I felt closer to God when I finally stopped believing in Him.
Let me explain.
When I was a kid, I’d sit in church and listen to people talk about God as if he was real. I say “he” because God was also defined as a male, and that definition supposedly came from thousands of years of tradition. God was like me: he had feelings or grief and joy; he wanted me to be happy; he had ambition and plans for me, just like I did for myself. What a wonderful thought that a Supreme Being had me in mind!
But God was also “He.” I say that because the title implied a king, nobility, and sovereignty. God was not like me: He was omnipotent; He knew better than me; He was always in control; He wasn’t flawed like me; He didn’t make mistakes; He knew the end from the beginning. I couldn’t ultimately know God, but He wanted me to draw close to Him.
According to the traditions I grew up in, the way we approached God was through “righteousness,” aka, doing good things and avoiding bad things. The better we got at doing both, the more of God’s love we could feel in our lives. Righteousness was the key that unlocked the door to happiness - it was what gave us permission to love ourselves. Everyone fell short, but that invitation was always there.
A Christian might notice a distinct lack of Jesus in this equation, or at least a distinct lack of "grace" in this divine equation, and that’s because, according to the traditions I grew up in, Jesus was the bridge that made it at all possible for us to make these changes - but it wasn’t a free gift, either. The metaphor usually shared was that Jesus was the one to take on all the debts we couldn’t pay, thus redeeming us from the impossible chasm between us and God, but still requiring us to work at being better people.
As I wrestled with these thoughts, I sought solace in listening more intently to how people talked about God, and I noticed something I didn't expect. Although we all talked about God as if a real being, it wasn't as if any of them had seen or spoken with God. Sure, there were stories from hundreds of years ago about people seeing God, but even the leaders of my church were cautious not to say that they had seen God (something I find ironic as they called themselves "apostles"). In fact, the more potent the story about God’s intervention for mankind, the older the story was. We all know how the proverbial “big fish story” embellishes itself all the time - was that what was happening here?
I noticed another pattern, too. When people talked about God, it was always a reflection of themselves. God was conveniently for and against the same things these people were. If God in scripture did something a person considered bad, they'd either pretend not to see it or insist there was a "reason" to make God do it. If there was a good thing God wasn't doing, those same people would insist it was someone else's fault. There was rarely anything about how people described “God” that differed from their personal views; and conversely, there was rarely anything about people’s personal views that differed from their view of “God.” Despite supposedly being incomprehensible, God seemed to think just like people do, in spite of all the insistence that his thoughts were "higher" and "purer" than our own.
Now, in my tradition - and, I imagine, in many Christian traditions - all of these concerns (and more!) could be resolved through a personal “witness” of God's perfect character through prayer, or even deeper study, or even more faith; but despite doing just that for decades, I was no closer to reconciling the deep divides I saw in the very foundation of theology. How exactly was "believing harder" supposed to correct a plain contradiction? I felt that more understanding was required, not merely more trust in the lack of it. I was increasingly convinced the answer didn't exist within my traditions - which directly contradicted its own claims to having encountered exactly those answers sometime in the distant past.
And what if that was the real truth? Maybe all my perceptions about God were really a reflection of who I already wanted to be. I was going around insisting that my thoughts and feelings had divine origins, but that was only so they could be protected from scrutiny, rather than be my authentic and fallible expressions of myself. All the traditions I had grown up were a game of telephone, constantly embellished with each passing generation until they were unrecognizable from the simple realities of living on a tiny speck of dust in a vast, silent universe.
It's not even that I stopped believing in a higher power, I just stopped believing in the "God" of my traditions. What I mean is that I rejected the need for a metaphysical Being who externally validated who I am. If there is a higher power out there, I see no reason for that being to impose arbitrary conditions on us to realize our fullest potential. If that being is perfect in its love for its creations, I see no need to justify the circumstances I inherited but rather how I learned to take the best of those traditions and to leave the rest behind in order to become who I want to be, and to see others have the same opportunity. I didn't see it as throwing away my heritage, I saw it as improving that heritage for the future.
My feelings? They’re mine. My thoughts? They’re all mine. My actions? They’re all mine. “God” was no longer incomprehensible, nor was he some metaphysical mystery - "God" is how I view the world, what inspires me, my deepest desires, my hopes and dreams. I don’t need “permission” or “worthiness” to feel that connection.
I only need to be authentically me, and those feelings will always follow.
Check Your Understanding:
Test how well you understood the themes in this reflection on belief, tradition, and personal identity.
1. What contradiction did the author notice in how God was described during their upbringing?
2. According to the traditions the author grew up with, what was the supposed path to feeling God’s love?
3. What major theological contradiction troubled the author as an adult?
4. What pattern did the author observe in how people talked about God?
5. What did the author conclude after decades of prayer and study?
6. What shift happened when the author stopped believing in the traditional God they were raised with?
7. How does the author now define “God” in their life?
8. What overall message does the author want readers to understand?
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