God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Dag Hammarskjold
(a lone robin perched on the tip of an oak branch / Julie Cook / 2014)
What an interesting thought— suddenly, for reasons unknown, a person declares to no longer hold a belief in God— A ripple effect is now set in motion. . . the now expected consequence of a person, in the new found disbelief, is assumed to be that with the disbelief comes the lack of existence—a rendering of God null in void. As if the simple act of professing a disbelief could or would wipe out His existence.
We could therefore theoretically postulate, if I may be so bold, as to claim the non existence of Love. For reasons unknown, of obvious hurts, I shall banish Love to the corners of non-existence. . .but does that now mean that Love no longer exists for others? Simply because I claim Love to be null and void, no longer an emotional entity for which I shall lay claim— can I then banish it from the lives of others who still believe? The obvious answer is no.
But Julie, you say, that argument is not valid as it is not of the same dimension or level. You cannot compare the human emotion of Love to that of the belief of a deity, in this case, the belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Alpha and the Omega. . . But I will beg to ask, is this Deity not the definition of what we mortals claim as Love? Is this Deity not the essence of what we understand the concept of love to actually be? Ah the question of what is Love. . .
You perhaps counter by throwing love, combined with sex, into the mix, thinking you have proven my comparison invalid—which leads off on a tangent of the issue of sex for sex sake, or love for the sake of love—all of which, I dare say, leads down another tangent with that being the transcendence of Love beyond death— if you were to ask anyone who has lost someone to death, someone whom they have loved deeply—that due to this particular death, this loss, does this therefore mean that the love has died as well along with said individual?
Ah the question of the transcendence of Love over the grave. . .
Oh how complicated it all now becomes as the thoughts and arguments begin to spiral further from our original discussion, of which does eventually bring us back to our original issue—can a proclamation of disbelief render that which was once believed non-existent?
Does God die if I claim Him to be no more, or rather, is it I who actually dies? For I, in the proclamation of my disbelief, have ushered the shutting of a door—the door to hope, (as Hammarskjold notes) to illumination, to joy, to the victory of Life, via Love, over death— in this proclamation, I have said that there is no more to this life than that of life itself. Rendering all that is–finite verses infinite.
I have, in my disbelief suddenly made everything very very small.
The choice of belief or non belief.
The large choice or the small choice.
The Infinite or the finite.
To be full or to be empty.
Victory or defeat.
A proclamation of disbelief to and in something so much larger than mere mortal understanding.
As humans we work so hard to put everything neatly in a small box. We smugly believe we have it all figured out. We work so hard to explain everything–as we just assume that everything has an answer. We anguish until we take the mystery out of the mysterious, the wonder out of the wonderful.
We humans are smart like that you know.
And just when we think we have it all figured out, something amazing happens, something that makes absolutely no sense, something that is undefinable, something that counters all logic and explanation. Something that goes against the understanding of the natural flow. Something much bigger than the small I can hold neatly in my hand.
Leaving me to wonder after all, that maybe, just maybe, there is something, someone, so much greater than myself and my small world. . .
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
Jeremiah 24:7
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