Intellectualizing God

“Preach the gospel at all times … when necessary use words.”  St. Francis of Assisi

Recently, a student stopped to visit.  I can’t share the specifics of our conversation.  Exhausted, in a panic, he informed me he abandoned his PhD program in theology for he no longer believed there was a God.  An incredibly bright individual, he described six years of intensive, extensive studies.  He concluded independently … investigating as much as he could … an intellectually designed proof for Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  Lacking credible documentation beyond scriptures, he concluded as have so many intellectual atheists that God does not exist.  Jesus was an admirable character folks wrote about with scriptures likely being “good lore not unlike ‘Lord of the Rings’” as my student recited.  I understood his sense of loss and panic.  He clearly desired the concrete, ultimate proof.

I don’t know that I’m good at it, but I get comfortable intellectualizing God.  One can reason both an affirming or a dissenting point of view.  I recalled the Greek word “metanoia” translates “to change your mind.”  Paul in Romans 12:2 states “be transformed by a renewal of your mind.”  My student failed to merge his life’s experiences, …wounds, healings, joys, blessings … as well as those of others to "experience" God not simply to intellectualize Him … which I hope he will pursue upon reflection.

For my student, faith meant affirming a creed, reciting prescribed prayers, and adhering to an assortment of doctrines.  (For those curious, he is not Catholic.)   However, his mental exercises did not change his heart or his lifestyle.  If anything, they hardened his heart.  We discussed how amazing it was we shared some similar experiences and drew different conclusions.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Carl Sagan experienced some of the most profound, unraveling mysteries of astronomy, but failed to “see” God in his experiences.  Coincidences in life became statistical anomalies … discoveries and insights mental exercises in growth.  His ideas of faith were entirely limited to intellect; planting evidential support for his arguments on the ugliest actions of religions, not just Christians.

My student ignored connections between intellect and experience, especially experience beyond reason.

We can read books or watch movies depicting love, but until we experience it, we really don’t know what genuine love is.  Ask the vast number who have experienced infatuation mistaking it for love until they experienced committed love.  Furthermore, they discovered love to be a process, a decision, not a feeling.  Researching and documenting love is a far cry from the authentic experience.  Nobody trades true love for Oscar-related performances.

As with love, intellectualizing God does not open one to authenticate their relationship with God.  To have the faith of Christ (rather than simply faith in Christ), we share in a faith already lived, modeled in Jesus’ walk of humanity.  The richer journey is marked by experiences, action, relationship … then pondering in our hearts.  Articulate God delusionist and atheist, Richard Dawkins thrives where faith is defined exclusively through intellectual arguments, because so many atheists have effectively reduced Jesus and God to artifacts of ancient history, not as our actively engaged Creator always present. 

God must be experienced through living, revealed in acts of love given and received.  We need reason as it is God’s gift to us to create, understand, share, communicate, but alone, intellect is insufficient.  We need to be, must be in community with one another.  Without love, without community, we will be without God.  Jesus’ two commandments amplify love.

My student earned great grades, wrote well documented papers, followed the letter of the law (sound familiar?), but does not feel holy enough, good enough, obedient enough…. Obedience supersedes love on his journey.  He didn’t dig beyond pre-scripture to consider the centuries BC when people related to the Supreme experientially through myth, dance, story, music, fertility, and nature.  Everything everywhere tied into the supernatural and participation.

            In addition, had my student converged, isolated his focus too narrowly upon the individual?  I’ve recently become more aware of Moses and the Israelites’ journey through the desert.  The Old Testament historical books entwined the holy with the unholy.  God asked more of the Israelite community than observing and believing.  The desert journey required participation.  Love and condemnation addressed Israel as a community not individuals.  Scripture documents the Creator’s salvation-covenant with the community, the society of Israel, more so than with Moses and individuals. Is it possible to have chosen inadvertently or purposefully to privatize the faith journey to a checklist of creeds and doctrines with little consideration to our brothers and sisters?

            Jesus invited the individual, the neighbor, the outcast, the enemy within our environment into community with God.  My student is a son of the Father … Who is ridiculously in love with him.  You are a son/daughter of the Father … Who is ridiculously in love with you!