Excerpt from Liberating the Holy Name: A Free-Thinker Grapples With the Meaning of Divinity
If this book is an argument against one idea, it is the notion that the divine name can only mean what it has traditionally meant for centuries and any alternative conception is illegitimate. I’ve heard this claim from some of the most strident pro-religion voices and all of the unabashedly anti-religious people who I’ve encountered. The funny thing is, while the anti-religious folks probably realize that they’re getting help from their God-fearing counterparts, I don’t think the latter have a clue that they’re playing right into their opponents’ hands.
Stated simply, many members of both groups share an interest in strait-jacketing the debate. They want to keep our choices simple when it comes to religion: accept “God” or reject religion altogether. What God you ask? Please, you know the conception I’m talking about. “He” is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal being who has created the universe and all of its contents in accordance with His own inscrutable will, and who has revealed His existence to human beings known as prophets. Am I arguing here that such a God cannot possibly exist? Not at all. What I would say, however, is that people can modify that conception of God and still be every bit as spiritual and religious as any traditional minister, rabbi, or imam. In fact, the more we treat such alternative conceptions of God as illegitimate, the more we marginalize the entire religious enterprise within contemporary society. Atheists understand that, and it makes them happy. Traditionalists? They may be even more offended by “heresy” than non-belief, and they’re certainly not likely to encourage it, even if that means chasing progressive thinkers away from religion altogether.
One aim of this book is to broaden our understanding of the Word of Words by relating it back to its simple essence. To me, “God” has both a common connotation, which is narrow and often parochial, and a denotation, which is both more general and more profound. What it connotes, typically, is the biblical God of Abraham—at least that’s the conventional Western meaning. By contrast, what the word denotes is the Ultimate. That is the one meaning that seems to be adopted by nearly everyone who embraces the word, whether they are traditional or “progressive” in their religious philosophies. This is illustrated by the use of the term “false god,” which suggests a deity that someone might take to be the “ultimate” (say, money or power) but that does not, in truth, possess that status.
When progressive theologians talk about God in non-biblical terms, they point to what for them is not only more ultimate than any biblical character but also deeply transcendent of anything as limited as money or power. This is why enlightened traditionalists, though they may have in their minds a different conception of God, will at least recognize the progressive theologian as a fellow “believer.” In both cases, they are searching for God based on the essence of the term, which is the Ultimate, as opposed to any form God would take as a character in a book or as the object of our prayers.
The orthodox followers of the Abrahamic faiths recognize that the standard of ultimacy is decisive as to what turns a “god” (with a small g) into the one true God. They would simply maintain that the God of their Scriptures satisfies this standard. As for those believers who see themselves as religious progressives, they may assert that the Scriptural deity is a fiction, but most would still adopt the idea that there truly is an Ultimate. Whether they think of this Ultimate as a process, a being, or as Being itself, it is to that notion of ultimacy that they assign The Name.
Stated simply, many members of both groups share an interest in strait-jacketing the debate. They want to keep our choices simple when it comes to religion: accept “God” or reject religion altogether. What God you ask? Please, you know the conception I’m talking about. “He” is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal being who has created the universe and all of its contents in accordance with His own inscrutable will, and who has revealed His existence to human beings known as prophets. Am I arguing here that such a God cannot possibly exist? Not at all. What I would say, however, is that people can modify that conception of God and still be every bit as spiritual and religious as any traditional minister, rabbi, or imam. In fact, the more we treat such alternative conceptions of God as illegitimate, the more we marginalize the entire religious enterprise within contemporary society. Atheists understand that, and it makes them happy. Traditionalists? They may be even more offended by “heresy” than non-belief, and they’re certainly not likely to encourage it, even if that means chasing progressive thinkers away from religion altogether.
One aim of this book is to broaden our understanding of the Word of Words by relating it back to its simple essence. To me, “God” has both a common connotation, which is narrow and often parochial, and a denotation, which is both more general and more profound. What it connotes, typically, is the biblical God of Abraham—at least that’s the conventional Western meaning. By contrast, what the word denotes is the Ultimate. That is the one meaning that seems to be adopted by nearly everyone who embraces the word, whether they are traditional or “progressive” in their religious philosophies. This is illustrated by the use of the term “false god,” which suggests a deity that someone might take to be the “ultimate” (say, money or power) but that does not, in truth, possess that status.
When progressive theologians talk about God in non-biblical terms, they point to what for them is not only more ultimate than any biblical character but also deeply transcendent of anything as limited as money or power. This is why enlightened traditionalists, though they may have in their minds a different conception of God, will at least recognize the progressive theologian as a fellow “believer.” In both cases, they are searching for God based on the essence of the term, which is the Ultimate, as opposed to any form God would take as a character in a book or as the object of our prayers.
The orthodox followers of the Abrahamic faiths recognize that the standard of ultimacy is decisive as to what turns a “god” (with a small g) into the one true God. They would simply maintain that the God of their Scriptures satisfies this standard. As for those believers who see themselves as religious progressives, they may assert that the Scriptural deity is a fiction, but most would still adopt the idea that there truly is an Ultimate. Whether they think of this Ultimate as a process, a being, or as Being itself, it is to that notion of ultimacy that they assign The Name.