INTIMATIONS OF THE DIVINE

An atheist friend once told me that he would believe in God if God would simply reveal himself unambiguously.

“How would he do that?” I enquired.

“Just appear in that chair” he replied, “and tell me he’s God.”

I paused for a moment. “Do you mean to say that if something appeared in that chair and said it was God, you would believe it?”

“No, of course not” he laughed.

We both laughed.

This is the problem. If there is One who created and sustains the universe, and who, by definition, both transcends and permeates all of reality, how does that One reveal him-her-or-it-self unambiguously? And if, as many believe, the whole point of this self-disclosure is to foster a loving, personal relationship, how would such a One do it without overwhelming us? All loving relationships involve a process of mutual self-disclosure and discovery. So, perhaps, a degree of subtlety, and a certain ambiguity are unavoidable. Or think of it this way....

Imagine a computer game that’s trillions upon trillions of times more complex and wonderful than any of the most amazing games we have today. In this one, after countless cyber generations, some of the characters have begun to experience “self awareness”. And, of course, one of the first things they do with this awareness is to ask themselves where “they and their world” (the game) came from.

They find they can study their cyber universe, and even trace its development, but only to a certain point. And, as they reflect on what they’re discovering, they sometimes get an odd feeling that there’s something going on “behind”, or “beneath”, or “within” everything. Some begin to suspect, or maybe just imagine, that it all makes some kind of “sense”. It seems astonishingly “mathematical” or “logical”, like some kind of “program”. And some even begin to ask if there might be some sort of, for want of a better term, “programmer” involved.

Now, the “program” seems to be running on it’s own, with no one obviously running it. And they (the newly self aware characters) seem to have a degree of independence too. But many just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more happening. Some report instances when they’ve been overcome by the feeling, almost verging on a clear awareness, that “something” “beyond”, “above”, “behind” or “deep within” “the game” is initiating activity, or even responding to their questions, concerns and situations. Is it possible that whatever, or whoever, caused them and this world to exist, is also self-aware, aware of them, interested in them, and concerned about them? Preposterous as it may sound, could it be that this “programmer” is somehow involved in everything that’s happening? Not exactly manipulating or controlling everything, but actually “playing” the “game”?

None of this proves anything, of course. It’s not even evidence; just an analogy, or what theoretical scientists like Einstein have called “a thought experiment”. But it does seem to me that something like this process of enquiry has been going on in every culture, everywhere, since the dawn of human self-awareness. Indeed, it’s as much a part of being human as music, art or poetry. Admittedly, some people think music, art, poetry, and this sort of enquiry are meaningless, and perhaps they’re right. But people keep on asking these questions, and having these “intimations of the Divine”, and I’m one of those who’s convinced that there really is something going on.

John McCutcheon, who is a fine artist of both music and poetry, sings of an instance when, in the midst of life at it’s messiest, something happened. It just “rained down”, or “bubbled up”, or “broke in” upon the participants. What it was no one knows for sure, but I think it was God, or at very least an “intimation of the Divine”. Some say it actually happened, and that they were there when it did. Some say it never actually happened, and I suppose they were there when it didn’t. But I say, whether or not it actually happened, it happens all the time.

Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon

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