Belief is Enough: A Friend’s Thoughts about God Within and Personal Responsibility

Belief is Enough: A Friend’s Thoughts about God Within and Personal Responsibility

I do not know –

Whether God, however named, exists in any form, dimension or place other than everywhere – in every human being and other creature, every planet and star, every law of Nature – and always.

Whether God, except by operation of Nature and choices of our parents, caused you and me to be born; had any purpose in doing so; and now has any purpose we are to pursue other than whatever purpose we choose.

Whether God, except by random operation of Nature and by individual and collective human choices and actions, afflicts anybody or saves anybody.

I do know – at least I am comfortable and confident in my convictions –

What other people know – others’ truths – are as valid to them as mine are to me.

The true personal experiences of every person – physical, mental and spiritual, waking and dreaming – have always been, are, and always will be as real to them as mine are to me.

Not everything happens for a reason other than the random operation of Nature, sometimes together with choices made by one or more humans.

To my great benefit and comfort, “I have drunk from wells I did not dig.  I have been warmed by fires I did not build.”  I have traveled on trails and highways I did not plan or create.  I have been protected by laws I did not make.  I have enjoyed freedoms and opportunities won and protected by champions over the centuries – military and law enforcement, public servants, and nonviolent civic activists – often at great personal cost, even their lives.  I should, and I can, do my best to live up to the countless heroes who have served humanity with devotion and at great sacrifice – and to the examples of ethical living within my family and circle of friends.

I believe:

My beliefs and values about God, service and responsibility, summarized here, are well worth living by, whether or not they are objectively correct, or even unreasonable, in the eyes of others. 

Anyone who serves humanity motivated by beliefs and values different from mine deserves my gratitude and support.  If belief in God, however named, is part of others’ motivation, such service will keep them right with God.

God, as a spirit an innate holiness, is in the heart of every human being.

So, each of us – believer or atheist – is, consciously or not, an agent of God.  People’s individual and collective choices and acts – and inaction – are, at least in effect, God at work in the lives of individuals, families, communities, and nations.

I am not responsible for any other person’s values, beliefs, judgments, decisions, or actions.

I am fully responsible for my own values, beliefs, judgments, decisions and actions – so I strive to choose them consciously and with care.

I am responsible for every choice I make and for their consequences, whether or not I foresee them.

Whether or not I am aware of it in the moment, I best represent God as a source of peace, justice, love and joy by striving to foster peace, justice, love and joy wherever I go.

Fostering peace, justice, love and joy is much easier when I am unburdened by thoughts or feelings of entitlement, injustice or deprivation.

Whether to focus on what I might feel entitled to but do not have or to focus on what I have to which I’m not entitled – that is, whether to focus on reasons to be cranky and sorry for myself or reasons to be grateful – is a choice.  I choose to cultivate gratitude.  After all, other than what is provided by law or by reciprocity in my relationships, to what am I entitled but life (for a while), liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Happiness comes from being the best agent of grace – or God, if you prefer – I can see to be.

I have neither need nor reason to strive to earn an eternal spiritual existence, however pleasant it might be.  For me, it is enough to seek and experience grace, peace, justice and joy in this life when they come; to do what I can to have them come more often; and to experience, as I do from time to time in this life, what seems to be the most that can be hoped for in heaven: that everything is all right just the way it is.

Trusting one's experience and "inlet to the divine."

I am reading - rereading, I thought it so good - The Varieties of Religious Experience, a series of 1902 lectures by psychologist William James.  I recommend it to anyone interested in an open-minded, erudite and rigorously scientific discussion of human truths that cannot be verified or tested by any instrument: our personal beliefs and experiences.

"[A] current far more important and interesting religiously than that which sets in from natural science towards healthy-mindedness is that ... to which ... I will give the title of the 'Mind-cure movement', ... a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a speculative and a practical side."  Id., Penguin Classics Edition, p. 94. 

"[I]t is the life that tells; and mind-cure has developed a living system of mental hygiene which ... is wholly and exclusively compacted of optimism: 'Pessimism leads to weakness.  Optimism leads to power.' 'Thoughts are things,' ... and if your thoughts are of health, youth, vigor, and success, before you know it these things will also be your outward portion.  No one can fail of the regenerative influence of optimistic thinking, pertinaciously pursued.  Every man owns indefeasibly this inlet to the divine. ... [O]ne gets, by one's thinking, reinforcements from elsewhere for the realization of one's desires; and the great point in the conduct of life is to get the heavenly forces on one's side by opening one's mind to their influx."  Id., p. 107.

In 1902, James wrote, "To the believer in moralism and [good] works, with his anxious query, 'What shall I do to be saved?' Luther and Wesley replied, 'You are saved now, if you would but believe it.'  And the mind-curers come with precisely similar words of emancipation.  They speak, it is true, to persons for whom the conception of salvation has lost its ancient theological meaning, but who labor nevertheless with the eternal human difficulty.  Things are wrong with them; and 'What shall I do to be clear, right, sound, whole, well?' is the form of their question.  And the answer is: 'You are well, sound, and clear already, if you did but know it.'"  Id., p. 108, italics in original.

I had such an experience over 30 years ago.  It could not have been detected, let alone verified, even if I had been hooked up to brain activity measuring device when it happened - or now, when I remember and relive it.  If anyone thinks I must be making it up - that's all right: others' skepticism doesn't change my reality.  However, dear reader, even if you don't accept my experience as real, for your own sake I urge you to trust your own experiences that cannot be verified.  James writes of "the enormous diversities which the spiritual lives of different [people] exhibit.  Their wants, their susceptibilities, and their capacities all vary ....  The result is that we have really different types of religious experience...."  Id., p. 109.

James's point applies to any kind of personal experience and, over a century ago, he was blunt in urging readers not to dismiss on account of their strangeness the experiences of others: "[N]othing can be more stupid than to bar out phenomena from our notice, merely because we are incapable of taking part in anything like them ourselves."  Id.