Sunday, October 13, 2013

The Paradox Of Experiencing God

I experience divinity. I encounter things with infinite qualities, and that SEEM LIKE they are something beyond me that cares about. In wondrous moments, in awe and wonder, in sublimity and the numinous, the feeling is like eternity cares about me. This is the source of my belief in God. But if I believed that this comes simply from within ME as ME, if it is only I that create it, then that means I am a god (philosophical satanism). If it is from the moments themselves, then they are god. So polytheism seems more accurate than atheism, in that sense. But if the experience is of the One True God, then the only right thing seems to be to seek and worship Him. I am nothing, and yet He grants me the wonder of His presence. I am the recipient of grace, not the object of my own worship. I just don't see how I can be an honest atheist without being a monster (as I would judge such a person from my current vantage point). It's weird though, because such a thought is frightening in a number of ways. I can live the life of an olympian for as long as I am here, and do so in the confidence that I am worthy of worship. Or else I fall into polytheism, and I have oh so much I can enjoy worshipping. Certainly this is how atheism functioned for me when I embraced it. Yet, I and all the things that call me to such worship are temporal and temporary. I would have to mourn their loss as the death of god in the world. There would be, though, I suppose, more to worship as time goes on. Life is not so terrible nor am I so wonderful as to be able to embrace such notions. I stand before the divine, I cannot escape it. The only question that confronts me is what it is. The Christian answer seems the right one, to me. There is no way to have one's cake and eat it to. I cannot give myself over to the joy of being human without acknowledging what that joy is really LIKE, and it is from this place that I must reason.

No comments:

Post a Comment