Hello God, this is Piet

I AM often asked by theologians and churches if I have sensible opinions about where the church stands in its relationship with politics and humanity. More than ever, the church is being tested by the secularisation of man and the lack of involvement of parishioners.

I often point out to them that over and above the morbidity of national politics, their relationship with God also needs attention.

My advice is: “Don't knock on my door, rather ask Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers. Invite him to a conversation about man and God when you are in dire straits." 

Of course, it's never too early or too late to reflect on your personal relationship with God; I do it almost all the time. And I'm walking in the deep footsteps of several respected theologians.

By chance, I met Anglican bishop John Shelby Spong years ago at the University of Johannesburg. He was a guest of the formidable academic and man of God Hansie Wolmarans. In a single conversation, Spong catapulted my understanding of God's worth into a new orbit. Ironically, his interpretation of the Bible's contradictions strengthened my disbelief, while for Spong it confirmed the meaningfulness of his own faith. 

The “post-theistic" theologian Ben du Toit, my beloved friend with his larger-than-life personality, tests the genetics of a sceptic's concept of God in an intimidating way. And I read Die Slegte Nuus van die Evangelie: My reis na verlossing (The Bad News of the Gospel: My journey to salvation) by God's most recent atheist, Johan Retief, with a feeling of discomfort.

While Ben and Johan probably lost their faith after deep reflection, my own secularisation was a necessary consequence of unanswered questions. My tentative steps towards unbelief were not a “salvation" but the resigned consequence of eternal alienation. But in time, my search for truth and reality would take me to the hypothetical God of science.

One evening in the Namib

One balmy summer evening around a braai fire in the Namib when I was 15 years old, God told me about his struggle with mankind's definition and understanding of his existence and intentions.

The creation character who hides somewhere in the middle of the billions of galaxies and records our weaknesses systematically and with resentment in his heart, anticipating an amorphous doomsday, simply does not exist, I was told. “Please, I do not want to condemn people to an eternal hell of flames and a weeping and gnashing of teeth," God said.

“And, while I'm talking about myself," he continued, “I don't have a ‘free will' either. I set off the big bang by mistake, after which I had to explore and learn the conventional law of universal gravitation as the expansion of the universe escalated. My understanding of quantum physics was tested to the limit.

“Francis Collins, former director of the science project that mapped the human genome, may have been correct when he described evolution as ‘the handwriting of God', but that does not mean I was fully familiar with the result of Darwin's phenomenal perception."

God referred me to new experiments indicating that the frenetic search for a consciousness in humans and animals is marooned somewhere in the seams and folds of quantum mechanics.

In our exchange of ideas, I cited the research of physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthetist Stuart Hameroff, which suggests that God's reference to a consciousness must be a misconception. The laws of quantum mechanics only come into effect at extremely cold temperatures. For example, quantum computers function at -272°C. The human brain, on the other hand, functions at room temperature.

God trumped my argument by referring to an alternative experiment by the theoretical physicist Cristiane de Morais Smith, who proved that the neurons in the brain contain microtubules that transport chemical substances to various parts of cells. Microtubules have a fractal pattern that makes quantum processes possible. I beat a retreat and let God be in his wisdom.

Omnipotent and omnipresent?

I know the idea of ​​an omnipotent and omnipresent spirit must be a terrible burden to God.

On another occasion, I asked him about theoretical quantum physics and the hypothesis that a particle can appear in more than one place at the same time: “Isn't that why people refer to you as omnipresent? Surely there could be some kind of non-quantifiable, epigenetic, institutional memory that leads man to this illusion of an apparent reality of your omnipresence in a meaningful way?"

I pointed out that Einstein first conjectured his formulation of E = mc² in a flight of imagination before his intellectual experiments finally confirmed the theory. Similarly, the Higgs particle (boson) was a reasonable intellectual assumption for 40 years before the Large Hadron Collider confirmed it experimentally in 2012.

Doesn't it make sense for man to unconsciously derive the omnipresence of God's existence from a scientific reality?

“I don't know," God said. “If the church is right about this, it would be more like striking an unexpected piece of luck. I don't experience my own existence as a reality of always being everywhere like a wandering spirit."

God conceded in more than one meaningful conversation that quantum physics could offer a logical explanation for the idea of ​​his omnipresence, but insisted that first he wanted to look at the experiments confirming this himself.

No dictator, psychopath or narcissist

An MBA student at North-West University's Business School approached me one day with an orthodox condemnation of what he supposes my relationship with God to be. I was well aware that we were looking at the present as well as eschatology from two extremely incompatible paradigms and explanatory frameworks.

After listening to him, I passed an unpalatable judgment: God's anger towards you will have no limits when you finally meet. He is going to start by asking you why you presented him as a dictator to unsuspecting people. Someone before whom every weary person must drop to their knees without doubt or hesitation, and beg for mercy in humble gratitude. This is the behaviour of an egotist and a narcissist, not that of a loving and thoughtful God.

And God will probably quote the journalist and author of God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens, and the neuroscientist Sam Harris, who argued that the God who watches as a child is brutally tortured to death by cancer either has an inability to do anything about it, or must be psychopathically cruel. According to your naïve account, the dismal armour that God provides to believers is a soulless “my will is not available for man".

The young man stared intently at me as I relentlessly drove the dagger deeper and deeper. “When I last spoke to God, he told me: ‘Piet, the physiology of man has taken on a life of its own as a result of evolution. I help where I can, but science will now have to further map the regularity of cause and effect.'"

Thoughtful questions

God functions in a way that means good and probing questions are much more important than superficial comforting words and ill-considered flights of fancy.

He tells me that he sometimes drinks tea with Imtiaz Sooliman's God and that misunderstanding is a shared problem.

He casually mentions that Zeus, Apollo, Ares and Hermes no longer come to the annual synod sessions attended by every other imaginable God to deliberate on the universe, science and mankind. During the recent meeting, there was consensus among the approximately 3,000 delegates that the physiology and behaviour of post-bacterial organisms is an evolving scientific question that must be continuously investigated.

My question to God that evoked the most sceptisism was about eschatology: “What happens to us after death?"

“I am unsure," God replied. “When we meet for the annual synod again, I will ask the others. However, I want to state clearly that the death of each organism leaves me broken and saddened. Especially the death of children who didn't really have a chance to live a meaningful and responsible life. The suffering of mankind and animals is a terrible ordeal for me. But it is also a scientific challenge that I diligently take up with every scientist who wants to alleviate the human fate."

Other casual comments and observations that God shared with me include: Humanitarianism, healthy outlooks on life and a meaningful existence are not unique to any disposition regarding the supposed values ​​of a God; secularisation does not necessarily imply the absence of a complex understanding of relationships between man, nature and higher-order responsibilities; more women in the Dutch Reformed Church should have resisted the “head of the house" philosophy; and the children should have stood up against those who refer to assault as divine chastisement.

These days, I resent the militant atheism which creates the impression that believers are misled by the primitive convenience of ignorance and intellectual laziness. I was there myself in all my delusions of grandeur, but it is a loveless and unempathetic path that only sometimes leads to the truth.

There can be little doubt that God sometimes finds my behaviour incomprehensible and mysterious, just as much as the late Einstein and myself are sceptical of his wilfully complex formulation of gravitation theory and quantum physics.

If you are looking for the meaning in your life, the question about the will of God will test your understanding of reality to the limit.

I know for a fact that the idea of ​​“blame and guilt" is a political strategy with which the church has burdened God unfairly. In reality, God certainly does not concern himself with such pettiness.

He has great and loving peace with my unbelief, but how was I supposed to know that in my youth?

♦ VWB ♦

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