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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
December 6, 2009
Responsive Readings:
This morning, I would like to try to address the question of God,
that is, how we conceive of the force that creates and sustains
life. To get us started, I have chosen two responsive readings that
are included in our hymnal. Neither of these contains the word
“God,” but both draw from an interpretation of the mystery of
existence. Therefore, even though they don’t use the word, they both
are about God.
#650 “Cherish Your Doubts”
Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the
servant of discovery
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is
incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which
eats away the false.
Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt
is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken
by the testing:
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more
secure.
Those that would silence doubt are filled with fear;
their houses are built on shifting sands.
But those who fear not doubt, and know its use, are founded on rock.
They shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the
work of their hands shall endure.
Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the
attendant of truth.
#517 “I who am the beauty of the green earth”
I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the
stars and the mysteries of the waters,
I call upon your soul to arise and come unto Me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must
return.
Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold—all acts of
love and pleasure are My rituals.
Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion,
honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning
will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery
For if that which you seek, you find not within
yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning,
And I am that which is attained at the end of desire.
Sermon: What Do I Believe About God?
The question of God: it never gets settled, and it won’t go away
either. What is the nature of the force that gives us life? How can
we characterize our experience of the Mystery at the center of
existence? When we peer into the unknown, what do we find?
There are many ways to conceive of the Mystery at the center of
existence:
• A parent who offers love tempered by punishment when
we do not make the proper choices.
• An array of immortal beings, each with a special
power and responsibility, inextricably tied to the human community.
• An impersonal force that cares not a wit about us as
individuals but offers a world of rules and laws understandable to
us that we might advance on our own.
• An omnipotent being so powerful as to be
unapproachable, impenetrable to our feeble powers of understanding.
• A mother whose love for us is boundless, who despite
our transgressions is always available to comfort us in her
embracing arms.
• An all-powerful ruler of the universe who is, by
turns, kind and supportive while at other times arbitrary and
tyrannical.
Since the beginnings of civilization, people have created such
images—and many more—to describe their wondering about and
understanding of the force that gives us life. People have
represented their experience of the holy using a bewildering array
of images, far more than we can go into during this 20-minute talk.
So I’m going to narrow our focus and consider two characteristic
responses to the question of God found in the liberal religious
tradition.
These two approaches are represented in the two responsive readings
with which we began. They don’t exactly contradict each other, but
they do represent different worldviews. The first might be called
rationalist. The second is represents the point of view called
mysticism. Rationalists and mystics: these strange bedfellows have
always co-habited in Unitarian and Universalist and Unitarian
Universalist congregations. There’s a reason for this, which goes to
the heart of our identity as a religious movement. We’ll get to that
in a bit.
But first let me try to explain each. See if either—or both—might
describe what you believe.
• • •
I’ll start with the rationalist worldview, because this is where
American Unitarianism began in the late 1700s and early 1800s in New
England. The rationalist peers into the mystery of existence and
what does he or she find? What is the essential nature of the
universe?
The answer the rationalist gives is order: an exquisite set of
inter-relationships running by a set of logical rules available for
us to understand.
The prevailing image of God in the early American colonies had been
that of a harsh figure, given to ruling the world by whim—benevolent
one day, taking everything away the next. It was a fairly accurate
representation of everyday life as experienced by the American
colonists. Their lives were precarious, the world in which they
lived could be cruel and unforgiving. Life could swoop down and take
away their loved ones without warning and without apparent cause.
These settlers peered into the mystery of existence and found the
God of the Puritans: all powerful, erratic in temperament, largely
unmoved by the pleas of humanity for compassion or kindness.
But as life in these colonies became more established, it also
became less uncertain. People did better; some even began to
prosper. Now they peered into the unknown and found something
different. Not the harsh and often unfair existence of their
forbearers, but a life that presented possibilities to those who
worked hard and applied themselves. It was a more positive outlook
on the nature of reality that offered hope of a better life. Also
affecting this change in worldview was a newly-influential
philosophy. It suggested that this world was not run by an erratic
despot but rather that adhered to a set of laws and processes that
ran of their own accord—and that were accessible to human
understanding. To the extent there was a God in all this, it was a
distant figure who set everything in motion and turned its everyday
management over to us. The name for the theology that emerged from
all this was deism.
The deists looked into the mystery of existence and found order,
reliability, a complex set of inter-relationships—kind of like a
machine. For an image to represent what they saw, the deists called
upon the most sophisticated machine they knew of—a device that
represented their new understanding of how the world works. This
devise was the clock. Or better yet: a watch. Not the kind of watch
most of us wear today that just sort of hums, and when it breaks,
you buy a new one. No, this was the watch that was an intricate set
of wheels and springs that once started would run on its own. That
was how the world worked, the deists said, like a watch. The image
of God that proceeded from that image was the master watchmaker. God
was like a watchmaker who created this intricately designed
mechanism, wound it up, and let it go.
