A Tiny Miscalculation Compounded Daily
Embedded deep in Protestantism is the notion that one’s salvation is one’s own responsibility, not something to be mediated by any other authority. This turned John 17:3 — “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” — into a competition; whoever, through their own study and interpretation of the Bible, knows God the best, wins. The miscalculation was to “know” God as if it was a literal being. Compounded daily for hundreds of years, this error has been built up into a complete mind absorbing misunderstanding of reality.
The personal-salvation-by-knowing-God arms race reached it’s apex in Mormonism which tried to create the most literal and knowable version of God possible: not a spirit, not a force, not a trinity, but a single man made of flesh and bone who could stand in front of us and shake our hand. To up the ante, Mormons went so far as to believe they knew the name of the place where he lives — a literal star in space called Kolob.
Mormons scoff at other Christians who purport that God is incomprehensible. “How are we to trust, love, worship, to say nothing of strive to be like,” asks Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, “One who is incomprehensible and unknowable?” It’s not a bad question but Holland fails to take the time to put some thought into an answer, preferring to jump ahead to his predetermined conclusion: “that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God.” Holland sticks to the script because it keeps the Church firmly rooted in its role as seductive controlling delusion; the delusion that we can find something “out there”—some person, some rule, some community, some external validation—that will make our lives work for us. The best the Mormon church can offer are smart sounding, yet spiritually vapid mental roundabouts that perpetually distract us from ourselves -- like this couplet from former president of the church Lorenzo Snow: “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become.” It sounds deep, but really it just keeps your mind focused in the wrong place.
Contrary to Mormon belief, the “unknowable-ness” of God is a feature, not a bug. The search for God is not an outward, literal search out there somewhere; God is a metaphor that turns the message inward and makes the question personal. The goal is not about defining God; it’s about defining you. The point is to elicit your participation in the wonder and sheer beauty of existence.
Learning to trust, love, worship and strive to be like the ineffable mystery is daunting only if you let your thinking-mind be your guide. The real point of God is to attempt to knock people out of their thinking-minds and into their feeling-hearts. Holland would do well to take Jesus’s quotes less literally. When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you,” (emphasis mine, Luke 17: 20-21), he was inviting us to go on the deeper exploration of “God” which reveals that the constant problem we have is ourselves. Contemplating God opens up a new space to learn that the solution is also within. Peace and joy has nothing to do with being nice, or moral, or worthy, or successful, or well liked. Peace and joy only exist in our base consciousness, our unencumbered awareness that can only be felt, not understood.
This is what I think Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now had in mind when he said: “The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”
For many people, ''knowing God'' is not so much about understanding as it is about control. In an out-of-control cosmos, it’s reassuring to think that there is an omnipotent deity who will maintain order for your benefit so long as you’re following His/Her rules. Again, Mormon’s upped the ante with D&C 82:10 — ‘I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.’ — by going so far as to bind God with their obedience. Peace doesn’t come from convincing yourself you’re in control when you’re not; it comes from recognizing you’ve never been and never will be in control and accepting it.
There is an interesting corollary between our thoughts and God. The more we try to know them, control them and find meaning in them, the more anxiety we cause ourselves. Although they weren’t attempting to sound spiritual, psychologists Martin N. Seif and Sally M. Winston in the book “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, Or Disturbing Thoughts,” explain: “Techniques for ridding yourself, bypassing or avoiding unwanted intrusive thoughts are attempts at control. The problem is that attempts to control are prime examples of paradoxical effort that are guaranteed to increase entanglement. Trying to control thoughts is entirely the wrong attitude. It ignores the fact that the thoughts are meaningless and harmless, and don’t require controlling. The attempt to control them reinforces the wrong message. It is an example of paradoxical effort; it worlds backward. It suggests urgency, importance, and danger, when none exists.”
Somewhere along the way the purpose for God as a metaphor to assist us in connecting with the infinite was lost and turned into a bullet list of attributes for competing with others. Much of our suffering is related to being distracted by thoughts concerning that bullet list and much more relief can be ours as a result of letting go of thought so as to experience the meaningless, uncontrollable, ineffable God. We would do well to revel in the mystery rather than try to know it, as Joseph Campbell said: “An intense experience of mystery is what one has to regard as the ultimate religious experience.”