Charles Victor on Religion

More than a dozen years ago I began posting replies to inquires concerning religion. Most of those early reflections consisted of the re-editing of previous works. As time went on I realized many questions were raised because the philosophical backgrounds to the enunciations of church teachings were not understood. To ameliorate that situation I undertook a brief review of Western philosophy. The focus was upon the theories concerning how we come to formulate our knowledge of things, and how those evolving theories have created nuances in our ongoing talk of God and soul. However, as I continued to reflect upon responses to my work I realized the philosophical approach to the items of religion was not resonating in the ruminations of the general public. Most are not given to see the world as a subset of substance and accidents, matter and form. I began, therefore, to turn increasingly towards the considerations of Jung in his analysis of the psyche, the soul. Surely, everyone could introspect and realize that there is within each an animating power of conflicting forces and seemingly infinite depth, and that in so doing could come to see them as reflected in the teachings of the Christian faith. In this sense the doctrines and creeds, and indeed their enactment in ritual, are projections of the workings of psyche. They, in a sense, constitute the story of soul and how it functions.

Before God created the heavens and the earth, what was there? We are told there was nothing. We are taught creation was ex nihilo, made out of nothing. In the poetics of the Hebrew telling that nothingness is a void formless and dark. There was nothing until God commanded “let there be,” let something be, let something exist. How then is God something? How then “is” God? God is no thing. God is not an existent. God is without being. God is beyond, before, above being. And even here we fail the very notion of God because terms such as beyond, before, and above are as much about relation as they are direction and dimension, and there are no such divisions in that which is not in some manner being. God is a notion that impales itself in every attempt to define it, conceptualize it, explain it. We can in no wise hold onto an idea of God because it is God who holds onto us, defines us, who gives us “being.”

“I do not believe in God.” I cannot count the number of times in the midst of a social gathering I have been met with that declaration. I do not know why it is said to me. I do not go about proclaiming I am a theist. I do not go about in liturgical attire. My clothing is not redolent with incense. The small pendant cross on my chest is always concealed under my shirt such that unless one has x-ray vision it is imperceptible. Perhaps there is a celestial being hovering above my head with a placard that reads: “Complaints here.” There may be something to the latter. We do each project a certain amount of psychic information about ourselves, whether one names that “giving off a vibe,” or emanating an aura. I am not about to dismiss this idea. Perhaps I do indeed send out a subliminal message that I am a theist. Perhaps there are swarms of people out there with a type of theist-radar. I shall leave it to a someone interested in parapsychology to test that theory.