I’m an agnostic but used to be a theist. I can’t possibly lean towards atheism since any rational mind can at least see the possibility of Something which may have began it all. To simply say there is no god is irrational to me and not seeing a broader picture - of a well designed and orderly world. That does not mean that there is or isn’t a god - we just can’t ‘know’. Sometimes when I sit in nature and look up at the sky and really begin to think I will allow myself to question - to slowly but hesitantly crawl out onto that shaky limb - and entertain the deist perspective - but I never crawl out that far - because we can never know - only believe. And I am not prepared to ‘believe’. And most of the time, I am quite comfortable not knowing because I do see what IS there.
I do believe that God is real I also believe that we are all going to stand in front of those pearly white gates while he goes over with us what we have done while we were alive I myself am a firm believer that there is a heaven
Is he going to explain to us how it was that our left arm twitch at time point 12398734897938472938471038219874597874092183120398 cause such-and-such an atom to move such-and-such a way which ultimately lead to such-and-such which lead to world war 3…?
A) The ongoing cause of all that is.
B) The initial cause who lit the fuse.
C) The psychological tool
D) The CIA type of hidden manipulator in control of “the world”
It is pointless to argue about which is the real God.
But it is also pointless to proclaim that none of them exist.
He “cling[s] to Faith beyond the forms of Faith” as Alfred Tennyson put it. He believes in the Mystery that the Christian God points to. Tillich called this kind of faith “absolute faith” in “the God beyond God” that is the God beyond the God of theism.
The Greeks had it that chaos preceded the gods. The Hebrew Bible has it that God preceded chaos. In either case, there is necessary being which is either eternal or comes into being out of nothing. He can’t comprehend either of those options. He regards modern cosmological theories as pretty similar to the Greek origin myth.
To him, God symbolizes the ultimate mystery of everything. Now that mystery is providential. He assumes with Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, the source out of which all things proceed and that to which they all return “the infinite and indeterminate”. Jesus had the most positive faith in it and even called it his “Father”. Of course, history records that he was crucified which makes his faith paradoxical in the extreme doesn’t it?