Doubt About God
About 50 years ago, before I went to seminary, the preacher at our church spoke about his own doubt about God. I was stunned and very, very grateful. You mean ministers could doubt about God? Whew…
Since then, I have wrestled off and on with my own faith about the very existence of God. Over the years, my faith persisted but doubt would flare up occasionally. In my later years, it has flared a bit more often. Given the greatness of the cosmos, the many human religions over millennia, the too common power and presence of evil…etc. etc. etc. I have increasingly found it difficult to believe in a ‘higher power’.
BUT. Ever since my childhood, I have often felt a real sense of an “Other”, a presence. My years of active ministry were often gifted with a sense of that living ‘other’…And once, I even had a vision. Yep. It was while I was sitting in the balcony of a large national meeting of our United Church of Christ. A choir was singing and I saw above the stage the face of a smiling African woman. An image of God? I was shaken but simultaneously encouraged. Oh, I thought, maybe it was just my imagination. But why then? Why there? And why me? Later I spoke of it to one of my mentors, an African American pastor, who said perhaps it was to confirm my calling to work for justice for all people. And it has, indeed, been part of my small efforts for love, for justice, for peace.
Lately my faith has been a bit erratic. Believing seems irrational. But not totally believing in some Other seems impossible for me. During Lent I read The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg. I found his chapter on God so helpful. He writes: “God is the name we use for the nonmaterial stupendous, wondrous “More” that includes the universe even as God transcends the universe. This is God as the “encompassing Spirit”, the one in whom “we live and move and have our being,” the one who is all around us and within us. God is the one in who the universe is, even as God is more than the universe; the Mystery who is beyond all names…” For me, the Other is indeed Mystery. But the Mystery is real.