . We believe in God when for one reason or another we choose to do so. We believe (into) God when somehow we run into God in a way that by and large leaves us no choice to do otherwise” (Whistling in the Dark, A Doubter’s Dictionary, p. 22).

Fosdick made a similar point:“What if you did discover the God you are looking for at the end of your arguments, what good would that do? Multitudes have argued themselves into believing in God and then have discovered that it made little differences to their lives” (What Is Vital in Religion, pp. 71-72).

In a characteristically wise comment on my first post on “knowing and believing,” my friend, Guy Sayles, remarked that he thinks that “believing, especially about ‘big’ things, includes an existential stab-in-the-dark (or at least in the twilight) which is like ‘trusting’ or ‘faith-ing’ or ‘risking’.” That is, in my judgment, a profound insight and as I work my way through my own “existential stab-in-the-dark” on this undeniably “big” issue—moving, in my best moments, toward both trusting and risking—I find myself in agreement with both Buechner and Fosdick: it isn’t worth the trust or the risk unless it matters! So the existential question for me is what is it that matters?

In a final post, I will try to address that crucial question.  I hope you will continue to join me in this conversation.