This was an understanding of the world as a reasonable system of
causes and effects. So what we need to survive and prosper is not
prayer: you don’t pray to a machine. Well, maybe you do, just a
little. But mostly what you need is a process of discovering the
nature of these laws and rules. Like using reason, like the
scientific method, like mathematical analysis. And even doubt.
In the worldview of the deists, doubt is more important than faith.
Because doubt, when analyzed, leads to further understanding. That’s
what that first responsive reading is about, written by a Unitarian
Universalist minister who served in the Washington area, Robert
Weston.
“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth.... A
belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is
incompleteness and imperfection in every belief... Therefore let us
not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help.”
This view of a rational world—a rational God, if you will—is what I
grew up with in the Unitarian Universalist church of my childhood.
It permeated the religious education program, and when I was old
enough to attend church, it was the foundation for the sermons I
heard week after week. Each Sunday morning, our minister presented a
reasoned examination of a particular issue.
Which is what I try to do each Sunday: this process of slow quiet
reasoning that raises questions, subjects them to analysis, offers
options and opportunities. My aim from week to week is not so much
to advocate belief as it is to encourage thought. So that if you
leave on Sunday with an idea, with something to wonder about, to
think about, or even to doubt, well then, I’ve done my job.
This rational process of addressing religious questions that I
absorbed in my early years of Unitarianism: it’s how I think, it’s
part of who I am. It’s one way we have approached the question of
God.
• • •
But it isn’t everything. My rationalism is tempered by the other
perspective I’ll describe today, that is: mysticism. Actually, I am
more of a mystic than a rationalist. Let me tell you the story of
the day when I discovered that.
This takes us back to my college years: foreign study. I spent a
semester in Austria, and as part of that experience, we hired a
guide to take us up a mountain, spend the night in a cabin on top of
that mountain, then bring us back the next day. It was an October
weekend excursion.
The first of the two days passed by quite pleasantly. We followed a
trail that wound its way up the mountain. First we walked through
forest, and then as we got higher, the trees were less in evidence,
replaced by shrubs and then grasses which became more sparse as we
continued to climb higher. Then the trail crossed the brush line,
and we walked up the rocky surface of the mountain until reaching
our cabin. That evening several of us sat together near the top of
the mountain, looking out into the stars, sampling contents of
little bottles of schnapps that they just happened to sell at that
cabin—this was Austria, after all, talking about how small we are in
the vast universe—the kinds of things you talk about on such
occasions.
The next morning our guide got us up bright and early and announced
that we would be taking a different route down. The way we went up
was a series of trails, none of them too strenuous. Our return trip
would be on a trail on the other side of the mountain, which kind of
went straight down. This trail was steeper, narrower, and at some
points would involve some climbing.
Ok, fine. We walked to the side of the mountain where this trail
began, I looked out at the expanse of sky and mountains in front of
me, I looked down at the trail ahead, and at that moment I made an
interesting discovery. I learned that I am deathly afraid of
heights.
How could I have not known that before? Well, I grew up in the
Midwest, where there’s not much in the way of heights to be afraid
of. This was a different story. I was not in the Midwest anymore.
It was an awkward time to make this discovery, I mean, here at the
top of a mountain, looking down. But what could I do? I continued
with my group, vowing to be silent and brave, a vow which lasted
about 2½ minutes at which point I began to inform the others that I
wasn’t happy about this experience and that I did not expect to be
alive by the end of the day. My classmates were tolerant and
supportive—at the beginning. After a while, though, I noticed the
others putting distance between themselves and me. My anxiety was
proving to be contagious.
And it didn’t help that the Austrians have this delightful custom of
painting crosses at points along the trail where previous hikers
have met their demise. At few weeks ago at my college reunion, we
met up with one of my fellow travelers on that journey, and she
helpfully remembered that others in the group took to calling me the
“abominable toothpick,” an apparent reference to their suspicion
that I didn’t possess enough weight to keep me from being blown off
that mountain, which explains why I pretty much crawled my way down.
As may be apparent, I survived. I did not fall off the mountain. I
remember looking down from the rocks and just barely seeing the
brush line. Then as we kept going, I spotted the tree line, and then
finally I was walking upright, the trail taking us through a
gorgeous stand of trees in their full fall colors, with the day’s
light growing dim, and an almost full autumn moon rising above us.
And I felt this wave of good feeling, this intense joy at being
alive, and interconnected with the other forms of life surrounding
me. I wasn’t just glad to be a alive, I felt that, oh, this is why I
am alive. I encountered a pulsing energy of life that seems to exist
just below the surface, but we don’t notice it because we live on
the surface. Maybe it takes an extreme experience to blast us
through—for a while—and experience this intense holiness of being.
