I pray God to rid me of God.
—Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic, ca. 1260–1328
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A friend asked me: Are you an atheist? Someone told me you were.
I don’t like labels. But I realize labels can be helpful. So I’d say it depends on what is meant by “atheism.”
In the first three centuries, the Romans condemned Christians as “atheists” because they refused to pledge loyalty to the gods of the empire. So there’s that. At times it may be necessary to declare oneself an atheist.
For example, many Christians (and others!) believe the Judeo-Christian God is more or less as George Carlin described him:
There’s an invisible man up in the sky watching everything you do. This invisible man in the sky has 10 specific rules and if you break any of them he knows it and when you die he will send you to a special place of everlasting torment from which you will never be released. Excruciating torture. Forever. But be of good cheer. The invisible man loves you very, very much.
If that’s theism, then I’m an atheist. I once believed in that God—with certain photoshop modifications—but now I want nothing to do with that God.
To be an atheist doesn’t mean you deny divinity. It just means you believe that whatever divinity is, it’s not male, narcissistic, sadistic, or petty.
There are other definitions of God, including one mentioned by the Apostle Paul on one of his better days: God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17.28)
And that just happens to be very close to the 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s idea of God. Spinoza was excommunicated for “not believing in God.” But as it turns out, he did believe in God—just not the Judeo-Christian variety. He believed God was nature. He was a pantheist.
He was also a humanist. He believed in reason. He didn’t blame God for plagues or earthquakes. He also believed that there was something greater to the world than the sum of its material parts. Something transcendental, mysterious, and awesome. Spinoza was a rational mystic.
And Dutch.
And maybe that’s why nearly half the Christians in the Netherlands identify as “Christian atheists.” Jesus without God. Love without dogma.
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The devout Christian of the future will either be a “mystic” or will cease to be anything at all. —Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, 1904–84
