God?

On April 28th there was a TV programme about the Webb Telescope, the latest attempt to look back into the beginnings of the universe. It's well worth finding on catch-up. It was completely baffling on one level, but absolutely riveting on another. I was lost for words at the task these scientists had set themselves, and completely awestruck at what they have already achieved. They are looking back to the time when, after the big bang, not even light could escape the universe-as-was. Gradually what we might call the early universe began to appear - and I cannot continue because I simply have to watch the programme again to grasp the enormity of this ever-expanding space.

I remember, some years ago, lying on the beach of Lake Huron on a warm summer's night, and gazing up at the night sky. Cloudless darkness pierced by hundreds of thousands of tiny white specks, impossible to count. A tiny glimpse of the sheer enormity of nothing - nothing that we can relate to, at any rate. And the thought came to me then, that this was the same sky as was gazed at by ancient tribes with their common semitic ethnicity, wandering from Ur of the Chaldees in search of a homeland. Those ancient people had no recourse to modern science and no satisfying answer to the question that must have been on everyone's lips: where did all this come from? What is it that controls the weather and brings light after night? And just maybe. at some point someone might have changed the What? to a Who?

I can imagine the birth of an idea, that somewhere out there, wherever 'there' is, is a power, a source, an energy, that maintains the mechanisms of the world those ancient people experienced day by day. Such an idea would have been discussed, argued over, and gradually refined into something - or someone - with which people could relate, albeit with a confusion of fear, awe and devotion.

Do the first pages of Genesis begin at this point, starting, you might say, with a fairly well developed notion of a superior power, but a power which interacts with the people and gives the people an identity and a purpose?

I am finding it more and more difficult to believe that there is such a power, that there is God somewhere beyond our comprehension but with whom we humans interact also with a mixture of fear, awe and devotion. Such a belief is well-rooted in human experience, and the many religious traditions and histories in our world prove its resistance to attack. Such a tragedy, then, that religious fervour and devotion to ancient traditions are so often the cause of dissension rather than unification.

God is a journey into an understanding of who we are, where we are and why we are. Together on the journey, our questions multiply. But the journey is important, one which we welcome others to join.

Back to Blog index