Mysticism is defined as the direct experience of what you find to be
holy—as opposed to reading about it or talking about it or creating
doctrines about it or expressing your faith in it. Mysticism is
about experiencing it, which is what happened to me on the day I
came down that mountain.
If rationalism is about the order and logic in creation, mysticism
is about experiencing its beauty. It is expressed in the second
responsive reading we did this morning,
“I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the
stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to
arise and come unto Me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.”
• • •
The rationalist peers into the mystery of existence and finds order.
God, that is, our term for the ultimate power of the universe, is
characterized most authentically by order and logic.
The mystic peers into the mystery of existence and finds beauty. God
for the mystic, that is, the ultimate power of the universe, is
represented most authentically by beauty, by inspiration, by the
power “that gives life to the universe.”
The two don’t really contradict each other—I have a rational side as
well as a side drawn to beauty and inspiration. But rationalists and
mystics approach life in different ways and so they often don’t
quite understand each other.
So why do we find them both inhabiting the same space—the same pews
or chairs—in Unitarian Universalist congregations? And why has it
just about always been that way? Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, even Louisa May Alcott—all were nurtured
in the rationalist world of early Unitarianism and all asserted a
form of mysticism in protest against a worldview that they
considered to be just too darned reasonable. But that protest did
not lead any of them into orthodox or more mainline Christian
churches. They maintained some form of relationship with the
Unitarianism against which they had rebelled.
The reason is this: while rationalists and mystics proceed from
different experiences of reality, they do agree on one thing. They
agree on the question of authority—of religious authority. That is,
who or what has the authority to give answers to religious
questions.
In orthodox religions, there is an external authority that serves as
final arbiter deciding religious questions. The authority you turn
to is something outside of yourself. Maybe it’s the Bible—how do you
get your answers addressed? You consult your Bible. Or maybe it’s a
statement of the creeds or doctrines of a particularly community. Or
maybe it’s a class of specially trained and authorized people who
address your questions: a priesthood, a guru. Whether it’s a holy
book, a statement of doctrine, a priest or a guru—it’s an external
authority determining what is right and true.
The rationalist will say, “Your holy book contains many good points
and fine ethical principles. Your doctrines are helpful in
clarifying elements of your faith. Your learned priests have
accumulated a vast store of wisdom, but ultimately, I trust my
reason more than any of these. When my own process of reasoning
leads me to conclusions other than what any of these authorities
promote, I will trust that over what you recognize as having
authority.”
The mystic will say, “Your holy books, your theologies, your
priests, your gurus—love ‘em all. But they express your truth not
mine. I grant higher authority to my own experience of the holy and
so sometimes I will proceed in directions different from what you
define as right and true.”
In most religious systems, authority is external, and the challenge
to the faithful is to fit their lives into that. Rationalists and
mystics both reject external authority in matters of faith and rely,
instead, upon their own reasoning and/or their own experience.
This is why the church and orthodoxies everywhere have been so hard
on both rationalists and mystics. They have been censured, jailed,
sometimes burned at the stake for daring to challenge the authority
of the church. And it’s why they both may find a home in Unitarian
Universalism, where there is freedom of belief, where we recognize
no single source of truth, and where clergy have the responsibility
not of defining the faith but of helping people proceed on their own
spiritual journeys.
• • •
What, then, can I believe about God? How has the liberal religious
tradition responded to the question of how we conceive of the power
at the center of creation. This morning I have offered two options.
• There is the God of the rationalists—a God of
rationality, of order, the foundation of a universe run by reliable
and accessible laws. The universe as a clock.
• And there is the God of the mystics who peer into the
center of being and find beauty, inspiration, the soul of the
universe that gives birth to life.
These are not the only options available to you as a Unitarian
Universalist. But rather than go through a list of other
possibilities, I’ll just say this. What I think is most
important—and what I think is the real contribution of our
tradition—is an ongoing openness to the question of God, to our
wondering about what is at the essence of life and how we response
to that. Our contribution is to encourage people to wonder about the
nature of existence and the power that brings it into being.
So the quick and dirty response to the question—What do Unitarian
Universalists believe about God?—is not: “Well, there are some
rationalists and some mystics and a bunch of others too.” The answer
I would aim for is more like, “We cherish an openness to the
question of God. We encourage each other to reflect about it, learn
from other traditions, listen to those who have views different than
we do, and then find our own way.”
I’ve always liked these words by Ralph Waldo Emerson,
“Within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal
beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the
eternal One
“When it breaks through our intellect, it is genius; when it
breathes through our will, it is virtue; when it flows through our
affections, it is love.”
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